Keeping track of your beers

[robertbartsch]

I need a system to keep track of the beers I am brewing.

I've kept some crude notes on a few batches but I would prefer a system of tags that can be attached to a fermenter or cornie keg with basic information such as OG/FG, ingrediance contents, yeast type, hop schedule, etc.

 

[android]

i would strongly recommend buying the BeerSmith brewing program, it's a cinch to use and keeps a very nice record of all your brews. makes recipe creation, brewday calculations and many more things much easier also. beersmith.com

 

[robertbartsch]

Is the brewing program PC software?

 

[jamesjensen1068]

3M post-it notes or blue painters tape for OG, FG, Date, Type of Beer on the fermenter. Notebook with all other info, call me old school.

 

[HBHoss]

Is the brewing program PC software?

Yes it is. Plus you can print out the brewsheet and keep it in a binder.

 

[wildwest450]

i would strongly recommend buying the BeerSmith brewing program, it's a cinch to use and keeps a very nice record of all your brews. makes recipe creation, brewday calculations and many more things much easier also. beersmith.com

+1, it will make you a better brewer(ag) and keeps track of all important info. The best $20 you will ever spend in your brewing career.

 

[pwndabear]

i use one of those black and white composition notebooks and im working out a format that i almost have perfected where i list ingredients, OG, taget FG, instructions, and brewday notes, etc.

 

[passedpawn]

After a few years my notebook completely fell apart. Not just the pages falling out, but the paper disintegrated. Perhaps acidic vapor from boil or something.

Now it's beersmith for me. Make sure to back up, everyone!

 

[IrregularPulse]

Agree to Beersmith. By far my best $20 spent on my brewery.

But it doesn't help much once you have 5 kegs sitting side by side with "beer" in them. I think that was the OP's question. A good suggestion I've seen around here is chalkboard paint. Paint a small square on the keg and you can write what ever you want.

 

[Dave258]

If you are talking recipe formulation and helping along with your brew day, beersmith is the move.
To keep track of kegs and primaries, I use blue painters tape and a sharpie!

 

[mrk305]

3M post-it notes or blue painters tape for OG, FG, Date, Type of Beer on the fermenter. Notebook with all other info, call me old school.

.... same here. I recently switched to the back of business cards. I found some atractive business card holders that look good on the kegorator.

 

[JJL]

3M post-it notes or blue painters tape for OG, FG, Date, Type of Beer on the fermenter. Notebook with all other info, call me old school.

+1 on this. If all you want to do is keep track of what's in the fermenter and what's in the keg, buy some wide masking tape, jot down the key points you want to remember, and slap it on the side of the vessel.

 

[hippielink]

I found a box of paper tags with a string attatched at Staples pretty cheap. Think is was less than $10 for a 100. I make the tag out with the name of the brew & OG, hang it on my better bottle, then I move it onto my keg when I fill it. Cheap & easy.

 

[HBHoss]

I use a Sharpie and number all my fermentation buckets and Kegs and I use a white board to keep track of the buckets and a log book to keep track of the kegs. I note the OG/FG, the contents, when it was brewed/when it was kegged and any notes about it. I made my own form using MS Word. Everything else is printed out using BrewSmith.

 

[passedpawn]

Blue painters tape and a sharpie are in my Brewday Kit. Tape comes right off a month later with no effort.

 

[JetSmooth]

I still bottle, and likely will do some bottling for some time. I am working on a serial numbering system. Four digits with two parts plus a modifier for split batches. The first two digits are the recipe and the second are the batch, followed by a letter that signifies whether it was a particular split batch attempt.

So 0101 is the first recipe, first attempt. 0103 is the third attempt at the first recipe.

0201S would be second recipe, first attempt split and pitches with Safale US-05 while 0201N is the same beer pitched with Nottingham.

I just write on the caps with a Sharpie marker after they are bottled. Have a book with the key or a document up on Google docs.