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Another crazy thought--recipe comparison

cmbrougham

Grandmaster Brewer
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OK, this might be off the deep end, but here goes:

Let's say I download a recipe in a BSM file, or enter one manually that I've found on the web. However, this recipe is an all-grain recipe, and I'm a mini-mash brewer. The recipe sounds great though, so I'd like to convert it to a mini-mash version for my use, and change it to utilize ingredients I have or can get. Obviously, that means matching SG, IBUs, SRM and other nominal figures.

What would be cool is if I could either:
  • Hit a MAGIC BUTTON that did the conversion for me, or
  • Somehow compare the original recipe and its statistics with the one that I'm converting to.
Kind of a crazy thought, but would be an awesome tool for brewers of all levels. Is anything like this doable?
 
Yes,
 Its already on my list of things to do -- but it is also in the realm of the "hard" things to do...

 Converting an all grain to extract or partial mash is a bit complex because it involves many subjective factors.  Some are easy - like converting "Pale" grain to "Pale extract"...but what do you do with something unique like Flaked Barley that has no real substitute in the extract world??  Also adding to the complexity is the fact that people can add in their own ingredients that I may have little or no knowledge of how to convert...

 What I'm thinking of is more of a "Conversion wizard" than a single "magic button".  The wizard would walk you through the conversion process and give you choices and suggestions at each step of the way so you could make intelligent decisions about what to substitute.

 Its on the list, but I hope you understand it will probably take some time before I can add a major feature like this...a lot of up front research is required first.

Cheers!
Brad
 
I should have put a grinnie by the "Magic Button" comment. Believe me, the more I get into brewing, the more I realize that there are FAR too many parameters and possibilities in brewing to ever automate something like this. Honestly, I'd be sufficiently happy if there was a way to do something like a "split pane" view, where you could look at one recipe in the top pane, and the other recipe in the bottom, and make adjustments to the one to match the other. It's kind of like splitting panes in Word, where you view one document against another.

And again, this is far from an essential feature, but is just something that would make the recipe creation process a little quicker and neater. No rush on anything--I can always print 'em out in the meantime!
 
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