Brew Pal software in the iTunes App Store

[WesleyS]

It really seems like a lot of functionality has been lost in the new version. That is really disappointing to me.

+1
Not happy at all with the new version.

 

[user 4295]

Thanks for posting this guys! I will not update this app! I'm happy with it just the way it is.

 

[Irrenarzt]

Don't update this app is the best advice I've heard all day.

In short, I updated the app without backing up, found it sucked, reverted to my old one but lost 41 recipes, decided to give up and brew instead, broke the carboy I was supposed to use (all my other buckets/carboys are full), drove to town to get a keg to ferment in and lost a hydrometer out of the back of the truck on the way over. I was gonna give my bro a hydrometer, new in the package for letting me borrow the keg and it was gone. FML.

At least the mash is going well at 149, right where I want it to be. Hopefully all my bad luck is used up for today.

 

[weesm]

Not impressed with the new version. I can't seem to find a way to see my sparge volume without "brewing" a recipe and I can't seem to find a way to adjust the quarts strike water per pound of grain ratio. The older version showed you both upfront so you knew your water volumes before hand. You need to know your sparge water volume up front so you can heat the correct amount of water prior to sparging. That and I also treat my whole volume of water up front. I was planning on brewing today and had input a recipe last night but didn't save it yet. So I updated the software this AM and the recipe was gone. No big deal as I remember it for the most part. But there seems to be no way to change the grain to water ratio like there was before. Lame.

Also I don't like how it logs every time you start "brewing" a recipe, even if you cancel the "brew". That's not a clean way to do it as you now have a logged session stored, even if you don't brew it.

It seems like he's dumbed it down a bunch to me. Like he's tried to make it feel like a more streamlined automated approach to brewing. I prefer the older version at this point. Damn that sucks as I relied heavily on it. Now I'm going to have to actually break out the calculator instead of what was the flagship brewing software package.

Edit: So I decided to roll back and in the process I lost all my saved recipes. 41 of them. Fock.

You can see your strike and spare water by tapping on the Mash button when you are viewing your recipe.

I too was super excited about the update but now I'm digging in farther, there are a lot of features missing from the previous version. One in particular is auto scaling of recipes. Now when I change the batch size, the fermentables and hops do not scale proportional.

I hope we hear some good news from the app developer(s). It's too bad, BrewPal was my favorite brewing app...

 

[Irrenarzt]

I really liked the scaling feature as I either brew 6 or 12 gallon batches and you could switch easily. I also had plans coming up to brew a GABF pro-am recipe on a 5 barrel system and had planned to scale it as you used to be able to do. I won't be able to use brewpal for this either.

Brewpal was my favorite too. I liked how it was simple yet comprehensive. Now it's just simple. If I wanted simple, I would get iBrewmaster.

 

[kds1398]

2.0 is here!!!

Just downloaded it but haven't brewed with it yet.

It looks like you can add items (grains, etc) now also.

Can't wait to try it on brew day.

It was less intuitive, but you could add whatever grains/hops/yeast/whatever you wanted in the old version as well.

I really liked the scaling feature as I either brew 6 or 12 gallon batches and you could switch easily. I also had plans coming up to brew a GABF pro-am recipe on a 5 barrel system and had planned to scale it as you used to be able to do. I won't be able to use brewpal for this either.

Brewpal was my favorite too. I liked how it was simple yet comprehensive. Now it's just simple. If I wanted simple, I would get iBrewmaster.

Same here, I brew 5-15 gallon batches. Scaling was so simple before. As far as I'm concerned, it's half the app it used to be in 2.0. Now I'll have to pay attention to my app upgrade screen (which will now continually have a nagging 1 update available notification in it) to avoid accidentally updating all my apps so I can keep the older version.

With 2.0 being tested/on the verge of being released since October 2011, I can't imagine that this is a scaled back version just to get it out before iOS 6.0, rather this is the version the dev intended it to be... My only hope is that the missing features (scaling, better handling of batches, & results/gravity) I'm looking for were buggy & needed further testing before being included.

 

[alestateyall]

With 2.0 being tested/on the verge of being released since October 2011, I can't imagine that this is a scaled back version just to get it out before iOS 6.0, rather this is the version the dev intended it to be... My only hope is that the missing features (scaling, better handling of batches, & results/gravity) I'm looking for were buggy & needed further testing before being included.

At the dev's usual upgrade pace you can expect those old features in about a year and a half!

 

[user 4295]

Just to let you guys know, Brewpal has apparently been pulled from the iTunes App store as of sometime today. The new version was showing available early this morning, but as of now it's not showing an update available. When I searched for it in the app store, no version of it is currently listed. I'm hoping he pulled it to add back all the features that got axed in the new version.

 

[Irrenarzt]

Let's hope so. Mine autoupdated back to 2.0 last night. I'm still chapped about losing all my recipes. Today's brew is going well so no complaints yet. But I'm using the notebook not the app.

 

[brewbobaggins]

Just to let you guys know, Brewpal has apparently been pulled from the iTunes App store as of sometime today. The new version was showing available early this morning, but as of now it's not showing an update available. When I searched for it in the app store, no version of it is currently listed. I'm hoping he pulled it to add back all the features that got axed in the new version.

Still won't bring back my double IPA hop schedules. *shakes fist*

 

[astropunk]

I was so excited to see an update for this app that I immediately installed it. I hope the issues identified thus far are going to be corrected. Just curious, have you guys emailed brew pal support? The guy may not even read this forum.

 

[weesm]

Just curious, have you guys emailed brew pal support? The guy may not even read this forum.

