Hey Guys,

Just wanted to add Brewing Software to your software to your list

BrewMate, the free, light-weight and easy-to-use beer recipe designer.
http://www.brewmate.net

Many Thanks Rob.

First of all, thanks for posting this. I'm gathering that it's your program?

I downloaded this as soon as I saw it posted. I already have Beersmith, but I'm always interested in checking out Freeware brewing software. I really like this program, but it does need a few fixes.

Here's a few of the issues that I have with it.

No support for U.S. Standard measurements: While I understand that we represent a small portion of the world's population, it would be nice not having to try to convert all my recipe's on the fly.

Style numbers before Style names: With an hour or two to spare, I could fix this to my liking, as it is a user editable field. However, I thought I would mention it here. When I use the Beer Style pulldown button, it would be much easier for me to type 'R' for Robust Porter or 'W' for Witbier, and be taken to that part of the alphabet where I can select the correct beerstyle. The way you have it set with the style numbers in the front, I have to know that Witbier is style 16A. I think the vast bulk of brewers, myself included, know beer by their style names, not their style numbers.

Grain Bill Percentages: I actually love the way that your program figures out the weight of grain needed when you put in the percentages. It seems like it'd be really nifty for doing clone brews and the like. However, if I want to put a certain amount of a specialty grain in a beer (say .3 kg) I don't want to have to figure out what percentage .3 kg of malt is. Maybe make a user selectable box that would let you switch between percentages and weights?

Grain and Hops pulldown screens: For some reason, the Grain and Hops pulldown screens don't allow alphabetic fast keys. I.E. - I type 'P' and the menu skips down to that section. This is a huge nuisance for anyone who is used to these types of pulldown screens.

***BUG ALERT***
When you have multiple grains/extracts on your grain bill, then delete one, if you then press on the Potential Extract banner at the top, the program will continue to delete other grains. For some reason the delete button stays highlighted and continues to operate even though Potential Extract is a non user selectable button. This also happens with the hops if you push on the Alpha, grams, %, Boil Time, or IBU banner after first deleting a hop.
Also, as a preference, I'd say that it's way too easy to accidentally delete a grain or hop from the recipe. Maybe a popup 'are you sure you want to delete XXXX' screen would be beneficial.

This is a fantastic program, for sure! It just needs a few tweaks to make it more user friendly.

Hello Dave,

Yes BM is a Project i've been working on.

Thank you much for taking the time to check out and review BrewMate, I must say your words are worth their weight in gold to me. Part of the reason that I released the program to the public yesterday was because i was looking for feedback, I have been using it myself for sometime but figured i may have had my blikers on in reguard to a few things.

I whole heatedly agree with all of your comments and have all ready started working on implementing them asap.

I have also Fixed the bug you pointed out and it's available on the BrewMate website for Dowload!

Once again many Thanks

Rob.

Hey Guys,

Got a couple more things knocked off the Dave's list

* style names are now in alphabetical order for easier / quicker finding
* alphabetic fast keys are enabled for all pull down menu's

i've started some ground work on the other two suggestion (but they will take a fair bit of time to code / test)

so that's 2 out of 4 suggestions nailed and 1 bug squashed

i've updated it and it's on BrewMate website for Dowload.

Rob.

Wow, you certainly don't waste any time. I'll have to check it out again.

BTW please, please, please post back when/if you add support for U.S. measurements!

A few things.

For some reason Witbier has disappeared from the Style list. Possibly others too, but Witbier for sure.

The grain bug seems to have been eliminated. However, the (should be) non selectable banner icons for the hops are still set to delete. Double click on 'Alpha' and it'll give you a popup asking if you would like to delete this row.

All in all, I think the changes you've made are a huge improvement to an already pretty sweet program. I really think you're on to something here.

For some reason Witbier has disappeared from the Style list. Possibly others too, but Witbier for sure.

Ahh yes your right, all it takes is one mis placed bracket!

sorted and on the site.

The grain bug seems to have been eliminated. However, the (should be) non selectable banner icons for the hops are still set to delete. Double click on 'Alpha' and it'll give you a popup asking if you would like to delete this row.

ditto - right again, i just tested the new code on grains and applied the same logic to the hops but didnt retest it, been a long day server meltdown at work

UPDATE - ahh sorted the hops now too..

All in all, I think the changes you've made are a huge improvement to an already pretty sweet program. I really think you're on to something here.

Yes I Agree, some great ideas and testing on your part!


Speak soon
Rob.

edit - the quotes didn't work too well on this forum for some reason so went the bold route for replies

Yeah,
The quotes used to work but this template doesn't deal with them well. Bold is a good idea.
Matt

Hey Guys,

I've just uploaded the BrewMate version (V1.00) for you to have a look at

http://www.brewmate.net/release//BrewMateSetup.exe

Enhancements

* Added US Internationalization

Full Support for Gallons (G), Fahrenheit (*F), Ounces (oz) & Pounds (lb) throughout the program.

