Documentation / Beer Journal

As a new guy on the block.

I was wondering what people are using (word, excel - google docs -- whatever) to document their brews?

I know there are "items" I need to record. But what about tasting notes and such. Excel seems easy at first..but it would seem that would build into a rather large and cumbersome spreadsheet if you are brewing 3 a month or whatever...

just curious... I am thinking about that tonight as I brew my holiday ale.

Cheers!
T

I use the sessions in promash to track the actual details. I have a calendar in thunderbird for tracking fermentation times etc.

http://hbd.org/recipator/

After you fill in all the info you can VIEW your REPORT. Just cut and paste the info into a WORD.DOC and save it.

BeerSmith.

I use beersmith.

Print out a recipe and a brewday sheet. If I feel like it I'll make detailed notes on the brewday sheet, otherwise just the essentials are noted down.

I staple the two sheets plus the receipt from the HBS together and put it in a file.

I also copy the recipe to the beersmith brewday folder. One day I'll actually get around to making tasting notes on there.

Another one for BeerSmith. I copy the master recipe into a brew log on brew day and use that to track the particulars of that batch. Also lets me keep track of how I'm changing recipes over time, although I tend to not repeat recipes all that often, too much new stuff to explore.

-D

I use BeerSmith, too. But I haven't figured out a way to summarize multiple brew days in a single view. I'll have to look into the brewlog that Llarian mentions.

I have an excel spreadsheet that lists the brew, dates, and other notes so I can see my brew history at a glance.

Beersmith here as well. The calendar function is a little messy and stubborn, so I don't use it anymore. It's easier for me to put that into Outlook. For those manual types that still like paper, Basic Brewing Radio was selling beer journals, but I no longer see it on their site. You may want to send them an email.

I used a web log to record information about my brews.

http://beer.foreverdean.info

I'm old school, strictly Excel spreadsheets. Forces me to actually do the calculations myself. I'd consider shelling out some clams for Beertools. That seems like a rock solid application for recipe design.

I use Promash to record each brew session including recipe tweaks. I'll also print out the recipe and put it in a three ring binder that I take out to the garage with me. I have a list of calculations and things that I need to record during the process in the front cover sleeve or the binder and use a grease pencil to record all the various info I take down or need to figure out.