New Brunswick Craft Brewers Association
Brewing => Equipment => Topic started by: Gil Breau on February 24, 2011, 09:51:33 AM
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Who uses what here, if any?
I found BrewMate http://www.brewmate.net/ last night and started playing with it. Seems pretty solid for a lightweight program.
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I've been using BeerSmith for about 10 months or so.
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I use http://beercalculus.hopville.com (http://beercalculus.hopville.com) -- simple + effective, although it's not got some of the more complicated features.
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I've been using Strange Brew - I wouldn't say it's anywhere beyond "ok" at best. There are plenty of shortfalls and glitches. I'm thinking of switching to something else.
http://www.strangebrew.ca/
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we should compile a list of what our wants and needs are for brewing software
Simplicity
OG Temp converter to get the true OG
Mash Temp Calculator
Water to grain ratio for mashing
Recipe generator ( we select the grains and hops we have and it spits out a recipe based on BJCP guidlines)
Recipe formulator (we set the weight of grains and hops to what ever we like)
Now beer tools has most of these features but it lacks the mash temp calculator and Water to grain ratio and also OG temp
Pro mash has all of these but is a very sluggish program its a shame we couldnt find something like Promash but in Beertools format !!!
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I find BeerSmith has pretty much all of that. I mean, it won't spit out a recipe based on your inventory, b/c there's just too many combinations available (not to mention that the simple recipes are usually the best ones), but otherwise it does everything.
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Brewmate has all of that minus the generator. Its freeware too.
Its pretty lightweight, store able on a flash drive to carry round if need be. It's got Strike water , Refraction , OG correction, Carbonation, and Boiloff calculators, plus a couple others too.
It's got a features page and screenshots as well if you're interested.
I DLed an android app called Brewzor too, but the functionality of it is wonky still.
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Im starting to get the hang of Beertools now after downloading the trail 2 weeks ago. They even sent me a 10% discount to buy the software, which I likely will. It has a steep learning curve, but it seems like a powerful program. You can even program in all the parameters for your own equipment, which I will be doing this weekend.
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How much is it?
I was thinking after I get the hang of this I might upgrade to a more complete program
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I use promash.
It has a bit of a learning curve as well.
Help files were very informative.
http://www.promash.com/ (http://www.promash.com/)
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Has anyone ever seen / used Brewblogger? I downloaded / installed this on a home server, it can operate as a club edition... it seems very cool, keeps track of a lot of things in the process, can export / import beer xml recipes, although I have no experience with AG brewing so I'm not sure if the calculators, etc... are any good...
http://www.brewblogger.net/index.php?page=test_drive (http://www.brewblogger.net/index.php?page=test_drive)
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Nice find. I'll get it (the club edition) running on the site later today. Long live free software ;)
Slainte!
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Is this the one I PMed you a month or so ago when we talking about inventory management?
I know they were supposed to be including a stock/inventory module soon, dunno if they did it yet.
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The developer suggested version 2.4 would likely have the inventory module - its been asked for a few times...
From the Todo page:
Upcoming Release Features
The following are in the works for future BrewBlogger releases.
* Inventory management
o An entire new section where users can track their brewing inventory from grains, to hops, to yeast cultures.
o As brewblogs are entered, the inventory tracker will automatically deduct the amount used in the brewblog from the appropriate inventory store.
o Alerts when inventory gets l
* Commercial beer/mead/cider tasting review section for "commercial calibration."
o Will be based upon accepted BJCP judging methodology.
o Will include a star rating system and comments.
* Documentation for 3rd party theme development.
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So still wokring on it.
Its interesting software for sure, but with that I'd definately want it for use :)
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Gil: maybe, although I don't recall having seen it before. It's entirely possible I skimmed over your message without due diligence as I'm often real busy :oops:
Since it's free software, and it's a web application, that's two thumbs up for installing it. Better still -- being open source means we can bolt on our own tweaks as we see fit.
Here's hoping they throw in the inventory bit before I have to :lol:
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It looks really neat.
I've been blogging here and there with my brewing, but if we have the tools here I'd probably do it more consistently. But that inventory tool looks totally what we were looking for for easing bulk ordering :P
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Ok I've installed it (www.craftbrewing.ca/brewblog (http://www.craftbrewing.ca/brewblog)) but there are a few things I need to change before I'm comfortable with taking users on... I'll let you know once I've managed to address these problems (mostly security and style related).
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brew: are you a coder? I could use a hand (time rather than expertise, don't worry if you're newbie) sorting this out.
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brew: are you a coder? I could use a hand (time rather than expertise, don't worry if you're newbie) sorting this out.
Hi Richard - I have extensive experience with web apps - code and architecture and would be happy to assist if I can...
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bloody excellent (that's my day job atm as it happens).
Got Skype? PM me your ID -- I'll be in touch :)
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Just some additional info - from the brewblogger forum on sourceforge. As a side note, the second response is from the author of http://www.brewcompetition.com/ (http://www.brewcompetition.com/) - another interesting site and perhaps could inspire a club related activity?
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kmasaryk
2011-04-13 14:58:08 UTC
I'm currently in the middle of what's turned into a fairly significant rewrite to how ingredients are stored in the database. The overall goal to this is that it'll make extending the system to handle inventory management and tracking much easier. It's basically a first step to getting there so...it's in progress.
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gpzhumphreyProject Admin
2011-04-13 15:49:33 UTC
Kevin has been doing the heavy lifting in getting the next version off the ground as of late (thanks Kevin!), as my attention has been focused on the next version of BB's sister project, Brew Competition Online Entry (soon to have "and Management" added to its title). In any case, inventory management is being considered heavily for the 3.0 conversion release, if not sooner given Kevin's dedication to the project.
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:o
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I had a couple of concerns regarding the potential for security holes in a non-popular piece of PHP. I need to go through the code a little to convince myself that they've taken at least rudimentary measures to avoid that; I'm also running a new instance of mysql (essentially a jailed instance) for the database. brew: it was largely the auditing process I was hoping for help with, but also some style modifications (it's ugly as f***).
I've added you on skype; hit me up when you can.
edit: I suspect we could shorten this by talking to the authors directly.
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Reviving an old thread here...
I downloaded BeerSmith2 and it seems to have a bucketload of tools embedded in it. I've used it for my competition ale and I've been quite impressed. Anybody use it extensively, just deciding if I should shell out the sheckles to use it beyond the trial period.
JQ
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fwiw the BrewBlog is supposedly undergoing a re-write by its authors, which should fix some of the issues I'd previously whined about.
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Reviving an old thread here...
I downloaded BeerSmith2 and it seems to have a bucketload of tools embedded in it. I've used it for my competition ale and I've been quite impressed. Anybody use it extensively, just deciding if I should shell out the sheckles to use it beyond the trial period.
JQ
I paid for BeerSmith 1.4 and have been very happy with it. I downloaded v2 and tinkered some, it seems pretty good too. Not good enough to warrant paying to upgrade 1.4 to 2.0, but if you're without software, I would give a good grade to the BeerSmith software and have no issue with the value-for-dollar.
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I use the free version of Beer Tools and it is good enough, but not great. I'll give something else a try before getting the full version of Beer Tools.
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I have been having pretty good luck with our Brew Blogger web site. I find between the water amounts calculator, and the strike temp calculator I do OK. If I need another temp calc, I often check with the beer calculus web site (multi-step infusion calcs are good for like protein rest I believe)... I think its nice to have the Brew blog site as it makes it easy to share recipes and see other peoples work... it could be better for integrating calculator output to a recipe though. The mash profiles are static as well - would be nice if it could be populated by the calculators...