My top enhancement requests for BeerSmith

Several of these have already been mentioned, but here are mine:

• Mac OS X support
• iPhone support - There are several ways to accomplish this, the minimum being a .bsm viewer for the iPhone, but ideally it'd be similar to BeerAlchemy Touch but with BeerSmith's feature set.  Another possibility is adding the ability for BeerSmith to sync its information with BeerAlchemy Touch.  You'd be limited by the feature set of BeerAlchemy Touch, but honestly it'd go a long way toward the goal with very little effort, I think.  Another option would be to partner with BrewPal and have wireless sync of BeerXML between BeerSmith on a computer and BrewPal on an iPhone.
• Searching/filtering in ingredient dialogs - A little search field so I can type "dextr" and it'll filter for all matches in the current window.
• Support for split batches - I pretty much always brew a double batch and then do something distinct to each half, e.g., different yeast strains, different dry hops/fruit/spices/oak cubes/bugs in secondary, different fermentation temps, etc.  It'd be great if you could design a single wort and then multiple processes for what happens once it's in the fermenter.
• Adding ingredients by proportions - Right now AFAIK you have to specify an exact amount of each ingredient you add.  It'd be great if instead you could specify you want 80% to be your base grain, 10% 60L crystal, 5% rye, and 5% unmalted wheat, then say you're shooting for a 1.063 OG on a 6 gallon yield and have it figure out the rest.
• Adjusting hop additions for alpha acids - If I have an existing recipe that uses Cascade with 5.0% AAs and my most recent Cascade are 5.4%, I'd like to be able to tell BeerSmith to adjust accordingly.  Even better, it'd be great if you could specify the two primary methods for doing this, one that retains the exact AA contribution of each Cascade addition and one that only adjusts bittering hop additions for AAs.
• Batches - I use the Brew Log feature heavily, but BeerAlchemy has a nice notion of a base recipe and batches of that recipe.  Since I re-brew the same recipes often, it'd be great if they were automatically grouped by the base recipe in my brew log.
• Water chemistry optimizer - I use two Excel spreadsheets to calculate my water chemistry adjustments, one that lets you input a base water profile, a target water profile, and a dilution ration and then uses Excel's Solver library to optimize for the salt additions, and the other being John Palmer's RA calculator.  In fact, I've combined these into a single spreadsheet (http://www.wells-inc.com/files/Optimized_Palmers_Mash_RA.xlsm) so I only have to add inputs in a single place.  Having this seamlessly incorporated into BeerSmith would be huge!  I could easily see you selecting your source and target water profiles in a recipe itself, optionally specifying a dilution ratio, and BeerSmith would automatically add the salt additions required based on your batch size.
• Plug-in extensibility model - With a solid extensibility model, most of the enhancements listed above could be added by external contributors.  However, getting such a mechanism right can be EXTREMELY difficult, so I'd rather just have a solid version of BeerSmith.  This is more blue sky!

Hi
 Here's a quick update - though I have not released much to date...
  - Mac support is a definite in the next release
  - iPhone is something I'm considering but have not started on yet - perhaps after the release
  - I like the search box idea - I will try to fit this in
  - Split batches are tough (only because a single batch has a huge number of variables already) - so this likely won't make the next release
  - I'm adding an "ingredients by proportions" button for adjusting grains
  - You can already adjust hop alpha acids - if you open a hop in any recipe and change it, it won't change the main database
  - I don't have a "batch" feature planned, but I do have much more extensive session data in the next version
  - The water chemistry solver I have already implemented for the next version - it does a non-negative least squares fit to find the closest match for water profiles (very cool)
  - I'm hoping to add a simple plug-in model to allow downloads/updates of ingredients, recipes, etc - though I don't have it totally complete yet.  I still do have support for custom template reports, selecting custom fields in the design view, and the new version will have extensive language customization to support non-english versions.

Cheers,
Brad

Wow!  Very, very good to hear!  I have a follow-up comment about adjusting hops for alpha acids, though, because I don't think we're talking about the same thing.

