Brewing Lifecycle

[alefort]

I currently use BeerSmith 2 to design my recipes. I don't use its brew log or calendar features as I find them to be poorly designed, and of little value.

I use google drive/dropbox to store my brew logs and fermentation logs

I'm really tired of having to use beersmith to design, and text documents to store my brew/ferm logs.

So I've been wondering if there is other software out there that manages the entire brewing lifecycle for a batch of beer?

Design your beer, then kick off the process of making it. It then becomes the only place for logging my notes, and a batch of beer can be labeled (much like a brewery might do) and references a specific recipe (and version of that recipe).

Any ideas? did I make sense?

 

[McKnuckle]

BrewersFriend.com

 

[alefort]

BrewersFriend.com

Thanks for the recommendation. I just signed up and created a recipe. I see it does brew log. Does it support taking fermentation notes after the brew day? Can it schedule my stages based on the beer style and when I brewed it? Does it have a calendar view?

I like the fact a brew session can be tied to a recipe snapshot, that's already a huge improvement.

 

[McKnuckle]

Yes, it has a really nice brew log and I use it extensively. Notes can be taken during fermentation with "Sample" or "Other" entry types. The brew log does keep a running count of days elapsed since brew day, and you can plan a brew day in the future. It does NOT have a calendar view; that has been requested as a new feature but the folks who run the site have a long list. You already got the snapshot idea, so that's good.

It's not a perfect site, but I really like the cloud access (I can reference it at home, work, iPhone, iPad, etc.). It has the best water calc tools in my opinion.

I also have a copy of BeerSmith and I spent a few brewdays using both to compare. I am sticking with Brewer's Friend for now.

 

[alefort]

Yes, it has a really nice brew log and I use it extensively. Notes can be taken during fermentation with "Sample" or "Other" entry types. The brew log does keep a running count of days elapsed since brew day, and you can plan a brew day in the future. It does NOT have a calendar view; that has been requested as a new feature but the folks who run the site have a long list. You already got the snapshot idea, so that's good.

It's not a perfect site, but I really like the cloud access (I can reference it at home, work, iPhone, iPad, etc.). It has the best water calc tools in my opinion.

I also have a copy of BeerSmith and I spent a few brewdays using both to compare. I am sticking with Brewer's Friend for now.

Excellent. I now see I can choose the phase for the beer, neat. It definitely seems to be more end-to-end than Beersmith is. I think I might just convert, time to keep playing.

Cheers

 

[McKnuckle]

A couple of small caveats for you as you work with your existing BeerSmith data:

The BF water volume calculator does not take cooling shrinkage into account, even though the equipment profiles have a shrinkage entry. Along the same lines, the value entered for "Ending Kettle" efficiency on the recipe page (when your batch target = kettle) is the post-boil efficiency before cooling. If your wort shrinks the customary 4%, the true ending kettle efficiency (as defined in BF's own help pages to include shrinkage!) will be a couple of points lower.