Feature Requests Archive A

[nifty]

I believe that if you add an ingredient, then hit Edit, you will change the ingredient in that recipe without changing the original database, correct me if I'm wrong. It seems that when I've done this, then gone back to the database, the default %AA is still there. I don't create new items just to use a hop with a different %aa.

Fair enough, but you still have to make the change instead of just adding an already created item.

I also like to have all my different grains together at the top of the list, so when I create a recipe, all I have to do is open the ingredients list and select from the top, not hunt around the whole list looking for different malts. I rename the item like "01. Joe White Trad Ale Malt" "02. Joe white Light Munich" "03. Thomas Fawcett Crystal" etc.

Also, if an inventory function is implemented later down the track, then there should be an ingredient listing for each item in stock, and making a copy of an existing item and changing it is easier than creating a new one.

cheers

nifty

[billvelek]

snip ... I also like to have all my different grains together at the top of the list, so when I create a recipe, all I have to do is open the ingredients list and select from the top, not hunt around the whole list looking for different malts. I rename the item like "01. Joe White Trad Ale Malt" "02. Joe white Light Munich" "03. Thomas Fawcett Crystal" etc. ... snip

EXCELLENT idea. Thanks.

Bill Velek

[steinbierz]

I will admit that my frustration with BTP is the result of spending so many years using ProMash and not having enough time at any one sitting to try to figure BTP out. With that said, here are some of the things that I would like to see changed or I am having problems with. I just got through reading through this whole thread and I may repeat some peoples questions more to say "me too" or I may just have forgotten I previously read it...sorry in advance. Also, if i ask a stupid question don't be afraid to say, "Hey, stupid..." I hear it all the time from my wife. Anyway...

I printed out a recipe that I had imported from ProMash to see how it looks in BTP. Here are some of the things I noticed:

1. There doesn't appear to be a summary list of total grain, hops, etc. I like looking back through old recipes to see what my total grain bill was.

2. Just my opinion but I would like to see the ingredients separated out (Grain Bill, Hop Bill, Yeast, etc) rather than in one continious list as you find in most cooking recipes.

3. It frustrated me with ProMash and I find the same thing in BTP...it would be nice (in most cases) if a section was not split but instead carried to a new page. Example: my Schedule section only has Schedule: on the first page and then the rest of the info on the next page. What I would really find more useful is if I could edit the print-out myself so that I could group things in a way that works for me personally.

4. It would be nice to be able to print-out only the sections I want at the time. A lot of times my working brewday print-out is different than the final print-out that I put in my 3-ring binder.

5. I tend to agree with others that have said being able to set system defaults (changable in each recipe if need be) would be easier than templates.

If these are all things that are already in the program and I just missed them, sorry for wasting bandwidth.

[billvelek]

I realize that we have a Notes section, but I would find it very helpful if an additional small text-field were added to the upper portion of the session screen, near the identifying info, perhaps to the right of the glass of beer. The field could be called "Comment" and could be used by folks in different ways. It would be like a second "Notes" field, but smaller and handier because it would print on the first page for easier comparison with other identifying data, etc. I would put my batch number in there so that I could keep track of my beers and perhaps compare two attempts at the same recipe. Or just know that a particular batch is in bottles with caps that say "23" or whatever. Or I might want to indicate what recipe I had modified to come up with this one, e.g. "Used Recipe X,Y,Z".. Or just make a comment like: "Excellent batch" or "Too bitter", or something like that, that I want to see at the top of front page and not have to look in my Notes section.

Thanks.

Bill Velek

[steinbierz]

I realize that we have a Notes section, but I would find it very helpful if an additional small text-field were added to the upper portion of the session screen, near the identifying info, perhaps to the right of the glass of beer. The field could be called "Comment" and could be used by folks in different ways. It would be like a second "Notes" field, but smaller and handier because it would print on the first page for easier comparison with other identifying data, etc. I would put my batch number in there so that I could keep track of my beers and perhaps compare two attempts at the same recipe. Or just know that a particular batch is in bottles with caps that say "23" or whatever. Or I might want to indicate what recipe I had modified to come up with this one, e.g. "Used Recipe X,Y,Z".. Or just make a comment like: "Excellent batch" or "Too bitter", or something like that, that I want to see at the top of front page and not have to look in my Notes section.

