Brewer's Friend Home Brewing Software

Migrating Your Recipes from Beersmith To Brewer’s Friend

Exporting recipes from Beersmith and into Brewer’s Friend is simple and straightforward.   When you are in the Beersmith program, you will have two options for exporting your recipe files.    The “Export All” command exports all of the items in the current view or folder to a file which you can save to your computer or email to other brewers.

The “Export Selected Items” choice exports only the items you have selected in the current view.  You can select multiple items by holding the Ctrl key while you click on the items you are choosing.  The blue highlights in the view above show the chosen recipes.

Beersmith files have a *bsmx file extension which can be directly imported into Brewer’s Friend, or you can import those files as BeerXML files (with a .xml extension) as well.   Brewer’s Friend accepts either one of those file formats, so you can also import ANY .xml files into Brewer’s Friend from other software programs or from recipes on the internet that have an .xml file type.

After you choose the “export all” or “export selected”, the following screen will appear: 

Choose the file type that you would like to use for importing.   Either *.bsmx or *.xml will work in Brewer’s Friend.   Save to your computer or the cloud as in a dropbox if you have a very large number of recipes.  In this case, this file was saved to the desktop for ease in finding it again.

Open your internet browser, and go to Brewersfriend.com. 

Log into your account, and choose “Tools” in the orange tool bar.

Then choose “Import Recipes” in the dropdown.

A screen will appear, telling you to choose a file, or to drag it into the box.

You also have a choice about what to do with ingredients in the recipe that may not have an exact match in Brewer’s Friend.   When importing from Beersmith, the bottom box should be checked, as this will allow those unmatched items to be listed in your recipe:

When you have made your selection here, scroll back up a little and once you have chosen the file(s) to import, click “import”.

When the import is finished, the new recipes will be listed in your dashboard under “My Recipes”.

You’ll see that a notice will say:  “! Recipe just imported, Edit and Save to fill in stats.”

Click on the title of the first recipe you wish to save in Brewer’s Friend.   Then, click “edit” on the right side near the top of the screen.

That will bring up the full recipe and here you can save it.   You can also choose whether to make this recipe public (shared) or private by moving the slider (see below).

Once you click save, this recipe will be in “My Recipes” in Brewer’s Friend as one of your regular recipes.

That’s all there is to it!  It’s quick, easy, and enables you to keep your entire Beersmith recipe files on our cloud.  Cheers!

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Tailgating and Homebrew: Two Essential Recipes

Nothing goes with tailgating like great beer. If you need a great beer quick, you can have these beers ready to serve in 10-14 days if you keg and about 21 days if you bottle. All grain recipes are formulated for 70% efficiency.

Dark Mild Recipe

A dark mild is a low-gravity, malt-focused British session ale. It’s refreshing and quaffable and will please both craft beer drinkers and those who think “dark beer” is a craft beer. Full with flavor, it’s approachable and with a low ABV so you can enjoy more than one. This recipe easily goes from grain to glass in 10 days. It’s delightful with a lower carb level, so once you keg it’s easy to quick carb it and serve.

Dark Mild Partial Mash

Notes:

Mash the grains in at 152 in one gallon for 60 minutes, then sparge (rinse) the grains up to your boil volume. Add the first addition of extract, and bring to a boil. Add the first hops addition, and begin timing for 60 minutes. At the second addition of hops with 10 minutes left in the boil, and add the final addition of extract when you turn off the flame.

Dark Mild All Grain

Notes:

Mash at 152 for 60 minutes. Use Irish moss or whirlfloc with 15 minutes left in the boil, if desired. Ferment at 65-68 degrees for approximately one week or until clear and at FG for at least 3 days.

Fizzy Yellow Beer

The “fizzy yellow beer” is an ale version of a crowd favorite. It’s approachable by light beer drinkers, but still with enough flavor to satisfy the beer snob in your midst.

This beer is simple, but simple can be wonderful. It’s a clean tasting beer like a macrobrew, but with a bit more flavor. Still low in alcohol for those “have more than one or two” days, it can be enjoyed during tailgating and throughout the fall.

