BeerTools Discussion Forum

i'll second that bob. I really like to see the mash schedule on there.

Hi, I would like to suggest adding the start temperature in the mash shedule (and printout).

It would make it so much easier to see the strike temperature (rather than having to open the Mash In step window), as well as seeing the intermediary temperatures. I would find it useful as I like to measure the temperature at each stage. ie in the HLT, after transfering from HLT to mash tun, after adding grains etc.

Also, it's not easy to get the temperature after transfering strike water from the HLT to the mash tun - you have to set the heating vessel to None to obtain it.

I am using v1.05

Cheers,
Matt

Hi, I would also like to suggest a new screen which shows the actual efficiency of the brew day - like the efficiency tab on promash.

I find this extremely useful as my %efficiency fluctuates a lot from brew to brew and by determining the actual efficiency I can adjust the recipe accordingly.

In fact, a great feature I've not seen anywhere before would be to suggest corrective measures in the event efficiency or volumes are off.

eg. if you measure efficiency in the kettle and determine you got 10% better than expected efficiency, you might need to add additional water to the boil to maintain OG. Or you might need to add additional bittering hops to maintain flavour balance for the higher OG.

Alternatively, if volumes collected deviated from expected values, you might need to add malt to make up the gravity, or boil longer to reduce volumes.

This sort of feature would help obtain exactly the beer you're after by undertaking pre-boil corrective action.

Matt

matbird411 wrote:Hi, I would also like to suggest a new screen which shows the actual efficiency of the brew day - like the efficiency tab on promash.

After you have taken your OG reading, enter it in the Analysis Tab. This will then automatically adjust your efficiency to its true value.

I think this is a great feature. You build your recipe on an expected efficiency and find out the true efficiency afterwards. You can then add water to adjust.

I think that a dilution calculater would be better. I have x amount of wort with OG of y. If I add x amount of wort/water with y OG what will my new gravity reading be....

This is something I often use with BeerSmith

I find that the ingredient browser is a bit cumbersome to use, especially with complex recipes, having to select each ingredient individually and then mouse all the way down to the corner to click 'add'. (I keep this window very large on a 20" Cinema Display, so there's a LOT of mousing around to be done!)

I'd like to suggest three things that IMO would greatly improve the ease of use of the ingredient browser:

1. Double-clicking the ingredient should add it to the recipe. This would be the most efficient method to browse through the list and add ingredients.

2. We should be able to multiple-select ingredients, and click the 'add' button to add them all to the recipe.

3. Right-click / contextual menus seem to be totally missing from the ingredient browser. (Having an 'add' function in the right-click menu would be very logical.)

Thanks for listening, and I apologize in advance if I'm missing an existing way to do what I'm suggesting!

bpylant

I found that i save most of my scrolling around by using the find feature in the top right corner. Although I do agree being able to add multiple ingredients would be nice.

Right now the one thing that i really don't like is the evap/hr. Anytime you alter the length of boil or the final volume it recalculates the evap/hr %, when it should be recalculating the evap loss. Unless i'm missing something? Shouldn't this be lockable or better still be put in your constants, then just display the info in the recipe screen.

Later,
jaw

PieOPah wrote:

matbird411 wrote:Hi, I would also like to suggest a new screen which shows the actual efficiency of the brew day - like the efficiency tab on promash.

After you have taken your OG reading, enter it in the Analysis Tab. This will then automatically adjust your efficiency to its true value.

Thanks, I didn't know about this feature. I'm not sure I like it however, as it changes the original recipe based on deviations from the plan. I would prefer to keep the recipe as original.

You could always save 2 versions. The original plan and the actual beer. This way you have a record of how you planned the beer and then a record of how it turned out.

PieOPah wrote:You could always save 2 versions. The original plan and the actual beer. This way you have a record of how you planned the beer and then a record of how it turned out.

That's exactly what I do, sort of like the recipe and session files in ProMash. I save the actual brewing session with the name of the recipe plus the date of the session in a different folder. That way I have the original recipe and the actual results of a session and when it was brewed.

jawbox wrote:Right now the one thing that i really don't like is the evap/hr. Anytime you alter the length of boil or the final volume it recalculates the evap/hr %, when it should be recalculating the evap loss.

I agree. What I'd really like to see is the ability have the evaporation rate calculated and displayed as gallons/hr. The evaporation rate for a given system is fairly constant in gal/hr, but %/hr will change with batch size.

ColoradoBrewer wrote:

PieOPah wrote:You could always save 2 versions. The original plan and the actual beer. This way you have a record of how you planned the beer and then a record of how it turned out.

That's exactly what I do, sort of like the recipe and session files in ProMash. I save the actual brewing session with the name of the recipe plus the date of the session in a different folder. That way I have the original recipe and the actual results of a session and when it was brewed.

I'm glad this came up, as I was already planning on submitting it as a feature request:

One of the things I really like about Beer Alchemy is the Brew Day function - basically you have a recipe in the database, and then for each recipe you can record each individual brew session's info, and it's always associated with that recipe. Call up a certain recipe and you can instantly see every batch of it you've ever made (as long as you enter the info each time, of course!). No hunting for other files.

On the whole I like how Beer Alchemy organizes the recipes MUCH better than Beer Tools Pro. Instead of storing individual recipe files wherever they might be saved, Beer Alchemy creates a library database of recipes. You can organize / categorize them however you wish, keep track of individual brew sessions for each recipe, etc. It's really well-done.

I'd love to see some sort of Recipe Manager, as well as adding individual batch notes to the recipe file.

How about a way to change all units in a recipe to or from metric/us instead of having to change each individual setting.. I just downloaded a recipe that has the volume in liters & gallons and the ingredients in kilograms.

One thing I'd like to see in the hop section is what hop should I use for the style of beer I'm making. Also for complete information on hops you might take a look at this site

http://www.hopunion.com/hvcb/index.html

They have complete info on each hop in production. You can download any info you need but the site may want to contact Ralph and ask for a booklet they have produced so you can add this info to your program.

One other item, you could add lactose to list it items used.
Thanks
Earl

[quote="billvelek"][quote="lathe"]Please post feature requests to this topic.[/quote]
Today you announced a new version; I went to my program to check to see whether I had that current version, considering that I had just downloaded it yesterday, and could find no way to determine what version I have. In other program, when I click on "Help" on the menu bar, there is always a selection such as "About Netscape", or "About WordPerfect", etc., that opens a pop-up window with information identifying the version that is running. I'd like to suggest that you eventually incorporate that feature. In addition, I'd like to ask for an automatic update feature so that it isn't necessary to visit the forums to download updates, especially if they are fixing bugs.

Thanks.

Bill Velek
www.velek.com
www.2plus2is4.com [/quote]

Version number under beer tool pro in menu bar, first item about -

earlb4 wrote:Version number under beer tool pro in menu bar, first item about -

I don't know if you're referencing the Mac version, but in the Windows version it's under Window->About Beer Tools Pro. I'm not sure why it's not under Help as it is in every other Windows program I've used (well, the ones I've noticed it in, anyways.)

[quote="JPinAZ"][quote="earlb4"]Version number under beer tool pro in menu bar, first item about -[/quote]

I don't know if you're referencing the Mac version, but in the Windows version it's under Window->About Beer Tools Pro. I'm not sure why it's not under Help as it is in every other Windows program I've used (well, the ones I've noticed it in, anyways.)[/quote]

mac it is, same place on both platforms it looks like