How do you use BeerSmith? best practices?

Hi all,
I've been a beersmith 2 user since it came out, I've been brewing more this year and trying to leverage the software more. As I do I've found that I'd be better of with some better/defined processes for using the software.
I'm really interested in understanding how folks leverage beersmith in their brewery, for all aspects. From recipe design, brew session logging, and for calculating things like sparge volumes, temps. However, one of the biggest hurdles to using it effectively is under standing how to use it beyond just adding ingredients to a recipe.

Things I have questions about best practises, or at least intended use.

Things I'd like to understand;

• Dealing with the evolution of a recipe
• Using the cloud effectively. I cannot keep my recipes and versions in sync.
• logging the details of each batch
• logging process anomalies
• Logging fermentation temps over time
• recipe tracking / adjustments for the equipment profiles
• propagating equipment profile update changes
• how to log / Reusing yeast / tracking yeast generations
• Water! <I have not done anything with this at all>
• Mash PH adjustments <I have not done anything with this at all>
• Custom reporting - I'd really like to understand this more

I feel like I haven't figured out an efficient workflow for me to iterate upon a recipe, or an efficient way for me to log the recipe details once I've brewed it. I feel like the logging entry is all over the place, and there is not a good way to sort of follow along the brew day, fermentation, bottling to indicate changes, w/out redesigning the recipe. Worst of all, when working on a recipe, I feel like I end up with artifacts in differerent states, and it's hard to know which version is right.

With that said, here are some things I think I'm doing well.

Using the default recipe. Everyone should do this. Create an empty recipe that contains your default mash profile, additions like whifloc or nutrient, carbonation profile, equipment etc, and set it as default. If I knew this a year ago I'd have saved a lot of time setting up recipes from scratch.

Using the brewing log. This is the one way to effectively capture the recipe at the point it time it's made. Once you've solidified the recipe, for me that's when I mill the grain, you add it to the log, and stop editing the version in my recipes.


AO

This is an example of "ask ten people and get ten different answers." 

My experience in learning various software packages usually comes in two pathways:  1)  I already know what I want to do, and I have to plunge in and figure out how to get it done;  and 2)  I poke around the menus and the buttons and/or look up stuff in Help and online forums or the company's website, and often learn things I didn't know I needed. 


I personally use BS2 to do the math and to give me hard targets to hit during brewday.  And to track my purchases and inventory.  My base of operations is the Recipe itself.  I do not use the Brew Log; in fact, I just had to search for that after reading so many posts about it.  (My thought is that if someone asks me for a XX recipe, I would send that Recipe file, and since it's a done-deal, the Recipe file better have all the actual numbers in there.) 

I massage future recipes for a while and make any purchases needed for the next few batches, and a few days before brewing I pull actual inventory to verify I have those ingredients.    I print the Recipe the night before (using the Brew Process Txt report) and record all brewing notes on that paper, and then return to BS2 afterwards to confirm or change steps and enter the Measured results.  I don't want to get distracted by playing with BS2 while brewing and muck it up.

Strictly my personal opinion, but I think knowing your volumes is the most critical thing to get under control:  dead spaces in MLT, pre-boil, post-boil, into fermenter, etc.  All the math in BS2 is based on these volumes and if you're telling BS2 lies about your volumes it can't help you very much. 

I like what Maltlicker noted about having accurate volumes and allowing Beersmith to simply do the math.

One little tip I have learned is to make ample use of folders.

Within my "2013 Brew Log I have a folder that contains the, "Final" recipes of my six house brews.  When I want to brew one of those beers I simply make a copy of the recipe and paste it into my, "Next Brew" folder.  There, I can make any changes I want to that recipe based on substitutions or new processes I want to use.  After my brew is complete I move that recipe out of the folders and it is added as a running list of beer brewed in 2013.

At the end of the year I copy and paste all of my recipes brewed in 2013 to my, "2007-2012" file.  On Jan. 1, 2014 I will rename that file and create the ones I need for 2014.