NOTE to existing users, your settings will not be overwritten by this (or any future updates)

Cheers Rob.

P.S. I'm especially interested to hear what Dave thinks about this version as he was such a good help last time

Halfluck wrote:P.S. I'm especially interested to hear what Dave thinks about this version as he was such a good help last time

Happy to oblige!

My initial thoughts, just scratching the surface, are pretty favorable as far as the format goes. The display is pretty easy to use, which is nice, and I like that you can switch from using grain by weight to grain by percentage at the push of a button.
The Timers are a very handy addition to the program, and something I hadn't really thought about before. I'm not sure how difficult the programming would be, but it would be very nifty to have the boil timer give you an alert whenever it's time to add hops. Of course, it's not really needed, but it would be a nice program feature.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a few problems with your calculator. I did a simple recipe using 5 lbs of Munich I (7.1 Lovibond at 1.038 Potential Extract) and 1 ounce of Ahtanum Leaf hops (5.2 alpha boiled for 60 minutes). I plugged this recipe into both BrewMate and Beersmith using a 5.5 gallon batch. Here's what I came up with:
OG Estimate:
BM - 1.026 BS - 1.026 <- Perfect!
Color Estimate in SRM:
BM - 9.2 BS - 5.4 <- Error. Check your SRM formula.
Bitterness in IBUs using Tinseth:
BM - 22.6 BS - 18.6 <- There seems to be about a 10 to 20 percent difference between Beersmith and BrewMate's Tinseth calculations. It's actually not a terribly significant difference flavor-wise, but this number should be much closer, all other things being equal. Did you include the 'Bigness' factor in the Tinseth calculations?

Once the SRM and IBU calculations are ironed out, I think this will be an excellent brewing tool.

Hey Dave,

Thanks for the reply,

SRM calculations sorted!, Boil & Mash timer also give you alerts for Hop / Misc Additions.

Just having a look at the Tinseth Calculation and yes it does use a Bigness Factor:

Bigness factor = 1.65 * 0.000125^(wort gravity - 1)

The formula i used was found here ==> http://www.realbeer.com/hops/FAQ.html

I'm not sure why it is slightly higher, I wonder he uses the Preboil OG in his bigness factor and Promash uses the mid boil OG and i'm using the end Boil OG, In reality the OG should be when the addition was added.

I Just Plugged your Same Recipe into Promash as Comparison

PM = 1.026
PM = 21.4 IBU using Tinseth
PM = 5.4 SRM

Cheers Rob.

Ok, I took my Tinseth formula from here:
http://www.realbeer.com/hops/research.html
For which this comment is pertinent:

Glenn Tinseth wrote:The Bigness factor accounts for reduced utilization due to higher wort gravities. Use an average gravity value for the entire boil to account for changes in the wort volume.

Of course, as I said before, it really makes very little difference to the actual final flavor. None of these formulas are correct across the board. My goal when making the Homebrew Alchemist was just to reflect the intentions of the creator of the formula as accurately as possible. As Glenn said himself, "Your experience and brewing practices may be different than mine so here's the official disclaimer: Your Mileage May Vary (YMMV)."

Thanks again for the reply Dave, I've now changed the Tinseth Calculation to use an Average OG. Running your recipe thru it again and the IBU is 22.37 (still higher than BS) I wonder if it's something to do with the Tinseth Concentration Factor Srtting?

Cheers Rob.

Hmmm, I just punched the recipe into Homebrew Alchemist, just to see what I came up with, and it gave me 18.6 IBUs, same as Beersmith. Again, it's really hardly relevant, but I'm curious where the differences lie between Beersmith, Promash, and BrewMate given the fact that they are all using the same Tinseth formula.

Looking through the inner workings of the Homebrew Alchemist's Tinseth calculations, this is what I've come up with:
-Homebrew Alchemist and Beersmith both utilize a Boil Volume setpoint, so that calculations are made in such a way that your mash/sparge water additions won't overfill your boil kettle. I don't see where BrewMate does a sparge water calculation. How is BrewMate calculating preboil wort gravity?
-Homebrew Alchemist (and presumably Beersmith, as the IBU calculations are invariably the same) uses the Preboil Wort Gravity in the Bigness Factor calculations, not the Average Wort Gravity During the Boil, as I originally posted. Even using the Post Boil Gravity in this portion of the formula for this recipe only gives me a .4 IBU loss, though. Hardly appreciably.
-For this recipe, my utilization at a preboil gravity of 1.024 is .291, my boil factor is .219, and my Bigness Factor is 1.330. Using this formula =Utilization*(Hop Ounces*((Alpha Acid Units/100)*7490/Batch Size)))), I end up with 20.7 IBUs for Pellet Hops. I subtract 10% of that number to give me Leaf Hops at 18.6 IBUs. What are the numbers you're getting from BrewMate with this recipe? I can only assume that your calculated utilization is markedly higher than mine?

At this point, I'm really just curious as to what is different about the IBU calculations between the programs.