2013 May Release Updates

May has been a busy month for Brewer’s Friend. The mash calculator tab has new updates. Recipes integrate with the Mash Chemistry and Brewing Water Calculator.  The 1.3 version of our iPhone app is live and supports sync of brew sessions and brew logs!

We are very happy to get these items knocked out for you! Our mission is to help you brew better beer!

• Strike Tab now allows targeting mash thickness or infusion volume.
  

• Ability to mash in quarts or gallons (for users who have their units set to US).  The input fields on related tabs work in gallons as well.  Mash water unit is profile option. The default is quarts, but it can be changed under your brewing profile.  The mash water unit value can also be overridden on the Brew Start page. Related to this, the Water Volume Tracking table shows key volumes in quarts and gallons (when brew is in US units mode).

  

• Added Fly Sparge and Batch Sparge options, which make things much clearer.

• Warnings related to exceeding volumes, boiling, or freezing are now textual instead of popup alert dialogs.

A few months ago, in collaboration with Kaiser, we launched our Mash Chemistry and Brewing Water Calculator, which does mash pH estimates in addition to many other water chemistry calculations.  In this release, the advanced water calculator and the recipe editor are more tightly integrated. Look for the link to the Mash Chemistry and Brewing Water Calculator on the Recipe View or Recipe Edit pages. (Requires a water profile to be selected.)

I’m hooked on this tool because it shows the relationship between grain bill, brewing salts, and mash pH. Following the link from the recipe leads to a pre-populated version of the tool (target profile, grain bill, and water volumes are filled out based on the recipe and your profile). You can also load in your source water profiles from the drop downs without having to re-type them.

As a follow on to the above item, accounts now supports multiple water profiles, not just one!

Brew Session and Brew Log Sync Supported!

• Ability to delete all items from shopping list.

• On the recipe edit and view pages, the number of yeast cells needed to hit the targeted pitch rate is displayed.

• Added brew log entry type ‘yeast starter’.  I typically create my brew session the day I make my starter.  The volume drop down now supports Liters as well (for some reason I always do starters in Liters).

Happy brewing,
Larry