Get a sliderule!
Seriously, I sometimes do calculations with a sliderule and soroban, just because I like playing with them, but if I'm really planning on brewing a recipe, I'll always run it through Beersmith, too.
I'm thinking I may quit using brew software
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Get a sliderule!
Seriously, I sometimes do calculations with a sliderule and soroban, just because I like playing with them, but if I'm really planning on brewing a recipe, I'll always run it through Beersmith, too.
badhabit
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Doing it all by hand sure helps with your own education. You actualy understand why and what to do to get the end product that you are after.
HodgsonsBrewer
Active Member
I do everything on paper. I read Ray Daniels "Designing Great Beers" after that I went old school. It really isn't that hard and it doesn't take that long. I don't lose recipes due to computer issues. It wouldn't kill you to learn it. As for being a better brewer,, well It helps my record keeping to do it this way as I keep notes along with the recipes that I brew all in a 3 ring binder. Do what you like, GEEK OUT, buy a program, just brew.
HodgsonsBrewer
Active Member
I do use a program for my mash temps!
dantodd
Well-Known Member
That is all relatively simple. The problem is that I like to fidget with the ingredients and calculating by hand takes considerably longer than using software. While I can develop a recipe quite easily and get in style without using software it is much faster and more flexible to use more advanced tools. I agree with you that it is important to understand how the software gets the answers and being able to work without software is valuable doing so doesn't make you a better brewer. I brewed for 10 years before I ever got so much as an excel spreadsheet to help with the math.
SpanishCastleAle
Well-Known Member
I used that book to make an Excel spreadsheet that does all of the calculations. I made it about 10-11 years ago and have tweeked it quite a bit. Sheet 1 is the recipe, Sheet 2 is the Brew Volume Calculator, Sheet 3 is the Strike and Infusion/Decoction temperatures and volumes, Sheet 4 is the EZ Water Adjustment Calculator, Sheet 5 is the Tasting Notes.
I tried BrewSmith for the trial period but the creature of habit in me went back to my own spreadsheet when the trial was over. I still need to tweek my color estimation, I can't get it to be accurate at both really low SRM (<5) and at high SRM (>25) at the same time.
Likley, you are doing it the quick way. When you arrive at the final SRM, apply the Morey curve which is an exponential to correct at low and high SRMs. See this link for more info:
http://www.beersmith.com/blog/2008/04/29/beer-color-understanding-srm-lovibond-and-ebc/
BTW, that is a link to the BeerSmith site
Laughing_Gnome_Invisible
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That's what I had INTENDED to say. In my woefully inadequate post
Give that man a pint on me!
SpanishCastleAle
Well-Known Member
No not really the quick way, just the wrong way. I came up with a curve and used a polynomial to fit the curve...but it just isn't accurate at the low and high ends. It's just something that I've needed to revisit for a while and haven't. Now I'm sufficiently motivated.Likley, you are doing it the quick way. When you arrive at the final SRM, apply the Morey curve which is an exponential to correct at low and high SRMs. See this link for more info:
http://www.beersmith.com/blog/2008/04/29/beer-color-understanding-srm-lovibond-and-ebc/
BTW, that is a link to the BeerSmith site
DNW
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I don't think that doing recipes longhand makes you a better brewer any more than using a car to get to work makes you a better employee. As many have already said, software is a tool. A tool by itself doesn't make you better or worse at what you're doing, it's what you do with it or how you use it that has the potential for changing the outcome. If you want to go really old school, try doing recipe formulation in your head...
I don't think that doing recipes longhand makes you a better brewer any more than using a car to get to work makes you a better employee. As many have already said, software is a tool. A tool by itself doesn't make you better or worse at what you're doing, it's what you do with it or how you use it that has the potential for changing the outcome. If you want to go really old school, try doing recipe formulation in your head...
I may be speaking for myself here, but sometimes I'll throw a recipe together without calculating anything, with or without software. It might be brew day, and I say to myself, "what am I gonna brew today? hmm...let's do a brown ale. I'll throw some of this in for color, this for some body, and I'll mash at X temperature to dry it out a bit...etc...etc..." Now, does that make me a better brewer? Nope! But those brews are always fun, and I don't find it necessary to always calculate everything, be it by hand or with software.
Ask several bakers or chefs if they have recipe calculators. I'd be curious to find out.
jaobrien6
Well-Known Member
I agree with this approach. I think there's tremendous value in learning how the calculations work, etc. I personally started with a spreadsheet someone else had put together, but I didn't like it, so I basically rebuilt it the way I wanted it, which taught me how all the math worked.
Now I wouldn't consider doing things without software, now that I understand it well enough for my tastes. At this point, it would just be busywork.
ceannt
Well-Known Member
It is very handy to at least learn the calculations, and run through them a few times. It not only helps a guy "get his head around" what is going on behind the scenes in the software... but you can formulate a recipe when there is no computer access. I've calced out recipes on a napkin, sitting in a bar.... I almost always run the "first blush" concept by hand (habit more than anything, when I started brewing software didn't exist.....). For final tweaking, well, software is just plain faster.
I have thought about doing this as well. The software makes it too easy for a beginner to skip the understanding process and go right to recipe formulation. Nothing wrong with this if you want to just brew beer. But I think that doing the math a few times can help you understand how the software works. Then go back to using the software because who's got time to sit with a book and plot all this stuff out?
SamuraiSquirrel
Well-Known Member
................ this thread reminds me of the nerds who did the even & odd homework problems even though the solutions to the odd problems were in the back of the book ..........
Do what you gotta do to conceptually understand what's going on then find a way to save yourself sometime. Beersmith is far from flawless but I use if (at least to some degree) for every brew. Never needed to write out a batch by hand to understand the inner workings of the "how's" and "why's"
Do what you gotta do to conceptually understand what's going on then find a way to save yourself sometime. Beersmith is far from flawless but I use if (at least to some degree) for every brew. Never needed to write out a batch by hand to understand the inner workings of the "how's" and "why's"
Heh, I'll admit I'm a nerd. I'm an enginerd.
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