Judging Notes, or Attachments...

[altgeeky1]

I entered some recipes into a local AHA sanctioned contest (first time).

There's a whole can of worms you could open here if there were the ability to add > 1 tasting score and the date, judge feedback, etc. allowing us to transcribe judge feedback into our recipe.

There's a Notes field, but Notes really deserves it's own tab in the interface. There's just too much text one can try to fit into the current boxes...

One rough/quick way to approximate the organizational need: allowing for attachments (option to embed or link) to a recipe. This way I could scan judges notes, and attach as a PDF, PNG image, or TXT file.

[BeerSmith]

Thanks,
  I'm working towards an extended recipe format for BeerSmith 2.0.  I was planning to add pictures but I'll also look into adding attachments if possible.

Thanks,
 Brad

[altgeeky1]

On the subject of "pictures", I'll toss a really wild, cool, and probably unnecessary eye candy idea:

In the GUI, right now you show a square "picture" of the estimated beer color.
Please consider enhancing that indicator like so:
1) Mask off that square using a picture of a beer glass (composite both images)
2) For the beer glass mask, have it be style-appropriate (pint for a pale ale, tulip for a belgian, tall for a pils, etc). You would need a database of masked images associated with the BJCP styles (glass image gets selected by the style version designated in the recipe)

Yes, I know it's something we can all live without, but being a (PHP) developer I know we all like to get sidetracked on eye candy. :-D

[BeerSmith]

Hi,
  Yes, the beer glass eye candy will likely be part of the mix.  I'm working with a graphic artist to help me develop the needed images.

   I will probably not have different glasses available yet, but I think the ability to import an image will help.

Cheers,
Brad

[MaltLicker]

Well, if you're building that database anyway.. ..could I add to the wish list?  Could you please add the written color descriptions to accompany the number and the swatch?  Whatever SRM BeerSmith calculates would give the appropriate description.  Since BSmith already calculates to a decimel SRM such as 14.3, I suppose each SRM number could be assigned its own modifier = Light Yellow, Dark Gold, Light Amber, using the standard rules for rounding.  This would also help with the duplicates such as 3, 6, 14, 17, 22, and 30.  So, 0.0 to 2.0 would be Light Straw, 2.1 to 2.9 would be Dark Straw, etc.

If this is already one of the $codes, please let me know.   Brad - If you need a more discrete data table built for each number range, let me know.  Below are the current BJCP descriptions:

Straw 2-3
Yellow 3-4
Gold 5-6
Amber 6-9
Deep amber/light copper 10-14
Copper 14-17
Deep copper/light brown 17-18
Brown 19-22
Dark Brown 22-30
Very Dark Brown 30-35
Black 30+
Black, opaque 40+

[Eric19312]

Thanks,
  I'm working towards an extended recipe format for BeerSmith 2.0.  I was planning to add pictures but I'll also look into adding attachments if possible.

Thanks,
 Brad

What ever happened to this idea?  Ability to attach pictures and PDFs seems a no brainer but still not part of software 10 years later?

[Kevin58]

Not really essential to the purposes of the software.

[Eric19312]

I am sorry I thought the sticky at the top of the page said suggestions were welcome here.  I did not realize there were essential functions of the software rules and moderators.   Please post a link to the rules so I can try to fit in better.

Pictures was one of my favorite features of Beer Alchemy which I used for first 100 batches or so I brewed.  I switched to BS due to realizing BA was getting slower and slower with improvements and did not seem to share Brad's committment to the product and the brewing community.

Lacking support in BS I now keep parallel brew logs using Notes on my phone to store the visual record of brewing from start to finish but its clumsy to try to go back and forth from recipe and notes in BS to the images in Notes.  This is great for recording gravity readings, pH measurements and the like on the fly and they don't get accidentally overwritten.  But I also use the same log - one per batch - to take pics of the final product and any score sheets if submitted to competition.  I'll look at the pictures and notes in thinking about next iteration of the recipe.  How can comparing recipe to result in order to come up with next and hopefully improved iteration of the recipe not be an Essential Function of software?

[Brew Bama]

Being able to add photos would be cool.

[Kevin58]

I didn't mean to step on your toes Eric. IMO the software is for designing beer recipes. Adding pictures as Brew Bama says "is cool" but adding a picture does nothing to help me design a beer.

[Brew Bama]

but it would help see the results of the design.