Beersmith inventory tools

[Bribie G]

Calling Beersmith users:

I owned Beersmith in the past, until I discovered Brewmate so I let it lapse.
Didn't get too far into it, but one of its features that attracts me is the inventory management. I know it's there but never got that far.

I've had a look on the site and it goes into adding and removing ingredients, building a shopping cart etc.
Now, I take it that every time you do a brew, BS deducts those ingredients from your inventory levels?

If so, is there some way of signalling that you actually MADE that batch and that BS can now deduct from inventory, or alternatively you can signal that this is a spec recipe, so don't deduct anything yet?

Or doesn't BS work that way. A real-time inventory tracker would save me a shitload of digging through the freezer and the grain store to see what I've actually got in my rapidly expanding variety of stock and I'd consider buying BS again.

 

[Tony121]

You have the option of deducting from inventory when you brew - button which says “Remove from Inventory “ from memory. You just don’t press the button if you don’t want to in the case of a spec recipe.

 

[S.E]

Just had a look and there is a button marked Remove Inv and says ‘’remove ingredients in this recipe from inventory’’ when you hover over it. Haven’t ever got around to trying it out myself though.

 

[Mardoo]

Where is that button? Couldn’t find it for the life of me the other day.

 

[Bribie G]

Sounds like a winner; sometimes I almost dread doing a brew and finding that I've got no Caraaroma and that big bag I thought was Roast Barley is Black Patent and WTF happened to all that wheat I thought I had? aarrgghhh. And don't get me started on the hops.

Cheers, will seriously look at migrating back to BS. I reckon it will take me half a day to organise, weigh and enter in all the items but then it's set and forget in between shops.

 

[earle]

I really like the inventory function on Beersmith for that very reason.

I usually keep my working recipes in the main folder, then once brewed I hit the remove from inventory button for the recipe and then move the recipe into a "brew log" sub folder. Helps to have a system so that you know you have removed from inventory but you only do it once.

To help keep track of ingredients, I usually copy the existing generic ingredient (e.g. Magnum Hops) and edit the name to include the purchase month/year which is written on say the hop bag. You can then edit the aa% etc.

 

[Tony121]

Where is that button? Couldn’t find it for the life of me the other day.

Across the top when in a recipe, I’ll grab a photo later if someone else doesn’t get in first.

I find the inventory component works quite well. The only thing I struggle with sometimes is the yeast as I use a frozen vial but build up enough to replenish as well as increase stocks - it just means a count every now and then.

 

[Bribie G]

I take it that you can easily add / edit ingredients - for example the new Lupulin hops? That's one reason I gave up on Brewer's Friend as it was just too clunky.

With yeasts I guess that if you are doing a repitch you let the program deduct from your inventory but then manually add the yeast back in?

 

[Tony121]

I take it that you can easily add / edit ingredients - for example the new Lupulin hops? That's one reason I gave up on Brewer's Friend as it was just too clunky.

With yeasts I guess that if you are doing a repitch you let the program deduct from your inventory but then manually add the yeast back in?

Correct for both questions - easy to add/edit items and manually add yeast back in.

 

[Engibeer]

I used it for a while and gave up, now I just use a simple excel spreadsheet.

 

[Bribie G]

Bloody engineers

(new catch-cry from the QLD case swap).

 

[Bribie G]

Hey do you pay annually or do you just do a one off purchase? I might still be on their system.

 

[earle]

Once off which I think gets you a certain amount of space on their cloud. You can pay subscription if you want more space or access to their recipe database. Guessing you won't want that one though.

 

[warra48]

BeerSmith is a one off purchase.
I paid for BS1 about a decade ago, and another small sum for the upgrade to BS2. Subsequent upgrades have been free, and I haven't paid since. I think there is an extra charge for using the cloud function, but that's of no interest to me.
The inventory function is very easy to use, and adding ingredients is a doddle. There are lots of additional downloads you can add for different maltsters etc, and you can add your own specific items if you wish.
I agree with identifying different batches of hops, and adding in the batch AA% so the program calculates IBUs somewhere close.
I've also set the cost of all my ingredients to $0.00 each, so my brewing is free!

 

[RdeVjun]

Inventory functions in recipator apps scare the crap out of me, I mean I'd have to actually inventory my entire stock of grain, hops, yeast and bibs & bobs- not likely to be a successful enterprise in a month of Sundays. However, I'm sure some folk manage it somehow.

 

[mondestrunken]

I used it for a while and gave up, now I just use a simple excel spreadsheet.

Same. My main issue was with the auto fill-ins in some of the fields, e.g. if you forgot to measure OG or mash pH or something, there's no way of knowing whether you forgot to measure/enter it.
Inventory is a handy feature, but once again, you have to be sure you remembered to remove the ingredients on your busy brew day.

There's no doubt it's good software, but you tend to have to use it exactly the way it was designed, and for every step of the process. I feel it would be good if I had multiple monitors set up in the home-brewery, and bar-code readers for inventory coming in and out, etc. In reality I have recipes, records, and readings across multiple formats including scribbles on pieces of paper. Somehow the two don't seem to play well together.

 

[mtb]

Same. My main issue was with the auto fill-ins in some of the fields, e.g. if you forgot to measure OG or mash pH or something, there's no way of knowing whether you forgot to measure/enter it.

There is a way. The auto-filled fields are a yellowy orange colour, manually completed fields are white. On the Windows version anyway.

 

[Engibeer]

The other thing that annoys me about it is if you deplete the inventory, dry hops etc are immediately depleted. Annoying for me as I always do a double batch split into two cubes and ferment as single batches.

 

[Danscraftbeer]

Gotta have a play now after this info. Never noticed that remove from inventory option so stopped recording into the inventory since it never deducted. I really like the (remove from inventory) option for Grain and Hops to save me the heart ache of eagerly launching into your brew day to your carefully designed new beaut recipe to find, AHHH No!, out of this and that scenario. Re alter the friggen recipe through the brew day....
I wonder how well you can just deduct some things rather than everything. What happens when you have a zero recording on an ingredient then click (remove from inventory) on all the ingredients? Maybe its just the (Customize columns) option? So if you dont have Inventory added to the columns then it wont deduct that type of ingredients? Like water for eg. No point recording water in the inventory etc. I'd skip yeast as well since I culture up most of it. I'd skip minerals too etc.

 

[earle]

It will try to remove everything listed in your recipe - no choosing just some. If there is insufficient of things in your inventory then it gives you a message listing those that are short - at that point gives an option to continue removing everything else or cancel out of the removing step.