Brewing Journal

[Grundysidemount]

Hey everyone,

I just kegged my first 2 beers yesterday and couldn't be more excited. I made this template for a journal so I can keep track of everything so I can learn from mistakes and/or try something different if I brew the same beer.

Let me know if this looks good or what else should be added.

First 2 beers were extract, but want spaces for any all grain details once that day comes.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Grundysidemount]

I added Cold Crashing info since I did this with 1 beer and not the other.

 

[morbster]

Looks good. Are you using brewing software? I like to add a small section about my equipment assumptions so I can refer back to the recipe in the future and know what my assumed boil-off rate and other losses should be. I also have a section for the water additions I performed.

Here's the cover sheet I use for all of my brews. I don't think I based this on anyone else's design, but I'm not confident enough to say that this is my original creation.

 

[Grundysidemount]

Looks good. Are you using brewing software? I like to add a small section about my equipment assumptions so I can refer back to the recipe in the future and know what my assumed boil-off rate and other losses should be. I also have a section for the water additions I performed.

Here's the cover sheet I use for all of my brews. I don't think I based this on anyone else's design, but I'm not confident enough to say that this is my original creation.

Didnt even know there was a brewing software can you recommend any of them.

Thanks for posting that, def things I can use off that to put on my list.

 

[morbster]

No problem, glad it could be of help.

As for brewing software, I am not an expert in all the options out there, but BeerSmith is an app that has served me well over the years. It's compatible with both PC and mobile, which is nice. If you want a free option, check out BrewFather. I've been playing around with that over the past few weeks, and I think it is a good contender.

 

[HiImBrian]

+1 on BeerSmith. One of the best beer-related purchases I've made. Easily save ALL of your recipes with notes. BeerSmith also calculates everything you need to know throughout the process. Stop reading replies and go download the app now.

 

[Immocles]

And it has a free trial! I think I bought it about six hours after it expires haha

 

[Immocles]

Your guys’ notes are way more formal than mine. My notebook basically look like a songwriter’s drunken scribbling on the back of a bar napkin. Hmmm.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

Didnt even know there was a brewing software can you recommend any of them.

What I have been doing lately is 1) using BeerSmith3 Mobile to design my recipes and calculate all the needed values then 2) filling out a recipe template (a Word document). I print out the sheet and fill in values and add notes during the brewing process. I will cycle back and update the Word document and print out a final version after adding some tasting notes.

I found that over the years I have used 4 or 5 different software applications and I do not have a good record of my past recipes. I am hoping that having a folder of printed out recipes, along with documents on my computer (that are backed up to the cloud) will help me build up my recipe log.

I also found that having a detailed recipe sheet without any tasting notes is mostly useless. I always think "oh I will remember how much I liked/disliked that beer"...but then looking back on a 4 year old recipe I have no clue if the beer was even good or not. I have been trying to jot down specific ideas for improvement.

 

[morbster]

I also found that having a detailed recipe sheet without any tasting notes is mostly useless. I always think "oh I will remember how much I liked/disliked that beer"...but then looking back on a 4 year old recipe I have no clue if the beer was even good or not. I have been trying to jot down specific ideas for improvement.

Good info on the tasting notes! I never included them because I had the same mentality. I’ll add that section to my log as well.

 

[Grundysidemount]

I do have a tasting section on the bottom right.

 

[HiImBrian]

@CascadesBrewer If you purchase the desktop version of BeerSmith you can save an unlimited number of recipes, thus no need to keep paper copies of everything. With that said, BeerSmith will even generate a nice brew day "to do" list with blanks to record data. I also started with just the mobile version, and while it's nice to be able to show people recipes wherever you're drinking the beer, it's much more difficult to create on the mobile app and you're limited to like 10 recipes stored or something. My 2 cents

 

[CascadesBrewer]

@CascadesBrewer If you purchase the desktop version of BeerSmith you can save an unlimited number of recipes, thus no need to keep paper copies of everything.

Yea, but will I be using BeerSmith 5 or 10 years from now? I have moved from software to software enough to know that I will never again count on one specific piece of software to be where I store my recipes.

 

[bigdawg86]

I don't keep a journal per se, but I usually take similar notes on my recipe sheet. I should really keep a journal. The one thing I am terrible at is recording accurate water volumes... Beer smith is awesome, but also suck at figuring out dead space, wort line loss, and whatever.

 

[SEndorf]

My 2 cents.... Do a hybrid.
I use beersmith and moved the documents directory (where the recipes are stored) in the cloud.
For me, there's two sets of information - "data" and "thoughts, notes, etc."
I could easily record both in beersmith,( it has the "notes" tab) but I like the "data" in beersmith and my "notes" in a spiral binder.
The notebook has just my thoughts - on a particular batch what I did right, what I did wrong, what I would do differently.
The notebook allows me an easier way to flip the pages and visually see my processes. I can find trending errors (or plusses).

 

[HiImBrian]

^ I can get down with that actually.

I keep a binder of my competition results, as well as a binder with fermentation logs. I think I might just start printing out the brew day sheet from BS and include that with the fermentation log. Gosh we're a bunch of nerds!

 

[Grundysidemount]

So I got Beersmith and wow you guys are just on another level of me hahaha I didnt understand half of the info it was asking me. I know I am new, only 1 brew day (2 batches) but it made me feel so overwhelmed.

 

[schmurf]

As for software I recommend brewfather, I imagine it's more modern and user-friendly than most other software in this genre.

 

[Leezer]

I like using Brewer’s Friend, found it to be not so overwhelming.

 

[Soulshine2]

So I got Beersmith and wow you guys are just on another level of me hahaha I didnt understand half of the info it was asking me. I know I am new, only 1 brew day (2 batches) but it made me feel so overwhelmed.

Ok, if you dont understand it, slow down. Take a step back to where youre comfortable in understanding what youre doing ,when,how long and why. Do you understand why your grainbill has to be what it is ? I mean you need base malts and then add a couple others so you'll have conversion and dimension. You need a certain temperature at and for a specific amount of time for that to work correctly (conversions/rests) You need a bittering hop and an aroma hop. Each are added at specific times to do their job correctly. All this comes to a IBU reading ,and gravity reading or BU/GU ratio to have a balanced beer. Not too malty ,not too hoppy. Theres more factors than what I have listed but the basic idea is there. water, starches converted to sugars, hops for flavor and aroma, the proper yeast for style /flavor ,time.
When I started I immediately went to trying to build a recipe before I knew what needed to be in it. Had I brewed what I had put together on paper it would have been awful .

 

[eric19312]

The learning curve on Beersmith is pretty high for new brewers but it does a lot of stuff pretty well once you get the hang of it. I started out on Beer Alchemy and used it for about 4 years before changing. Forget my main reason for changing but a key factor was I appreciated Beersmith's committment to the hobby and the software. He runs it as a business which I like...he has a profit generating model which I believe gives him the ability to make a full time job out of maintaining and advancing the platform. The one feature I miss is ability to store photos. I really liked being able to keep competition score sheets and photos of the finished beer in the data files. Maybe it is a storage issue but a good digital note taking platform should really include photos.

 

[HiImBrian]

So I got Beersmith and wow you guys are just on another level of me hahaha I didnt understand half of the info it was asking me. I know I am new, only 1 brew day (2 batches) but it made me feel so overwhelmed.

Get your google on! There is a ton of info out there with regards to setting up a profile etc. You got this!

BS can be a bit overwhelming, but just know that you'll be able to grow with the program. It's helpful for the first timer as well as the pro level.