BrewingAlarm for iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad

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You can either email yourself the file (the app is registered with the phone to be an "opener" for xml files), browse to a website with the file on it, or you can plug your phone into your computer. Then using iTunes select "Apps" and go down to the bottom of the screen where it says "File Sharing" and "Documents". BrewingAlarm will be there, and you select the app then you can add or delete files there on the right.

Everyone please realize this is *not* a recipe creation tool. It has rudimentary ability to add a mash step or a boil addition and to edit any notes but it is not backed by an ingredient database or anything.

In my mind, a UI and data rich application like recipe creation demands the larger screen and more varied UI concepts available to a full laptop/desktop system. This app is purposefully designed to do one thing and one thing only and that is to make it super easy to set off alarms... especially for a typical homebrew soaked brewing session :tank:
 
I would recommend adding fermentation alarms...while I think it would be cumbersome to transfer my recipe, it would be worth it to me if it had reminders for when my expected fermentation should be done and or when I should add items to the fermentation. Just my two cents!
 
Very nice. Just like OP said, importing the xml file through the App File Sharing is extremely simple. I'd like to see sparge volumes in the mash section, but I'm guessing once people pick up on this tool, you are going to get a lot of specific requests. Thanks for making this available.
 
Almost any desktop brewing software will export or save to a BeerXML format.

Yeah I had thought about adding sparge volumes. I could see its usefulness just to have the data there (no alarms to go with it) though at some point I had to quit adding features and get the thing published :) So for that reason I figured that I sparge until I have enough and call it good.

I'll see about adding the sparge stuff soon.

The more folks use it the better it will become. My Quality Assurance team was just me and another buddy on occasion so I hope (well I hope against too) that any bugs will be found this weekend when y'all brew.
 
I would recommend adding fermentation alarms...while I think it would be cumbersome to transfer my recipe, it would be worth it to me if it had reminders for when my expected fermentation should be done and or when I should add items to the fermentation. Just my two cents!

This is impossible to implement. You would need massive amounts of data about water chemistry and exact malt analysis, mash temps, fermentation temps, pitching rates, etc, etc. A supercomputer would have to crunch all the data. And even then, it wouldn't be right because Mother Nature is a huge wildcard variable.

I'll take a wild guess that your beer will be done fermenting somewhere between 1 and 4 weeks from the day you brew it. :D
 
Walker I think you misunderstood my comment, not asking the program to figure fermentation out for me...instead a place to add an alarm for a date I determine that I need to add items to a secondary and/or if I am brewing a beer that I know an approximate time that the primary will wrap up...a reminder portion could be added that you manually enter. I apologize if this was perceived as a request to figure the fermentation out, instead I meant as a reminder for me to start taking gravity readings.
 
I would recommend adding fermentation alarms...while I think it would be cumbersome to transfer my recipe, it would be worth it to me if it had reminders for when my expected fermentation should be done and or when I should add items to the fermentation. Just my two cents!

You need a hydrometer app for that functionality :p
 
This is impossible to implement. You would need massive amounts of data about water chemistry and exact malt analysis, mash temps, fermentation temps, pitching rates, etc, etc. A supercomputer would have to crunch all the data. And even then, it wouldn't be right because Mother Nature is a huge wildcard variable.

I'll take a wild guess that your beer will be done fermenting somewhere between 1 and 4 weeks from the day you brew it. :D

Yes but it would be nice to add an alarm like "Remind me to check the gravity in 2 weeks", "should be ready to transfer", etc. Just add a calendar entry with alarm? Might not be worth the programming time but could be a handy little addition.

-Scott
 
Found a bug!

I have a first wort hop that doesn't show up in either mash or boil alarms.

True. I suppose that addition should show up in the Recipe screen, but there isn't an alarm that could be associated with such an addition right?

I'll certainly fix it for the recipe page but it will not show up on the Boil or Mash page... If you have to add something between the mash and the boil there isn't any type of alarm that can honestly make that remind you?

Unless you all want the app to be so specific that you get 3 minutes to add each infusion and then get 20 minutes to sparge before your boil begins etc. I thought that given the way I brew, things kinda happen... well kinda when they happen.