Let's say I have a recipe with the following hop additions:

60 min - 1.40 oz Saaz - 5.8% - 18.1 IBU
30 min - 1.60 oz Saaz - 5.8% - 15.9 IBU
10 min - 0.85 oz Saaz - 5.8% - 04.0 IBU
00 min - 0.85 oz Saaz - 5.8% - 00.0 IBU

Bitterness: 38.0 IBU

The next time I brew this beer, the available Saaz pellets are 5.0%.  If I just change the four rows in my recipe from 5.8% to 5.0%, I get the following which is definitely not what I'd want:

60 min - 1.40 oz Saaz - 5.0% - 15.6 IBU
30 min - 1.60 oz Saaz - 5.0% - 13.7 IBU
10 min - 0.85 oz Saaz - 5.0% - 03.4 IBU
00 min - 0.85 oz Saaz - 5.0% - 00.0 IBU

Bitterness: 32.7 IBU

If you're going for reproducibility, this doesn't cut it.  There are two primary methods for adjusting for AA variation across batches:

1) Adjust the quantity of all additions to produce the same per-addition IBUs (or basically AAUs).  This would result in:

60 min - 1.62 oz Saaz - 5.0% - 18.0 IBU
30 min - 1.86 oz Saaz - 5.0% - 15.9 IBU
10 min - 1.00 oz Saaz - 5.0% - 04.0 IBU
00 min - 0.85 oz Saaz - 5.0% - 00.0 IBU

Bitterness: 38.0 IBU

The problem here is that you've changed your aroma and flavor additions to accommodate for bitterness resulting in a different final character.

2) Adjust the quantity of bittering hop additions only to produce the same IBUs, leave the aroma and flavor hop addition quantities the same, and make up for any lost bitterness from late additions by adjusting the bittering additions slightly.  This would result in (spreading the (really negligible) 0.6 IBU difference across both bittering additions):

60 min - 1.64 oz Saaz - 5.0% - 18.3 IBU
30 min - 1.90 oz Saaz - 5.0% - 16.3 IBU
10 min - 0.85 oz Saaz - 5.0% - 03.4 IBU
00 min - 0.85 oz Saaz - 5.0% - 00.0 IBU

Bitterness: 38.0 IBU

This is the recommended way to adjust for AA variation.  Unfortunately either way requires trial-and-error in BeerSmith right now, bumping the quantities up and down and looking at the resulting IBU contribution until you have it where it needs to be, and it's definitely possible to fully automate this.  Seems like a VERY useful feature!

Make sense?

Oh, and as a generalization of the search box idea, pretty much searching (and ideally filtering) on any grid helps tremendously.  This is true in the ingredient addition grids and it's certainly true of the ingredients grid itself.  I really appreciate you taking that suggestion into consideration!!!

OK,
  - The search boxes are done - both on the main view and in the ingredient selection views
  - The "Adjust grains by Percent" feature is also done - it brings up a dialog where you can play with percentages
  - For IBUs, it seems like the simple solution is to enter the new alpha values and then use the bitterness adjustment to bring overall recipe bitterness back up to the desired levels.  While I agree this results in a very small IBU difference (0.6) it is well below the flavor threshold.

Cheers,
Brad

Fantastic on the search boxes and percentage-based adjustment!!!

As for the IBUs, unfortunately that's only a reasonable stand-in if your hop additions are (fairly) homogeneous.  For example, I have an IPA that uses four different types of boil hops across five different additions, and inevitably the AAs change on all four hop varietals from batch to batch.  Given that they don't all change in the same proportions.  One may move up 60% (that's actually happened!), another down 15%, etc.  If you just change the AAs and then adjust back to the same overall bitterness you're ending up with a VERY different end result from a hop character perspective.  Unfortunately my example included only a single hop and therefore a homogeneous change, but in reality that's not often the case (at least for me).

The feature I'd really like to see here is perhaps an enhancement to the "Adjust Bitterness" dialog where instead of entering target IBUs for the entire recipe, alternatively it would like the distinct hops you're currently using in the recipe along with text boxes for their AAs, and you can enter different AAs for each and have it adjust the addition amounts to retain the same overall and proportional IBUs (or only for the bittering additions as noted above).  That would be perfect!

Anyway, it's something I can do in an external calculator or via trial-and-error, but just like with your least squares implementation of water chemistry adjustment, this would eliminate one of the last remaining things I have to calculate outside of BeerSmith.

Thanks again!

Hi, It would be great to have a bit more room to add info about hops in the notes section. I'm always desperately trying to squeeze extra info into those boxes, but see no reason why there needs to even be a limit on the number of characters on those.