You can substitute other noble hops for the tettnanger and perle with good results. Magnum is a good bittering hop, just make sure to calculate for the high alpha acids in a different hop variety. Hallertauer would be great, and saaz would also make a fine finishing hop.

Fizzy Yellow Beer Extract

If you can’t find Vienna LME, you can substitute pale LME but the Vienna flavor brings so much to this beer that it should be sought out and used if at all possible.

Notes:

London ale yeast is used for this recipe because it is fairly “clean” at low ale temperatures and leaves a clear beer behind quickly. You can substitute another yeast strain if you have a favorite. Using whirlfloc or Irish moss in the boil will help with having a clear beer quickly. Ferment at 65-68 degrees for about a week, or until the beer is clearing and is at FG for at least 3 days.

Fizzy Yellow Beer All grain

Notes:

London ale yeast is used for this recipe because it is fairly “clean” at low ale temperatures and leaves a clear beer behind quickly. You can substitute another yeast strain if you have a favorite. Using whirlfloc or Irish moss in the boil will help with having a clear beer quickly. Ferment at 65-68 degrees for about a week, or until the beer is clearing and is at FG for at least 3 days.

^Sources:

^{Tailgaiting image by Kipp Jones}

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Brewer’s Friend Recipe of the Week!

We’re starting a new feature here at Brewer’s Friend, Recipe of the Week!

This is going to be based on views so only public recipes will be considered. If your recipe is selected as the week’s top recipe you will receive 1 year of supporting membership here on Brewer’s Friend! We’re going to do this once a week so that’ 52 chances a year to win a supporting membership!

If you posted your recipe anonymously and it is chosen for Recipe of the Week please be sure to contact me. I can see who submitted them, but since you might have decided to keep that private I’m going to respect your wishes, but I’m happy to upgrade you.

So, for the first Recipe of the Week we’re taking a look at Zombie Dust Clone submitted to us via an anonymous member.

Image courtesy of skeeterpleezer of HomeBrewTalk

The original recipe was originally submitted to HomeBrewTalk, but made it’s way to Brewer’s Friend in no time!

Zombie Dust Clone – ALL GRAIN
Method: All Grain
Style: American IPA
Boil Time: 60 min

Image Courtesy of Hockyplr of HomeBrewTalk

Batch Size: 6 gallons (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 7 gallons
Efficiency: 70% (brew house)
Source: skeezerpleezer on Homebrewtalk.com

Fermentables
Amount Fermentable PPG °L Bill %
11.75 lb American – Pale 2-Row 37 1.8 81.7%
1.13 lb American – Munich – Light 10L 33 10 7.9%
0.5 lb German – CaraFoam 37 1.8 3.5%
0.5 lb American – Caramel / Crystal 60L 34 60 3.5%
0.5 lb German – Melanoidin 37 25 3.5%
14.38 lb Total

Hops
Amount Variety Type AA Use Time IBU
0.75 oz Citra Pellet 11 First Wort
1.25 oz Citra Pellet 11 Boil 15 min
1.25 oz Citra Pellet 11 Boil 10 min
1.25 oz Citra Pellet 11 Boil 5 min
1.25 oz Citra Pellet 11 Boil 1 min
3 oz Citra Pellet 11 Dry Hop 7 days

Mash Guidelines
Amount Description Type Temp Time
22 qt Temperature 155 F 60 min

Yeast: Fermentis / Safale – English Ale Yeast S-04
Attenuation (avg): 72%
Flocculation: Medium
Optimum Temp: 59 – 75 °F
Starter: Yes

Image courtesy of Skeeterpleezer of HomeBrewTalk

So what makes this recipe so popular? Aside from being a clone from a very popular commercial brew this is a dead on clone. Many, many brewers have noted how their finished Zombie Dust clone taste like it was straight from the 3 Floyds Brewing Company itself. Although not an original recipe anyone who’s ever developed a clone will tell you that getting all the little nuances of a beer as popular as Zombie Dust is a challenge and one that SkeeterPleezer took on with great results.

From everyone at Brewer’s Friend I would like to thank you for being a member and checking out our newest feature, “Recipe of the Week!”.

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