Brewer's Friend Home Brewing Software

How long does it take to brew a batch of beer?

Brewing beer can take as little as two and a half hours for a simple extract batch and up to six hours for a complex all grain recipe. It is not a good idea to rush anything in brewing. Cutting back the boil time is not feasible because that time is needed to convert alpha acids in the hops into the bittering flavors they provide. Similarly cutting down mash time leads to lower efficiency. These are things we just can’t get around in the process. Below is a breakdown of our estimate on how long it would take brew a batch of home brew given different methods.

Extract Batch without steeping grains:

• 30 minutes – setup, and wait for water to boil
• 1 hour – boil
• 30 minutes – cooling, fill primary, pitch yeast
• 30 minutes – clean up
• 2 hours 30 minutes total.

Extract batches are the fastest because there is no mash to worry about and less equipment to deal with.

Extract Batch with steeping grains:

• 30 minutes – setup, and wait for water to warm up
• 45 minutes – steep grains
• 15 minutes – wait for boil
• 1 hour – boil
• 30 minutes – cooling, fill primary, pitch yeast
• 30 minutes – clean up
• 3 hours 30 minutes total.

Steeping grains add real flavor, color, and freshness to plain extract batches. The extra time in our opinion is completely worth it, and the differences will be noticeable.

All Grain Batch:

• 45 minutes – setup, and wait for mash water to warm up
• 1 hour, 30 minutes – mash
• 15 minutes – wait for boil
• 1 hour – boil
• 30 minutes – cooling, fill primary, pitch yeast
• 30 minutes – clean up
• 4 hours 30 minutes total.

All grain brewing does take longer. Complete control over the ingredients and mash leads to noticable benefits in the finished product.

All Grain Batch with 90 minute boil and longer mash:

• 45 minutes – setup, and wait for mash water to warm up
• 2 hour, 30 minutes – mash
• 15 minutes – wait for boil
• 1 hour 30 minute – boil
• 30 minutes – cooling, fill primary, pitch yeast
• 30 minutes – clean up
• 6 hours total.

Some brews, particularly those using a large amount of Pilsner malt use a 90 minute boil. Longer mash times can also lead to higher efficiency.

Other thoughts:

One way to save on setup/tear down time is to have a dedicated brew space, like a shed. This takes time to build up to, but it is really nice to have.

Does time really matter when it comes to home brewing? If you are enjoying yourself that is what matters. Brewing is stress relief.

Posted in Brewing | 2 Comments »

1.06 Launched – Batch Performance

This launch places the cap stone on the brew session section –  Batch Performance. The numbers behind a batch of beer are a big deal to pro brewers. Home brewers can benefit from these numbers as well. I tend to obsess over post-brew stats like ABV, attenuation, expected OG vs actual OG, and efficiency. In fact, before this tool existed I would spend a lot of time at my computer calculating and saving these numbers. It becomes quite a chore. Thankfully with this latest release of Brewer’s Friend everything is automatically calculated.

By recording the appropriate brew logs, such as ‘Brew Day Complete’,  or ‘Fermentation Complete’, check marks on the batch performance tab turn green and the results are provided. Understanding what these numbers mean and how to control them is key to dialing in repeatable batches!  We hope this is a time saver for all brewers. I know I will enjoy using it and have already inputted many of my recent batches.

Another big improvement in this release is on the recipe editor. Now you can see the grain bill percentages as you enter amounts:

Bug fixes:

• Extract recipes with steeping grains now support metric units. Thank you to the brewers who noticed this, excellent reporting!
• Fixed Wyeast Extra Special Bitter 1968 (was mis-numbered, doh).

Many folks are asking for recipe search.  1.07 or 1.08 will most likely include that feature.   You can help by adding more of your recipes and marking them public and searchable.   To keep the content high quality, recipes need a rating system with some kind of community moderation. That’s what we will be working on in the near future.  We may do away with the ‘searchable’ flag and just stick with public vs private recipes. What do you think??

Posted in Announcements | 10 Comments »

1.05 is launched – Brew Timer

Thank you to everyone who wrote in with suggestions for improving 1.04. This release was focused on an innovation we created called the Brew Timer. More information on that below. We also made some basic user interface improvements (very small changes), added additional yeasts, and updated the scaling logic.

The 1.05 launch includes:

• Ability to scale recipes as small as 1 gallon or 1 liter.
• Added Fly Sparge and Sparge as options under Mash Step type drop down.
• Added 10 additional Wyeast varieties (special release strains).

Advanced Mode in the Recipe Builder:

In case you have never tried it, the OG/FG panel expands and allows you to choose which equations are used to calculate ABV, IBU, and SRM. The expanded view shows the stats for the target style. The selected equations are customizable on a per recipe basis. The defaults can be setup in your account profile.

