"Version" of Brewer's Friend? What do YOU want to see?

Basic and Advanced Mode?


  • Total voters
    15
Put me down for advanced. Here’s a list of wants.
1. Ability for recipes to automatically scale/adjust based on equipment profile.
2. Allow more fluidity in unit usage, I like using metric for grains and hops, standard units (°F for temps and US gals for volumes). Why is it so rigid?
3. Weakest link for me is water/mash guidelines. It’s redundant, I have to play around with it on brew day. This should be easily setup on the recipe screen without bouncing back and forth between screens.
4. Why doesn’t brewersfriend let you know if your grainbill and mash water volume exceeds your mash tun volume? Am I missing something?


That’s all I’ve got for now.

thanks
 
With all of the discussion surrounding the update, we think many of you would like to see the ability to have a simplified Brewer's Friend while an equal number seem to like the advanced features.

We are in discussion about this. We can't really do two completely different versions, however we can add a basic mode and an advanced mode. So you as the user can choose your experience.

One thought is we could have a big toggle between those modes that turns on/off a bunch of individual features. But then each of those features could also be toggle able manually if you want to customize your experience. Or it could be in your settings, so you can always change it later.

What do you think?
And which features are must for a basic experience vs an advanced experience? What are "must haves" for this to work for you, and things that are optional for the advanced mode?

i just want it to work. i don't care about basic or advance. the more i use this software the worse it seems to get. i am about to start look for something else at this point.
 
@Yooper

As gently as I can put it. A basic and advanced mode doesn't seem to be an answer. The issues for us users are that there have been so many bugs and glitches with the last few updates. Something as simple as printing a recipe, became a hot issue with a release from a number of months ago, which took some time to get sorted out. Now with another unproven, apparently untested release, the print a recipe issue is deja vu all over again. The forum is littered threads and posts with people bringing up issues created by the last few releases. Some from previous releases still don't seem to be corrected. Six months ago I was hitting all my numbers, and everything was working the way it was supposed to. There are now so many quirks in the system that, for me, the software only serves to complicate making beer. I am sorry, but I have moved on to another software. Whatever you do, make sure that you beta test the life out of it before releasing anything else.

I will be staying around the forums as this is such a great community, full of great people like yourself. I would not rule out coming back to this software if things get back to some semblance of order.

Kind regards,
Craigerrr

i could not have said it better myself. what software are you switching to? i cant hit a gravity now with all these changes.
 
As a long time homebrewer and user of BF I have found some of the changes to be buggy or confusing and sometimes even mildly counterintuitive. However, I am also a software engineer of 25 years so I understand updating a pay-as-you-go application, feature creep, process revisiting, feature creep, rigorous testing, feature creep, interface design, etc. The amount of good things from BF still far outweigh the bad for me.

I could easily pick 25 people randomly that use BF somewhat regularly and probably end up with about 25 different methods and ways of brewing because, well, that's what we do. There are so many ways of doing what we do it's probably impossible to quantify. Creating software and tools to help with brewing is an overwhelming endeavor by virtue of individual style, process and methodology. Mix all of that together and you have quite an undertaking and the slightest modification or change to something will inevitably tick someone off.

I brew about 20 all-grain 5gal batches a season (April to October for me here in New England brewing outdoors). I develop tons of recipes (most of which never see the light of day) and I have a pretty solid and complex process. It's challenging to have to deal with bugs/issues with BF because I brew practically every week or so and I don't have a lot of time to fiddle with things. On the same token the amount of batches and complexity also means I don't really want to change software either. Quite honestly, Brewfather, Beersmith and some of those other "competitive" products are not much better and they have their share of bugs, weird-isms and inexplicable UI choices. But what they do have is the ability to cater to those processes and methods that some of us hold near and dear. BF works for some, Brewfather works for others, etc. I'm not going to jump ship any time soon because it's fruitless, futile and doesn't put me in a better place. If you are going to go to another app, then go there and brew awesome stuff. If you are going to stay and be a part of helping BF, then stay, help and brew awesome stuff. There's a solution out there to how BF can get back on track and it will be found. It's frustrating but attainable.

My opinion on a new approach is to keep things simple and focus on the current pain points. Focus on the things that are the bigger picture headaches like some folks mentioned above. Take the core parts of the software (grain, water, hops, yeast, mash, brew steps, etc) and give them a once over for fixes and corrections, then see how they work together and go from there. After that, a solution on handling the feature set will present itself.

For what it's worth, I'm into the advanced features like efficiency, water profiles, yeast population, grain modification, protein rests, sacch rests, hop utilization, trub and boil off losses, strict fermentation temps, branded ingredient information and all of the other fun things that make this a hobby. Which is what it is at the end of the day. An expensive hobby :)
 
We DO have a beta testing area of our site, and we're making changes in how it's going to be presented. In the past, we've just made a list of what's on beta, without explaining it fully I think.

So from now on, every time we have any hotfix or any change, we'll put it on the changelog for all to see, as well as list things specifically in the beta test forum to look at and test. We're happy to invite anyone interested to be a beta tester, so if you're interested I'd be happy to add you to the list. It will allow you to see the 'beta testers forum' area of this forum as well as give you access to the beta site.
I am interested in being added to the list.
 

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