Biggest surprise today is that no one has asked for a "pause" function. Aw crap, I did XXX or forgot YYY and need for the hops timers to take a pause... That is my major focus for v1.1 I'm just having UI problems with making that happen. Code-wise its easy, making it make sense to the user is honestly hard...

Y'all like the Whirlfloc preference? That was a last minute addition on account of me and and Folster forget that all the time.

Btw.

Gotta give huge props.

Walker provided the main Icon and Folster tweaked the mash icon.

Seriously huge props. Thanks guys.
 
Btw, this weekend I unfortunately want to hear from y'all who's BeerXML import didn't work :-\

Its a standard by the very loosest interpretation of the term and I didn't bother to try to be very good and flexible.

Please let me know what your application exports if it fails so that I can add some decent generic handling of that issue to the app. Post your BeerXml file here if you can.

It only gets better if I have a good QA team which I realize is in no way fair... but you do get what you pay for ;-)

Huge thanks for all the posts today. Far more than I expected for a learning exercise.
 
True. I suppose that addition should show up in the Recipe screen, but there isn't an alarm that could be associated with such an addition right?

I'll certainly fix it for the recipe page but it will not show up on the Boil or Mash page... If you have to add something between the mash and the boil there isn't any type of alarm that can honestly make that remind you?

Unless you all want the app to be so specific that you get 3 minutes to add each infusion and then get 20 minutes to sparge before your boil begins etc. I thought that given the way I brew, things kinda happen... well kinda when they happen.

Biggest surprise today is that no one has asked for a "pause" function. Aw crap, I did XXX or forgot YYY and need for the hops timers to take a pause... That is my major focus for v1.1 I'm just having UI problems with making that happen. Code-wise its easy, making it make sense to the user is honestly hard...

Y'all like the Whirlfloc preference? That was a last minute addition on account of me and and Folster forget that all the time.

Btw.

Gotta give huge props.

Walker provided the main Icon and Folster tweaked the mash icon.

Seriously huge props. Thanks guys.

Add it at the end of the mash maybe? When you start sparging is when you add those hops anyway, generally speaking...
 
There is an issue with Temperature infusions.

I use a HERMS system, so use temperature infusions for steps and mash-out. When I import my XML file, the Mash Out says to add 0.40 Gallons of 1034.2* water!

Also, my Wyeast Nutrient (1 tsp in BeerSmith) is coming up as 0.00 gallons in Brewing Alarm
And the Whirfloc (2 items in BeerSmith) is reading as 70.55 oz in Brewing Alarm
 
Thanks for the bug report. I'll pm you my email and if you could send me an example XML file I'll fix it straight away.

BeerXML is a "standard" by the very very loosest definition of the term :confused:
 
First of all kudos for the BrewingAlarm app! It's exactly what I've been looking for the moment I got an iPhone!

I have been tinkering a bit with BrewTarget, and decided I'd dream up a recipe in there, export in BeerXML format and upload (by DropBox) to my iPhone.
I formulated the partial mash recipe using FirstWortHopping, adjuncts, water improvment chemicals and dry hopping (yeah, maximum complexity of course).
The export seemed to work fine, the upload to dropbox seemed OK, the dedication of the .xml file to BrewingAlarm (in the DropBox app in the iPhone) seemed OK too, so I started up the BA app.

Oddly, there was only MY recipe (OFGIPA) in the recipe collection, the original one was gone? I clicked on it and found myself aptly returned to the main page of my iPhone, as if I had pressed the Home button...

I cannot be certain whether there is a problem with the export, the dropbox transffer or the import in BrewingAlarm, bot somewhere along the line something seems to have been corrupted. If you want the .xml file I could mail it to you, I guess or make it available on the Dropbox (after all that is one of its main purposes)...
 
The problem is with BrewTarget. The first line of the XML it creates is incorrect. If enough folks use BrewTarget I could spend some more time making my app handle the bug in BrewTarget, but really you should bug the BrewTarget people (just try to open the file it creates in a browser and you'll see the error).

An update that handles BeerSmith's mash temperature style is forthcoming. Will post here when its ready.

Thanks for the feedback!
 