Clicking on the ‘More…’ button (or the triangle on the far left) expands the advanced options for the recipe:

Brew Timer:

Currently in BETA (running inside an alpha release), we are proud to roll out the new Brew Timer feature in version 1.05. You will never need to worry about missing a step in the brewing process with this little beauty. First design your recipe then click on the Brew tab. From there click on the Brew Timer tab. This widget will walk you through your entire brew, start to finish, based on the step profile generated for your batch. It has built in timers! The mash steps, and each boil addition gets their own timer. Everything is planned out in advance, and you won’t forget to add your hops at just the right time. The Brew Timer is in beta right now, so we encourage folks to play with it but not rely on it at this point.

With the Brew Timer, no more printing out papers and no more fiddling with a clock timer. We would like to hear your suggestions on Facebook, via comments on this blog post, or through our feedback page.

What’s next:
The next release will focus on automatic calculation of Brewhouse Efficiency and ABV through the Brew page and Brew Log records.

Posted in Announcements | 18 Comments »

The Beer Tool – Cool Bottle Opener

When I saw this bottle opener I thought, dang, that is a cool idea!

Quote from the product:
Like most great ideas, the Beer Tool came out of a problem. Being tired of having to use the wife’s bottle opener to crack a cold one the decision was made to come up with something tougher, stronger, and more manlier. A few hours later the original Beer tool was born and there was much rejoicing.

The Manliest Bottle Opener You’ll Ever Own

https://www.thebeertool.com/

There is something that just feels right about it. Works effectively and people get a kick out of it!

They come in different sizes, so make sure to get the size you want. In this case I think bigger is better.
 

Disclaimer: TheBeerTool provided Brewer’s Friend with a complimentary opener.

Posted in Equipment, Fun | No Comments »

Version 1.04 Launched, Copy and Brew Log

The latest release is now live, which includes:

• Recipe Copy feature activated.  Now you can make copies of your recipes or other recipes that have been shared by others.
• Brew Log feature setup which allows you to record gravity readings, how much volume you collected, tasting notes, etc.
• When starting a Brew Session you may make a snapshot of the recipe (which is essentially a copy of the recipe tied only to the Brew Session). That way if you change the recipe later on, or you need to make a minor edit for just that brew session you know EXACTLY what you brewed.
• The Brew Session page allows you to change the current phase of the brew. The phases are Planning, Brewing, Primary Fermentation, Secondary Fermentation, Conditioning, Ready to Drink, and All Gone.
• Mash steps now visible for Partial Mash style recipes on the Recipe Editor.
• BIAB brew step profile created.

Posted in Announcements | 5 Comments »

Large Batch of American Beer

Brewed an 11 gallon batch of my Blitz Weinhard Clone. This is close to what Blitz probably tasted like originally (not the watered down stuff they produce today). Doing an 11 gallon batch is great. It generates twice as much beer in the same amount of time! It also gives the opportunity to try two different types of yeast on the same exact wort. Contrasting the differences in the finished product will be fun and educational.

The recipe is loaded into the Brewer’s Friend Recipe Builder:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/637

This batch pushed capacity limits of my 15 gallon kettle and 48 quart mash lauter tun. I am not convinced my 15 gallon kettle actually holds 15 gallons. It is more like 14, sort of like how a 2×4 is not really two inches by four inches… At least this kettle is enough for an 11 gallon batch.

In the picture there is a little over 13 gallons in the kettle which still leaves room for the boil. The actual batch volume is 11 gallons. That way there is room for trub losses. The plan is to keg this directly from the primary fermentor after the yeast completely fall out.

When draining to the fermentors, I took a staggered approach. 2.5 gallons into the first one, then 2.5 into the next, and so on until both were full. That way, if there was any stratification going on in the kettle it was mitigated. In one fermentor Safale-05 American Ale is being used. In the other it is Wyeast 1272 American Ale II.

The plan is to do a blind taste test and see if we can tell them apart. Liquid yeast is more expensive than the dry yeast (yet ironically the dry yeast has more cells). For this sort of run of the mill beer, if the liquid yeast doesn’t wow me, I’ll stick with the dry yeast for future batches. Nottingham is another yeast I have used here with success, and it imparted a nice bready flavor.

Posted in Recipes | 8 Comments »

Brew Feature Launched Version 1.03

Hello fellow brewers,
Thank you to the many brewers who have written in with comments and suggestions. The positive feedback has been really great to hear. We have just launched the 1.03 installment of the Brewer’s Friend Recipe Builder which we hope you will enjoy using.

Recipe Builder 1.03 supports the following features the community asked for:

• Other Ingredients section has a units drop down box. Now you can setup a recipe that calls for 1/2 tsp of Irish Moss with 10 minutes left in the boil and 10 quarts of Fresh Blueberries in the secondary. Supports both US and Metric units.
• Mash section improved and clarified.
• Less fields on recipe editor are required, making the tool easier to use.
• Ability to delete recipes under the My Recipes page.
• Ability to set a custom yeast attenuation value. This allows fine tuning of the expected Final Gravity.
• Added additional types of DME/LME to the fermentables drop down (Pilsen, Munich).

