ryser2k
Well-Known Member
Lately I've been getting into recipe formulation so I've been checking out the various homebrew calculators. Specfically I've tried the HBD Recipator and the Promash demo.
They're both very good... I love that the Recipator is free and I enjoy the completeness of Promash, but somehow when I use either I still feel like there's something missing. The recipator itself hasn't been updated in EIGHT years! And Promash hasn't been touched for three years now. They both just feel so outdated...
Now I don't know if the process has changed much in that amount of time, but I'd imagine that the way we actually think about homebrewing has. Being a computer programmer, every time I use one of these calculators I just think about trying to write one myself from scratch.
I was wondering if anyone else here feels my pain... what things are missing from the currently available calculators that you would like to see? What are your favorite things about Promash or the Recipator, or whichever calculator you use?
My dream homebrew calculator:
I'm not saying that I have the patience or know-how to write something this good, but I do feel like we could have it a whole lot better than we do right now If there's enough interest though, maybe it's something that we could do as a community.
They're both very good... I love that the Recipator is free and I enjoy the completeness of Promash, but somehow when I use either I still feel like there's something missing. The recipator itself hasn't been updated in EIGHT years! And Promash hasn't been touched for three years now. They both just feel so outdated...
Now I don't know if the process has changed much in that amount of time, but I'd imagine that the way we actually think about homebrewing has. Being a computer programmer, every time I use one of these calculators I just think about trying to write one myself from scratch.
I was wondering if anyone else here feels my pain... what things are missing from the currently available calculators that you would like to see? What are your favorite things about Promash or the Recipator, or whichever calculator you use?
My dream homebrew calculator:
- Would be completely web-based using the latest technology
- Would allow you to create and manage an account
- Would hold all your recipes and session info online
- Would allow for new ingredients and their related info to be submitted by users and approved by moderators
- Would allow any recipes you create to be published to the public archive
- Would allow recipes to be browsed by style or searched by name or ingredient
- Would have threaded comments for each recipe where users can discuss the recipe, make suggestions, get help from the recipe creator, etc
- Would have a rating system for recipes where they can be rated by other users in the community
- Would have all the functionality of Promash but with a better user interface
- Would be absolutely FREE
I'm not saying that I have the patience or know-how to write something this good, but I do feel like we could have it a whole lot better than we do right now If there's enough interest though, maybe it's something that we could do as a community.