Thanks.



Bill Velek

I like this idea. With ProMash, unless you put the batch number in the recipe name there is really no way to put that info at the top of the print-out. I have handwritten in every batch number (in about 100 pitch "Black Sharpie" ) at the top for all of my recipes. It gets the job done but little things like this would sure be handy.

[billvelek]

I know that you agree with me, and you are correct that it's easy enough to add hand-written notes to printouts. But for Jeff and company to appreciate the value of this, let me say that, while I'll have other handwritten notes on printouts, I don't really want to have to page through my hardcopy files at the same time I peruse my BTP computer files just so I can have the more important notes -- the very brief comments -- handy at a glance. I think that features like this is what really polishes a program and makes a big difference when considering one against another.

And I actually have another, more useful suggestion for something that could be put in the empty space to the right of the beer glass. How about the ability of a user to put a hyper-text link to another file there -- like a "Compare To" field. That way, if I use someone else's recipe, and then change data out of necessity -- such as if I have different rates of efficiency or attenuation, or make some minor modifications, substitution of grains, etc. -- and RENAME my batch, of course -- I'll still have a handy link to the original recipe for comparisons. That will also work if I am trying to make minor changes to my own recipe and want to compare the results: final gravity, bitterness, etc. Or, for that matter, I could save the original recipe, and then the ACTUAL results as two different files with a handy link from one to the other. The idea is that a user could just double-click on the "Compare To" link, and BTP would open a new session containing the other recipe or session. Then the user could switch back and forth or split screens, as he prefers, to compare the two. The alternative is to keep that info in the notes section, but then have the added inconvenience of finding the file, etc. Just more 'bells and whistles', but somethiing I would find convenient and useful. Maybe that's something that could be included in the next major upgrade.

Cheers.

Bill Velek

[JPinAZ]

What about adding parti-gyle calculations to the schedule feature?

[DaMango]

Last week I brew with the help of Beertools. Quite useful in many way. My main suggestion would be to add a better logging system. I had to write my notes, starting gravity,etc. in another program, because I didn't found something useful to do it on Beertools pro. I only found a "Note" tab where I could write comments but doesn't help much, because is very small and have to scroll a lot to read what you wrote. It think it would be more useful if it could be displayed in a floating window. It would be useful to be able to log the fermentation progress. All in all a very useful program. Keep the good work.

BTP,

I find myself doing the same thing. I'm currently using BTP "eye candy" GUI to generate my recipes and BeerSmith checklist for brewing sessions.
Adding a chronological "task/checklist" with areas to record data and/or notes for use during brew day will surely be a "BEER TOOL" feature in BeerTools Pro.

Okole Maluna (Bottom Up!),
DaMango

[jawbox]

BTP,

I find myself doing the same thing. I'm currently using BTP "eye candy" GUI to generate my recipes and BeerSmith checklist for brewing sessions.
Adding a chronological "task/checklist" with areas to record data and/or notes for use during brew day will surely be a "BEER TOOL" feature in BeerTools Pro.

Okole Maluna (Bottom Up!),
DaMango

I'd love to see a brew day report similar to beersmith to keep you on track.

Later,
jaw

[FrugalBrewer]

I would like to see a scaling feature built into the standalone that will adjust grain-bill/extract and hop additions automatically.

Sometimes I like to brew 5 gallons, sometimes 10, sometimes 3 for experimental reasons.

If the feature is in inside BTP, I dont see it.

(I see a similar feature in My Beertools, but what if I have an established recipe in BTP that I want to scale up or down?)

[FrugalBrewer]

#1) It would cool if there was the ability to compare a recipe to a closest match style.

Say I build a recipe from available inventory, click a tool and have BTP tell me what the recipe most closely resembles.

