Brewer's Friend Home Brewing Software

Version 1.04 Launched, Copy and Brew Log

The latest release is now live, which includes:

• Recipe Copy feature activated.  Now you can make copies of your recipes or other recipes that have been shared by others.
• Brew Log feature setup which allows you to record gravity readings, how much volume you collected, tasting notes, etc.
• When starting a Brew Session you may make a snapshot of the recipe (which is essentially a copy of the recipe tied only to the Brew Session). That way if you change the recipe later on, or you need to make a minor edit for just that brew session you know EXACTLY what you brewed.
• The Brew Session page allows you to change the current phase of the brew. The phases are Planning, Brewing, Primary Fermentation, Secondary Fermentation, Conditioning, Ready to Drink, and All Gone.
• Mash steps now visible for Partial Mash style recipes on the Recipe Editor.
• BIAB brew step profile created.

Posted in Announcements | 5 Comments »

Large Batch of American Beer

Brewed an 11 gallon batch of my Blitz Weinhard Clone. This is close to what Blitz probably tasted like originally (not the watered down stuff they produce today). Doing an 11 gallon batch is great. It generates twice as much beer in the same amount of time! It also gives the opportunity to try two different types of yeast on the same exact wort. Contrasting the differences in the finished product will be fun and educational.

The recipe is loaded into the Brewer’s Friend Recipe Builder:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/637

This batch pushed capacity limits of my 15 gallon kettle and 48 quart mash lauter tun. I am not convinced my 15 gallon kettle actually holds 15 gallons. It is more like 14, sort of like how a 2×4 is not really two inches by four inches… At least this kettle is enough for an 11 gallon batch.

In the picture there is a little over 13 gallons in the kettle which still leaves room for the boil. The actual batch volume is 11 gallons. That way there is room for trub losses. The plan is to keg this directly from the primary fermentor after the yeast completely fall out.

When draining to the fermentors, I took a staggered approach. 2.5 gallons into the first one, then 2.5 into the next, and so on until both were full. That way, if there was any stratification going on in the kettle it was mitigated. In one fermentor Safale-05 American Ale is being used. In the other it is Wyeast 1272 American Ale II.

The plan is to do a blind taste test and see if we can tell them apart. Liquid yeast is more expensive than the dry yeast (yet ironically the dry yeast has more cells). For this sort of run of the mill beer, if the liquid yeast doesn’t wow me, I’ll stick with the dry yeast for future batches. Nottingham is another yeast I have used here with success, and it imparted a nice bready flavor.

Posted in Recipes | 8 Comments »

Brew Feature Launched Version 1.03

Hello fellow brewers,
Thank you to the many brewers who have written in with comments and suggestions. The positive feedback has been really great to hear. We have just launched the 1.03 installment of the Brewer’s Friend Recipe Builder which we hope you will enjoy using.

Recipe Builder 1.03 supports the following features the community asked for:

• Other Ingredients section has a units drop down box. Now you can setup a recipe that calls for 1/2 tsp of Irish Moss with 10 minutes left in the boil and 10 quarts of Fresh Blueberries in the secondary. Supports both US and Metric units.
• Mash section improved and clarified.
• Less fields on recipe editor are required, making the tool easier to use.
• Ability to delete recipes under the My Recipes page.
• Ability to set a custom yeast attenuation value. This allows fine tuning of the expected Final Gravity.
• Added additional types of DME/LME to the fermentables drop down (Pilsen, Munich).

This release introduces the Brew Session section.   In the style of our brew day checklists the brew session page computes all the steps neccessary to brew a recipe and generates a customized checklist. This is accessible by clicking the ‘Brew’ tab inside a recipe.  Brew sessions are saved in the system under your account and can be accessed using the new ‘My Brewing’ tab above.

In addition to a brewing checklist, the Brew Session feature computes water requirements for the batch given your equipment profile. How much water to use in all grain brewing can take time to dail in, especially for new all grain brewers. You must be signed up and have an accurate equipment profile for this to work. There are default settings but you will no doubt want to adjust them.  US and Metric units are fully supported.

In our next release, the Brew Session feature will include a brew log where you can record gravity readings, tasting notes, schedule when to rack/package, etc.  Eventually we want to allow customizable and sharable brew steps, but that depends on how many brewers would want that functionality.

What fellow brewers are saying about Brewer’s Friend:

Posted in Announcements | 4 Comments »

Using a mini-fridge as a keezer FAIL

In an attempt to save money, space, and time, I thought it would be a good idea to buy a mini-fridge online for use as a keezer or fermentation chamber. Turned out there was not enough room.

All mini-fridges have a hump inside them where the compressor and fan are located. This eats up some of the usable internal space. The shelves on the door further constrain the internal space. The lesson: going online to buy a fridge/freezer for use as keezer is a bad idea. Sometimes the product description will list internal dimensions, but that’s not enough to go on since the floor might be sloped or the shelves might be in the wrong spot.

The best thing to do is make cardboard cut outs representing the foot print of what you want to put in the fridge. Also note the heights of the containers, leaving room for airlock, hoses, couplers, etc. For example, a corny keg needs 27″ of vertical space to leave clearance for the couplings and is 8-1/2″ – 9″ diameter. Take the cutouts with you to the store and bring a tape measure. Then you can be sure what you are buying will work out.

The humps inside mini-fridges and chest freezers are a real drag. In my keezer, the CO2 tank sits on the hump along with a moisture absorption tray. One trick is to build a 4” collar around the top of the keezer. The hatch will have to be removed and then re-installed when the collar is in place. Often this is enough to take the hump out of the equation so 1 or 2 more corny kegs can be placed inside.

Towards the middle of my project todo list is a fermentation chamber. This is done by removing the door from a mini-fridge and building an insulated box that extends the conditioned space. With a temperature controller, a mini-fridge in this setup can be used for precise temperature control during fermentation. What I’m not sure about is how to safely heat the chamber, in the event it gets too cold in the shed (let’s say I want to keep it at 65F, but outside it is 40F). More on that when I get there.

Posted in Equipment, Kegging and CO2 | 13 Comments »

Recipe Builder 1.02 Launched

Another release just went live.

The 1.02 release includes the following features:

• New and improved Mug icon (the color is dynamically set by the brewing software).
  
• Scale by Efficiency feature launched for All Grain / BIAB / Partial Mash recipes. Uses logic to keep OG the same, while preserving flavor and color balance. This was a bit tricky to get right and feedback would be appreciated.
• Ability to view a recipe as HTML or Text, and download in either format. Check the new buttons on the recipe view page. This way recipes are easier to share by email or in forums.  BeerXML format is on the way (that is a bit more complex though!)
• Darkened up the last 5 SRM values. An SRM value of 40 should be pitch black, and now that is how it should look on most monitors.
• Bug fixes: (ECB color equation, sharing a recipe after the first save, stay signed in now tracks profile information correctly).
• Back end upgrades to libraries.

We’ll get around to posting more beer related blog posts in the near future.  An IPA clone recipe Larry is perfecting is fermenting right now:

Best of luck in brewing next year to all our readers and users!
– Larry

Posted in Announcements | 3 Comments »