Does any brewing software do this?...

I've messed around with Promash, BeerSmith and QBrew, and none of them seem to do this unless I'm missing something. When I create a recipe I like to establish an OG and then establish percentages of different malts. I'd like whichever brewing software I buy to allow me to type in the OG and percentages of fermentables and it will calculate how many pounds of each grain I need. They all seem to be the other way round where you have to type in quantities of grains and then it will tell you the OG and percentages. I created an Excel spreadsheet using the formulas in Designing Great Beers which does it the way I'd like and it works great, but it would be nice to have it all in one package. Does any brewing software allow this? Did I miss some setting in Promash or BeerSmith?

Beer Alchemy has a grist by % function, but it's Mac only software.

I hear you. I'm stuck with Beersmith and I start out by adding the percentage numbers as lb of grain. Then I mess with to volume to get the OG and eventually I scale everything to my volume and efficiency. It's somewhat awkward, but I don't feel like changing the software now.

Kai

ma2brew said:

Beer Alchemy has a grist by % function, but it's Mac only software.

Click to expand...

What's a [air quotes] "Mac"?

Just kidding

That would be nice to have in promash. I've gotten pretty good through repetition at entering numbers in the correct ranges and then tweaking but it's definitely not as efficient as I'd like.

I'm beginning to think spending all day Saturday creating my spreadsheet was worth it. It sounds like I'll have to use it to get my amounts of fermentables.

Added to the "to-do" feature list for Strange Brew Java

menschmaschine said:

What's a [air quotes] "Mac"?

Just kidding

Click to expand...

It's what a MCSE carries when he gets tired of fixing M$ boxes

I was just playing with the Grist by % function on BA. It's not exactly intuitive, but it does like you ask. Basically you input your fermentables in the percentages you want, using nice round measurements and then it scales up or down depending on the OG you ask for.

So I just tried this and here's how it work for me...
First I simply input the grains as fractions of 10, so it would work out as a percent easily


Then I clicked on the Create Grist by % button to get this window, which shows the OG:


Then I simply changed the OG to a different number:


And I got the new measures with the percentages still the same:


Is that what you were getting at? I haven't tried just putting percentages in yet, but there might be a way to do that still...

ma2brew said:

Is that what you were getting at? I haven't tried just putting percentages in yet, but there might be a way to do that still...

Click to expand...

Yeah, that is essentially what I'm looking for. With my spreadsheet, I type in the OG, choose grains/sugars from drop-down lists (which already contain references of potential gravities), then I just type in the percentages. It spits out exactly how much of each grain based on my efficiency. So it looks like Alchemy does the same thing for all intents and purposes, but I don't have a Mac .

If I am understanding your problem correctly, I think this is VERY easy to do in Beersmith.

1. Start a new recipe, and set your batch size and efficiency.
2. Add your grains (kg is easiest) as if they were percentages (e.g., for 95% 2-row and 5% crystal 40 use 9.5 kg of 2-row and 0.5 kg of crystal).
3. From the toolbar menu, click Actions-->Adjust Gravity and set the OG to whatever you need.

Voila!

FlyGuy said:

If I am understanding your problem correctly, I think this is VERY easy to do in Beersmith.

1. Start a new recipe, and set your batch size and efficiency.
2. Add your grains (kg is easiest) as if they were percentages (e.g., for 95% 2-row and 5% crystal 40 use 9.5 kg of 2-row and 0.5 kg of crystal).
3. From the toolbar menu, click Actions-->Adjust Gravity and set the OG to whatever you need.

Voila!

Click to expand...

There you go, that's basically what I did. I just didn't use metric, as it's a tool of Satan .

FlyGuy said:

If I am understanding your problem correctly, I think this is VERY easy to do in Beersmith.

1. Start a new recipe, and set your batch size and efficiency.
2. Add your grains (kg is easiest) as if they were percentages (e.g., for 95% 2-row and 5% crystal 40 use 9.5 kg of 2-row and 0.5 kg of crystal).
3. From the toolbar menu, click Actions-->Adjust Gravity and set the OG to whatever you need.

Voila!

Click to expand...

Wow, that totally worked! Thank you.

ma2brew said:

G:
I haven't tried just putting percentages in yet, but there might be a way to do that still...

Click to expand...

You can do that in the second window but you need to have entered the ingredients in the main window first.

god i wish we all just used metric... good tip.