#2) Similar to #1 above. Say I open my inventory, it would be cool to click a button and have BTP make recommendations based on what is available in inventory and compares to saved recipes, if not the online DB. (I recognize the latter may be too resource consuming for the server.)

[PieOPah]

I would like to see a scaling feature built into the standalone that will adjust grain-bill/extract and hop additions automatically.

Sometimes I like to brew 5 gallons, sometimes 10, sometimes 3 for experimental reasons.

If the feature is in inside BTP, I dont see it.

(I see a similar feature in My Beertools, but what if I have an established recipe in BTP that I want to scale up or down?)

Next to you batch size there is a check box. If you tick this it will activate a drop down box which has lock or scale in it. If you choose scale and change the batch size it will scale the ingredients....

[billvelek]

I don't think this has been suggested yet, and would be a great asset to those who want to be very accurate to beer styles: expand the style data base to include data on the best carbonation rate and best serving temperature for a particular style, and then also expand the 'calculator -- CO2 tab' as well as the 'carbonation' tab at the bottom of the session window, to either automatically compute, as a default, the rate of carbonation for the beer style of the current session recipe, or otherwise provide a drop down menu or something like that for the user to indicate that he/she is carbonating style 'xyz'. A bar graph on the carbonation display, similar to the bar graphs in the style display, would be great, too.

In the past I have just primed every one of my beers, regardless of style, with the standard 3/4 cup of sugar per 5 gallons of beer that has been generally recommended. However, I think I will probably improve my beer a bit if I were to carbonate it to the correct volume of CO2 for a particular style; this matter was brought to my attention by a recent post in rec.crafts.brewing which mentioned that John Palmer's "How to Brew" book contains a 'nomograph' for that purpose. Sure, I could buy his book to get that, but I don't need another book; and then I would always need to transfer data/settings between it and BTP each time I use it, and also have to keep track of where I laid down the book when I last used it, ... or I could have a very polished BTP program that does it for me. Without that additional touch, the carbonation feature seems to me to be somewhat incomplete because the 'Volumes of CO2' are pretty much meaningless and useless to me without at least the correct style data (i.e., in the style database) to compare it to.

Thanks.

Bill Velek

[JPinAZ]

Bill, you don't need to buy the book.

www.howtobrew.com

Here's the monograph you mention.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter11-4.html

[billvelek]

Bill, you don't need to buy the book.

www.howtobrew.com

Here's the monograph you mention.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter11-4.html

Thanks, JP. I loaded the image, stretched it to 200% on both axis and printed it out. Of course, even if it's accurate, it is no substitute for what BTP could do with this; for one thing, the nomograph is only in Fahrenheit degrees (which is fine by me), and has just two primers (cane and corn sugars) versus the BTP carbonation calculator which also includes 3 DMEs as primers. But the most important thing that is lacking, now that I have the nomograph, is the data of which CO2 volumes correspond to which beer styles. This should be easily incorporated into the BTP database.

Anyway, I thought I'd compare this to BTP, so I opened a session with exactly 5.0 gallons of Final Volume, and then used both the BTP 'calculator - CO2 tab' as well as the 'carbonation' tab at the bottom of the session window (their calculations match each other). However, the BTP results do not match John Palmer's Nomograph, so there is a dispute right there. If you have the nomograph, try this: I put a dot on the temperature line at exactly 70F, and then I put a dot on the primer line -- using the 'cane sugar' side for increments -- at exactly 6 ounces of cane sugar; those are the settings I have entered in BTP. Now, using a ruler to connect the dots, my printout shows my ruler crossing the 'Volumes of CO2' line at pretty darn close to 3.4 -- in fact, I'd say it shows exactly 3.4. BTP, on the other hand, shows 3.19 volumes. So I don't know which is right, although I'm more inclined to trust a computer program that uses formulas rather than a graph and my naked eye -- but on the other hand, BTP is new, has had some bugs, and still has a math problem with gravity that hasn't been explained to my full satisfaction.

However, if BTP is generating accurate data, I'd still like to see the carbonation feature expanded to allow users to do something like this because it would be so much more flexible and easier to use than the nomograph.

Cheers.

Bill Velek