This release introduces the Brew Session section.   In the style of our brew day checklists the brew session page computes all the steps neccessary to brew a recipe and generates a customized checklist. This is accessible by clicking the ‘Brew’ tab inside a recipe.  Brew sessions are saved in the system under your account and can be accessed using the new ‘My Brewing’ tab above.

In addition to a brewing checklist, the Brew Session feature computes water requirements for the batch given your equipment profile. How much water to use in all grain brewing can take time to dail in, especially for new all grain brewers. You must be signed up and have an accurate equipment profile for this to work. There are default settings but you will no doubt want to adjust them.  US and Metric units are fully supported.

In our next release, the Brew Session feature will include a brew log where you can record gravity readings, tasting notes, schedule when to rack/package, etc.  Eventually we want to allow customizable and sharable brew steps, but that depends on how many brewers would want that functionality.

What fellow brewers are saying about Brewer’s Friend:

Posted in Announcements | 4 Comments »

Using a mini-fridge as a keezer FAIL

In an attempt to save money, space, and time, I thought it would be a good idea to buy a mini-fridge online for use as a keezer or fermentation chamber. Turned out there was not enough room.

All mini-fridges have a hump inside them where the compressor and fan are located. This eats up some of the usable internal space. The shelves on the door further constrain the internal space. The lesson: going online to buy a fridge/freezer for use as keezer is a bad idea. Sometimes the product description will list internal dimensions, but that’s not enough to go on since the floor might be sloped or the shelves might be in the wrong spot.

The best thing to do is make cardboard cut outs representing the foot print of what you want to put in the fridge. Also note the heights of the containers, leaving room for airlock, hoses, couplers, etc. For example, a corny keg needs 27″ of vertical space to leave clearance for the couplings and is 8-1/2″ – 9″ diameter. Take the cutouts with you to the store and bring a tape measure. Then you can be sure what you are buying will work out.

The humps inside mini-fridges and chest freezers are a real drag. In my keezer, the CO2 tank sits on the hump along with a moisture absorption tray. One trick is to build a 4” collar around the top of the keezer. The hatch will have to be removed and then re-installed when the collar is in place. Often this is enough to take the hump out of the equation so 1 or 2 more corny kegs can be placed inside.

Towards the middle of my project todo list is a fermentation chamber. This is done by removing the door from a mini-fridge and building an insulated box that extends the conditioned space. With a temperature controller, a mini-fridge in this setup can be used for precise temperature control during fermentation. What I’m not sure about is how to safely heat the chamber, in the event it gets too cold in the shed (let’s say I want to keep it at 65F, but outside it is 40F). More on that when I get there.

Posted in Equipment, Kegging and CO2 | 13 Comments »

Recipe Builder 1.02 Launched

Another release just went live.

The 1.02 release includes the following features:

• New and improved Mug icon (the color is dynamically set by the brewing software).
  
• Scale by Efficiency feature launched for All Grain / BIAB / Partial Mash recipes. Uses logic to keep OG the same, while preserving flavor and color balance. This was a bit tricky to get right and feedback would be appreciated.
• Ability to view a recipe as HTML or Text, and download in either format. Check the new buttons on the recipe view page. This way recipes are easier to share by email or in forums.  BeerXML format is on the way (that is a bit more complex though!)
• Darkened up the last 5 SRM values. An SRM value of 40 should be pitch black, and now that is how it should look on most monitors.
• Bug fixes: (ECB color equation, sharing a recipe after the first save, stay signed in now tracks profile information correctly).
• Back end upgrades to libraries.

We’ll get around to posting more beer related blog posts in the near future.  An IPA clone recipe Larry is perfecting is fermenting right now:

Best of luck in brewing next year to all our readers and users!
– Larry

Posted in Announcements | 3 Comments »

Recipe Builder 1.01 launched

Hello fellow brewers,
Happy holidays from the Brewer’s Friend team. May your brewing be merry and plentiful in 2012!

Our team has been working very hard the past week and a half to make the 1.01 release of the Recipe Builder possible. There is a lot more on the way in 2012 from Brewer’s Friend, we hope you will join us.

The Recipe Builder has just been updated to version 1.01 with the following features:

• Sharing: It is now possible to share recipes, such that the URL can be posted, emailed etc.  By default recipes are private.  There is also an option to make recipes searchable in our database, but the search interface is not available yet (expect to see that in January).
• Scaling: The new scaling tab at the top allows a batch to be scaled to different volumes. We are working on a scale by efficiency feature.
• Text View: Recipes can be viewed in ‘text’ mode for easy posting to other sites. We are working on an HTML version.
• Yeast Section: When selecting a yeast from the drop down, the page now shows the yeast stats (Attenuation, Flocculation, Optimum Temperature, and Alcohol Tolerance).
• Content: Added 11 different types of yeasts (thank you readers for pointing out a few missing ones).
• Misc Updates/Fixes: Priming sugar/amount now visible on display page,  Firefox 3.6 bug fixed, IE 7 + 8 header renders better, adjustments to view page rendering, styled buttons on recipe editor.
• Social Networking: Facebook and Twitter pages setup and linked.

Posted in Announcements | 3 Comments »