Brewtoolz - Open Source Brewing Calculator

[chris.taylor.98]

Hi All,

A few of you may have already come across Brewtoolz in your web browsing.

For those that haven't, it is a free web based brewing recipe calculator and logging site, being developed by a couple of fellow AHB users.

Some of the current features include:

• Support for no chill hop calculations
• Logging function
• Brew day calculator including yeast calculator and batch sparge calculator
• Set of online tools

We have been going at it on and off for a couple of years now, and have reached a point where we want to try and open it up and get others involved. Its just taking too long by ourselves.

You don't have to be a developer to help out.

Even logging in and giving feedback is a big help in getting us closer too a better website for all concerned.

Other ways to help out include:

Signing onto the forum and posting and joining in discussions regarding feature ideas, or bugs uncovered.

Testers - we are really keen in getting some Internet Explorer users as testers (neither of us really use IE that much, and there has been a lot of IE issues in the past, hopefully past the worst of it now)

Documenters - help in user documentation, especially for some of the more complex areas.

Web developers - we are desperately in need of assistance of someone that actually knows what they are doing in regards to web development. As you can probably tell its not currently our day job.


At the moment it still needs a lot of work. The recipe calculator is functional, but missing a few parts. The logging part is very basic, and the brewday part needs a lot of work. Has a lot of good ideas, but is a bit scatterbrained and not very intuitive

We are currently focusing on finishing off the calculator including some of the other features:

• Adding support for kits as ingredients
• Sharing recipes so they can be edited by multiple users ( like google docs etc )
• Being able to add your own ingredients as well as selecting from the list
• Beer XML import/export to support loading recipes from Beersmith

For a more comprehensive list have a look at the project site and the issues list.

 

[brettprevans]

This software once finished is gbe best thing a k&k brewer can use.

 

[lukewarm]

Well done guys.

Not a Rails dev, but could be a reason to pick it up!

Good job.

 

[Scruffy]

I was a err, software tester back in the UK amongst other things, so I joined - if I get a bit of time, I'll throw my 2p in...

Ruby eh? Sure it'll port to Android?

 

[kelbygreen]

hmm didnt last long its already parked (unless they are updating something)

 

[chris.taylor.98]

hmm didnt last long its already parked (unless they are updating something)

let me get back to you on this one ... we recently changed domain name providers, so could be some teething problems with the transfer

I can still get through ok, but that is probably cause it is cached somewhere

that will teach me, sending out posts like this before having the domain name sorted out properly

... is anyone else getting it come up as parked?

 

[kelbygreen]

not any more.

 

[chris.taylor.98]

Well done guys.

Not a Rails dev, but could be a reason to pick it up!

Good job.

Rails is really easy to develop with ... I started off with J2EE and that was a nightmare.

 

[chris.taylor.98]

I was a err, software tester back in the UK amongst other things, so I joined - if I get a bit of time, I'll throw my 2p in...

Ruby eh? Sure it'll port to Android?

Any assistance gratefully received.

Current meager testing scripts have been developed using Selenium but open to any ideas.

We would love to see a good strategy for testing via Internet Explorer


Our strategy for portable devices is to do a WAP version (should cover smartphones, iphones, Andriod etc). But also happy to work with other programs developed for Andriod/iPhone etc. Unless someone takes this on, it will be a way off yet.