I actually sent the guy two emails. First, a holy **** sweet new UI and great update! And then a "what the hell happen to all the previous features?!" but in a much nicer context.

I actually just received an email back tonight saying he is working on a version 2.1 right now and will address some of the missing features that were left out because of an oversight. Let's hope that update comes soon and does indeed address our missing features!

 

[alestateyall]

FYI info from the developer on how to recover your lost recipes.

http://www.brewpal.info/upgrade2/

 

[astropunk]

I also got an email from him (that's why I asked) after I sent a thanks for the update, so I know he at least reads them. I'm going to give this app another chance because I still like it better than ibrewmaster

 

[lemy]

Yeah he is good about responding. The new UI is cool, but the mashing is really missing some detail, like the water, and I am lost without the refractometer tool.

Let's hope the 2.1 release is more timely.

 

[brewbobaggins]

Got a great, detailed response from Dave within 24 hours of emailing him. Great guy. Seems like he's working in getting the 2.1 update out ASAP.

 

[D-Hutt]

Why did he take the 2.0 version down? He could have left it there and let people use the features that were available while he worked on 2.1.

 

[brewbobaggins]

Didn't want to put out a faulty/incomplete product probably.

 

[kds1398]

Why did he take the 2.0 version down? He could have left it there and let people use the features that were available while he worked on 2.1.

I'd say that putting out a crappy version with missing features that causes issues for your current loyal users is asking for bad for reviews in the app store and might lend itself to people avoiding the app. Bad reviews would likely deter new users purchasing too.

 

[mirogster]

No more, no less. Amen to that.
And just sit tight and wait for new version. That's what I'm doing... While still using old version.

 

[D-Hutt]

any word on a 2.1 ETA?

 

[brewbobaggins]

Great App Dave,
On the additions that were added to the last version. Is there any thought to allowing the user to add our own ingredients ?

thanks Dan

I was able to add ingredients in both this version and the original version. While in the ingredient list (of hops, grains, yeasts, etc.), just hit 'edit' and then '+'. You need to know all the stats of whatever you're adding, but you will with iBrewmaster or any other app too.

 

[Jon_TWR]

I do like some of the changes to 2.0, the loss of features and extra steps needed to change settings from within a recipe really bothered me, so I reverted to 1.6--luckilly I still had 1.6 on my PC.

2.0 worked, didn't seem to suffer from the memory leak that 1.6 did, and added some nice features. But the loss of usability and features that had existed in 1.6 made it more of a "one step forward, two steps back" kind of situation for me.

 

[Irrenarzt]

I'm a bit disappointed in the boil timer. I liked the old round rotating disc. The new one doesn't actually tell you precisely where you are with a timer as it just shows you a bar with a starting time and finishing time. Definitely one step forward, two steps back.

I feel like I have been prison raped losing all my recipes and all that killer functionality. It's not a pleasant feeling.

 

[alestateyall]

You can get your old 1.6.2 recipes back. Go to brewpal.info and click the link up top for 1.6->2.0 migration issues.

 

[macabra11]

I, like most of you, was super excited about the update and just downloaded it right away. What a mistake that was! This is so much harder to navigate, features are gone, no batch size adjustment, no hydrometer temp correction. Very poor. I am hoping the update resolves a lot of this. I miss my old BrewPal!

 

[Jon_TWR]

If anybody updated to 2.0 and doesn't have the 1.6 ipa file on their computer, PM me and I should be able to email it to you so you can revert back to the old version.

ETA: By the way, I did lose all my recipes when I did this...but I foolishly backed up my iPad AFTER I deleted BrewPal, so that may be the issue. Just be warned that it can happen.

 

[mccumath]

I do like a couple of the newer features in Brewpal (i.e. I was able to put in all metric measurements, and it did all of the conversions for me into standard units). I certainly miss most of the old features. This update is harder to navigate, and I agree with some other comments that the dial timer was much better visually. I really liked how all of my sparge water temps/volumes were calculated for me on one screen like the old version. I also cannot find Nottingham yeast in the yeast profiles/cannot find how to add new yeasts (i.e. PACMAN) in the yeast profiles. I was also not able to determine how many yeast cells I need for a batch of brew; now it asks me to input how much yeast I am going to use in the recipe...? I am still playing with it, and may find more pro's, but currently I think I would much rather have the old version back. I like changes, but I think these changes take away from the simplicity that I really enjoyed when using Brewpal previously. This was my go to program when brewing; now I am afraid to brew with it.

I also purchased iBrewmaster for my iPhone, and I may start working on using that and seeing which one I like better. I avoided it because of the increased effort it took to navigate/use it. Now with Brewpal in a similar format, I may try harder to use iBrewmaster.

Sorry, I wish I had more positive things to say, but currently I am pretty disappointed. I hope that future updates fix some of the concerns that it seems most folks have with the current update.

I would much rather have the old version back then use the newer version. Is there a way I can re-download the last version before the new version?

Ryan M.

 

[thasnazzle]

subscribing to this thread. Hope the new version is out soon.

 

[lemy]

BeerSmith mobile will eventually be coming out, and I will definitely try that out, especially since it will be able to access the cloud recipes. At NHC (national homebrewers conference last month in Seattle) I told Brad Smith about the BrewPal debacle and how brewers really need those brew day tools, like refractometer calculation.

In my book there are two fundamental 'Killer App' uses for mobile brewing software:

1) recipe formulation - when I am away from a computer and bored.
2) brewday tools.

BeerSmith doesn't help me much on my brew day, but BrewPal does, err.. Did!