Brewers Friend Recipe Software

[GibboQLD]

Reason I'm resurrecting thread is to ask if anyone knows whether BF now has the ability to delete malts and insert our own (eg BB) as well as customise the hops list in view of the many new hops coming on the market?

Pretty sure you can't do that through the interface, but since the data is all stored in XML it's pretty easy to customise anyway.

Here's a quick demo -- I added a bunch of random hops I'd collected in IanH's calc to the default BMData.xml and it seemed to load fine.

Could do the same with grains & yeasts and theoretically the style guides depending on which guidelines you want to use:

View attachment BMData.xml

 

[mosto]

Necro

Like Nala above I didn't renew as I found the ingredients lists to be very frustrating compared to BrewMate.
I'm still using the original BM that's working fine.

Reason I'm resurrecting thread is to ask if anyone knows whether BF now has the ability to delete malts and insert our own (eg BB) as well as customise the hops list in view of the many new hops coming on the market?

I would really love to have the straightforward aspects of BM whilst also able to design on PC then take my tablet over to the brauhaus.

Not interested in BeerSmith, have bought two official copies in my career and it's just too labyrinthine.

I use Brewers Friend and quite like it. Only ever used BrewMate previously. You can add ingredients through the 'My Inventory' section. Once you're in there, click 'Add Inventory Item'. In the box that comes up you can select 'Custom Fermentable' to add a new fermentable ingredient and it's relevant properties. Same with hops, but just select 'Hops' and you can either select from the list or add your own and put in year and AA details. Same again with 'Yeast' and 'Other', all done through 'My Inventory'.

My only real problem with BF is the numbers calculated in the web version (OG, FG etc) don't always line up when you open the same recipe in the app. Not a huge issue, but a little annoying. I use the web version to calculate recipes, then use the app to record numbers during brew day and fermenting schedule.

 

[Gigantorus]

I've been using Brewers Friend for a month or 2 now and it seems quite reasonable. I paid the US$15 and like what I see. Its easy to use and develop recipes. You also have access to the recipe database of all users, which it also great. I like the "scale" function as well. As it's a Yanky system not all malts like those from Gladfield are on there - back it's easy to add them to your own inventory. Overall so far so good.

 

[Bribie G]

Sounds encouraging. When I first used it, I could enter new ingredients whilst designing a recipe, but they didn't seem to persist from recipe to recipe.
With the XML thingo, I take it you can also delete unwanted ingredients, for example American 2 row, and the change will "propagate" to all your future sessions including the app?

 

[GibboQLD]

Sounds encouraging. When I first used it, I could enter new ingredients whilst designing a recipe, but they didn't seem to persist from recipe to recipe.
With the XML thingo, I take it you can also delete unwanted ingredients, for example American 2 row, and the change will "propagate" to all your future sessions including the app?

Not sure about new recipes through the web app, but changing BMData.xml will affect all future sessions using the Windows App as well as future recipes saved either locally or to the BF website.

Since BF saves/exports in BeerXML format, ingredients are embedded in the recipe file, meaning you could theoretically call each ingredient whatever you like as long as:

• grains/fermentables have a colour & potential extract value (and a type, i.e. grain/extract/adjunct/etc)
• hops have an alpha value
• yeast has an apparent attenuation value
• miscellaneous ingredients have a type and usage

Minor caveat regarding my post above:

Could do the same with ... the style guides depending on which guidelines you want to use

Changing the guidelines would definitely work for locally generated/saved recipes, but I suspect the BF website only uses the BJCP styles and will try to match your recipe against them.

I could probably knock together a basic Excel tool for building a custom BMData.xml file if you're interested, Bribie...

 

[Bribie G]

Thanks Gibbo, I'll pass on that until I've had a play with it myself - my head hurts enough as it is

Thanks for the tips, I'll try them out.

 

[nala]

I did not renew my subscription as I said that I wouldn't.
I don't know where these guys are coming from....an annual subscription for what is no use at all.
This cannot hold a candle to the old version of Brewmate !!!

 

[GibboQLD]

I don't know where these guys are coming from....an annual subscription for what is no use at all.

But how will you delete your recipes now?!

 

[nala]

But how will you delete your recipes now?!

I don't understand your question !
I paid an annual subscription to evaluate the software...never used it for brewing,as I said I still use the free version of Brewmate, have done since it became available.

 

[GibboQLD]

I don't understand your question!

Sorry, was referencing one of the perks of the pricing scheme -- you can create as many recipes/brew days as you like, but you can't delete them unless you have an active subscription...

 

[Bribie G]

What happened to Brewmate anyway?
BF bought it, so have they developed it further and offering a subscription or did they just buy it so they could bury it?

 

[mosto]

My take on it is an American company (who may or may not be the owners of this website), bought BrewMate and developed it into Brewers Friend and slapped a subscription fee on it. I loved BrewMate, but to be honest I'm one of those people who does virtually everything on their phone, so when they brought out the cloud server and linked an App to it, I was happy to pay the subscription.

 

[GibboQLD]

What happened to Brewmate anyway?
BF bought it, so have they developed it further and offering a subscription or did they just buy it so they could bury it?

The BF windows app is essentially BM with some minor modifications/improvements.

 

[eldertaco]

I tried it a while back but I found the interface too ugly to use, although I do use the BrewersFriend site and even bought a subscription. I find myself exporting BeerSmith recipes as beerxml and importing to BrewersFriend, which also has it's issues. Agreed that BeerSmith is ridiculously labyrinthine though, feels like I find new things tucked away in it every second time I use it.