Thank you for the app it is exactly what I’ve been look for however I have encountered a few problems.

First I have not be able to mail a recipe the attached file comes through as winmail.dat as filename.xml. Not sure if that’s a problem with how I have the iPhone configured or your app. But I have not had a problem imputing recipes through iPhone>App interface.

Beersmith 1.4 recipes load but items like “immersion chiller” 1 items show as “35.27 oz” I can edit it to ”1 each” without problem in the app.

Beersmith 2.0 recipes show up but when Choosing Recipe the app just goes to the phone’s desktop.

I tried this on a iTouch with the same results.

I plan to use the app tomorrow when brewing using a Beersmith 1.4 xml file.

Again thanks for what looks like a very useful app.
 
I think I know what the problem is ith the chiller. No clue about BS v2

When the app drops you back to the phone's home screen that means it could not parse the file

Could you pm me a copy of both types of files so that I have something to test?

It's a free app and I use beerToolsPro and can't really buy and test every different brewing software out there. But when issues come up I can take the XML you get and will happily test it and try to fix it.
 
I completely understand. I did a little more testing and I could import the beersmith 1.4 XML into BeerTools and the "each" items imported as tsp. I think this may be a default. The beersmith 2.0 file would not import. Sounds like a BeerSmith 2.0 problem.

I tried to PM the files but they are way too big. If you want me to send them to you please PM me with an email address and I'll send them.
 
So I did a little checking for BeerSmith 2.0 XML problems and it seems that BeerSmith is the problem. It is the "to be fixed catagory"
 
Beersmith 2 still has not fixed it issues with XML export. BS 1.4 works fine with Brewing Alarms. I used it today and it works great. Nice simple and easy to use.
 
Beersmith just posted a new beta version or 2.0 and it seems to fix the problems with beer XML export. I just imported a recipe exported from 2.0.44 to Brewing Alarm and it worked just fine.
 
I'm having trouble importing files via iTunes. I'm clicking on "apps" under "library" but only see updates and get more apps options at the bottom. I'm running iTunes 10.5.0.142

Also, I'm on windows 7.
 
heckels said:
I'm having trouble importing files via iTunes. I'm clicking on "apps" under "library" but only see updates and get more apps options at the bottom. I'm running iTunes 10.5.0.142

Also, I'm on windows 7.

N/m... It'd help if I was looking under the phone. Got it!
 
Ok seems to have trouble parsing files with “ ” ’ –.
I understand that strictly speaking these are not XML valid codes but are widely used in HTML. Beersmith and others are using HTML interfaces so are using these escape chars in there xml. It is your call if you want to support or not. I think would be more robust if you did.
Thanks,
 
Thank you for the app it is exactly what I’ve been look for however I have encountered a few problems.

First I have not be able to mail a recipe the attached file comes through as winmail.dat as filename.xml. Not sure if that’s a problem with how I have the iPhone configured or your app. But I have not had a problem imputing recipes through iPhone>App interface.

Just a thought on this particular issue... Are you a Windows user, and using Outlook? If so, check your settings in Outlook to see if you're sending emails in HTML format. Likely you are; for testing purposes try switching to using RTF format instead.

Outlook HTML emails are notorious for setting off non-Microsoft email apps (like Thunderbird in Windows or Linux, or Mail.app in OS X) and showing the dreaded winmail.dat file on those machines. On a Mac there's an application which will convert that attachment to something useful (TNEF's Enough), but nothing like that on an iOS device.
 
Are there known issues with beer XML files coming out of brewTarget? I've loaded a few recipes to the phone but as soon as I execute the boil function it goes directly to "end of boil" and tells me to add all of my hop and misc additions.

My boil is set to 60 min in brewTarget and all of the grains, misc and hop additions looks like they're all correct in the app. Any ideas?
 
Just tried importing a .xml file from beersmith2 into brewing alarm app via email, whenever I try to open the recipe it force closes and locks the app...
 
This is a big help. After emailing myself the .xml file from BeerSmith 2, I opened it in BrewingAlarm and have all of the times ready to go. It even tells be that the dry hop will be finished in 4320.0 minutes.
 
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