[denny]

Damn you're really old! 

I am older, but not ancient.  I was trained by the Navy straight out of high school.  My first duty station involved working in a shipboard data center with a computer that was only a couple of years younger than I was at that point in time.  It was a MIL-SPEC version of the UNIVAC 418 central processing unit (CPU).  The MIL-SPEC version was known as the UNIVAC 1218.  This machine had discrete logic and ferrite core memory.   The UNIVAC 1218 had it's own motor generator because it required 3-phase 400 cycle power.  One had to literally enter the address of the boot routine into the program counter to boot the machine. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC_418

UNIVAC 1218 CPU

I'm ancient....I started with punch cards on an IBM 360.

[S. cerevisiae]

I really like the idea that you had of embedding the equations in the sheet. I'd like to get away from using my spreadsheet except for recipe formulation and Bru'n Water.

Trust me, you will get that point sooner than you think.  You will eventually reach a point where you no longer need the spreadsheet for recipe formulation. 

There was a point where I calculated all of the metrics, but I rarely calculate IBUs and extraction efficiency percentages these days.  I went back to using points per pound per gallon (PPG) and alpha-acid units (AAUs) per unit of time when formulating recipes.  A lot of newer brewers scoff at the idea of using these metrics, but they can be just as effective as machine calculated extraction efficiency percentages and IBU values when it comes to formulating reproducible recipes, and they are much simpler to compute.   In fact, one can quickly determine amount of grain per gallon needed to formulate a recipe using PPG.   For example, I shoot for a mixed-grist extraction rate of 29 PPG when using domestic 2-row as the base malt in a recipe (I can achieve a higher extraction rate, but the quality of the wort suffers with my system).  With that PPG value, I can quickly determine the amount of grain that I need to make 5.5-gallons of SNPA-style 1.053 wort.

pounds_of_grist_per_gallon = 53 / 29 = 1.83lbs

pounds_of_grist = 5.5 * 1.83 =  ~10lbs

or simply

pounds_of_grist = 5.5 * 53 / 29 =  ~10lbs

[RPIScotty]

I really like the idea that you had of embedding the equations in the sheet. I'd like to get away from using my spreadsheet except for recipe formulation and Bru'n Water.

Trust me, you will get that point sooner than you think.  You will eventually reach a point where you no longer need the spreadsheet for recipe formulation. 

There was a point where I calculated all of the metrics, but I rarely calculate IBUs and extraction efficiency percentages these days.  I went back to using points per pound per gallon (PPG) and alpha-acid units (AAUs) per unit of time when formulating recipes.  A lot of newer brewers scoff at the idea of using these metrics, but they can be just as effective as machine calculated extraction efficiency percentages and IBU values when it comes to formulating reproducible recipes, and they are much simpler to compute.   In fact, one can quickly determine amount of grain per gallon needed to formulate a recipe using PPG.   For example, I shoot for a mixed-grist extraction rate of 29 PPG when using domestic 2-row as the base malt in a recipe (I can achieve a higher extraction rate, but the quality of the wort suffers with my system).  With that PPG value, I can quickly determine the amount of grain that I need to make 5.5-gallons of SNPA-style 1.053 wort.

pounds_of_grist_per_gallon = 53 / 29 = 1.83lbs

pounds_of_grist = 5.5 * 1.83 =  ~10lbs

or simply

pounds_of_grist = 5.5 * 53 / 29 =  ~10lbs

I've had a much better time using PPG as of late.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[JayMiranda]

I've been using a notebook to take notes from the books I'm reading.
BREWED AWAKENING
THE COMPLETE JOY OF HOMEBREWING
And with recipes I come across and wanna try, I mark with book tabs so they're easy to find.

[JT]

Nerd alert: 
I like BeerSmith but the printouts didn't really do it for me.  I html coded my own, to use a combination of data from BeerSmith and fill-in-the-blank plus free form writing.  Once done, you can import the report into BeerSmith as an option to print every time.  I print it double sided with my water adj on the back. 
Here's what I'm brewing today. 

[HoosierBrew]

JT, I like that. Consolidates all the pertinent info.

[reverseapachemaster]

Math is my least favorite part of anything brewing so I rely heavily on software. Beersmith is my software of choice although there is a good amount of the software I don't love. I don't use many of the functions but it is the easy option to figure out basic metrics and piece together a recipe. I use Bru'n Water for water adjustments. Everything gets put together on my blog and kept together as a complete set of notes that way.

I do keep a couple sets of paper records. One is inventory of grain and hops. I know Beersmith has this function but I'm too lazy to input everything. I also have an old journal that I keep with a brief log of all brews. It has a short explanation of the beer and review of what happened to the batch. It doesn't serve much of a purpose but it's the only complete record of every brew I have. My blog is missing quite a few early brews and I lost some of my early beersmith recipes when I lost the recipe database while transferring files to a new computer.

[Pricelessbrewing]

JT that's pretty awesome, mind sharing the html to do that? Would love to incorporate something along those lines into my mash calculator to be able to pull some of the perinent variables from the beerxml files.

[JT]

I could send you the file I created, but honestly I'm no teacher of HyperText Markup Language. Locating the BeerSmith program on your computer allows you to open the reports folder, which contains the various reports included with the program.  Once one is selected it is a matter of creating a copy and opening it in a txt format to edit the html.  Once done you save the txt file back as html and put it back in the reports folder.  In BeerSmith under options, you can then add the report back into the program and it will treat it as one of its own. Allowing selection from the drop down menu. There are online html editors that attempt to simplify the HyperText Markup Language, but I found them difficult to use for this purpose.  Googling BeerSmith custom reports can get you some how to's and videos as well. 
As to how this process could work with other software, I'd be clueless.

[PORTERHAUS]

I put together my own log sheet. I write like a 2 yr old so when I want nice, neat notes I will use this template. It is fully editable so it's always a work in progress. But here it is for the most part.

[PutnamBrewer]

I've been using iBrewMaster and the 2nd version since The beginning.  I usually write down volumes and gravity readings on the recipe sheet and transfer it to I brewmaster once I get a chance in the brewing process.  Works like a charm for me and it's great to be able to look back on past brew days in case you "can't remember" what exactly you did.