Also, it would be good if on the recipe view page, where you create the recipe, the hops listed are in a sensible order, such as in order that they're added to the brew. At the moment, they seem to come up in some random order. This also happens when viewing it in the brew log. Causes a lot of confusion when I copy paste that to a brewing forum and all the hops are in a wacky order.
Liking the sound of the water treatment features! - Will it be able to calculate the amount of CRS (carbonate reduction solution) to add also, based on your alkalinity?

Hi,
For the new version I thought I would try allowing sorting of ingredients by column - you can click on a column and put them in the order you want.

  I have not looked at CRS calculations yet. 

  One thing I want to stress is that designed the new platform so it is much easier to add new features.  The old one was constrained by fixed file formats and PC only.  Even though I won't be able to pack everything I want into this release, it is relatively easy to add new stuff.  I'm thinking of establishing a regular update schedule - at least once or twice a year for adding significant new features.

Brad

The other week I picked up a Barnes & Noble NOOKcolor which I proceeded to root into a full-fledged Android tablet.  It's my first experience with Android and it's definitely been fun.  I've played around with Brewzor on that device which does a great job importing BeerXML, and that made me think of a no-brainer enhancement request for BeerSmith (and really every other brewing software out there)...DropBox support!  It doesn't even have to be explicit since DropBox monitors a local directory, but the way I've been moving my recipes back and forth between BeerSmith and Brewzor is via DropBox.  I just export BeerXML from BeerSmith into my DropBox folder and it's pretty much immediately available for import by Brewzor on the tablet.  What would be cool is if I could tell BeerSmith where to write its files and to always write its own .bsm format as well as BeerXML when it saves, or perhaps an alternate location where it should write BeerXML that's not necessarily the same location as the one where it writes the .bsm files.

On the flip side, I think I'm going to ping the authors of some of the iDevice and Android brewing software to support the other side.  Since iDevice apps don't have immediate access to the filesystem like Android apps do, they'd have to use the DropBox Web service APIs, but those are still simple to use.  It just seems like a brain-dead simple way to integrate arbitrary brewing software across multiple devices without having to have each support its own proprietary flavor...

So, I am very excited about Beersmith coming to the Mac because the only competition, though useful, is not as complete- especially in the area of water calculations. As a new all-grain brewer, I can use that help. There are free tools on the web but I'd like to have it all in one place.

I sent an email to "support" a few days ago asking about Mac version beta testing but I got no reply. I can see that you're very active in support. Did you miss the email? A "yes, you can participate" or "no, I don't need more beta testers" would have been nice...

SCWells72 said:

...DropBox support!  It doesn't even have to be explicit since DropBox monitors a local directory, but the way I've been moving my recipes back and forth between BeerSmith and Brewzor is via DropBox.  I just export BeerXML from BeerSmith into my DropBox folder and it's pretty much immediately available for import by Brewzor on the tablet. 

Click to expand...

I have my Beersmith installed in Dropbox and it works just fine, I agree an official portable would be nice, but all you have to do is install Beersmith, then, drag Beersmith <dir> to Dropbox.  Works great, everything seems self contained to root dir.

mabaty said:

SCWells72 said:

...DropBox support!  It doesn't even have to be explicit since DropBox monitors a local directory, but the way I've been moving my recipes back and forth between BeerSmith and Brewzor is via DropBox.  I just export BeerXML from BeerSmith into my DropBox folder and it's pretty much immediately available for import by Brewzor on the tablet. 

Click to expand...

I have my Beersmith installed in Dropbox and it works just fine, I agree an official portable would be nice, but all you have to do is install Beersmith, then, drag Beersmith <dir> to Dropbox.  Works great, everything seems self contained to root dir.

Click to expand...

Can you explain how you have your Dropbox setup. It does not work for me in Dropbox or Google Drive. In both cases, multiple copies of each file are created each time that I save something, or if I close the software. For example, in the Beersmith2 directory, one typically has files like, Age, Carbonation, Cloud, Equipment, etc. When I moved my directory to Dropbox I started getting multiple files of each (i.e. Age, Age1, Age2, Age3, Age4, Age5, Carbonation, Carbonation1, Carbonation2, Carbonation3....and so on). I've attached a picture of the directory so that you can see it.

Does this not happen with you? Can you open another copy of Beersmith2 on another computer (not at the same time) and view the same directory?

Did you not get those copies before?  I have them, and don't think it's related to syncing methods. 

I thought they were generated by BS2 as backups in case of failures.  It's always five copies, going backwards in time.