Brewer's Friend Home Brewing Software

Brewer’s Friend Windows App Updated

Last week we released a new update to the Free Brewer’s Friend Windows application. This update fixes a bug that was causing an error in the way that recipes would calculate original gravity. You can download the latest version of the app here: Free Brewer’s Friend Window App

For those of you that haven’t tried out the app yet, we encourage you to download it and give it a shot! Check out some of the great features offered here:

• Simple, Fast & Accurate Recipe Formulation
• Save & Open recipes in BeerXML file format and Open Promash Recipe files
• Fermentables Calculation can be switched from Percentage to Weight or vica verse “On The Fly” – Simple!
  Hop quantities can either be entered in Grams (g) / Ounces (oz) or by Grams Per Litre (g/L) / Ounces Per Gallon (oz/Gal)
• Temperature support for both Celsius & Fahrenheit
• Volume support for both Litres and Gallons
• Colour Calculations in both SRM (Standard Reference Method) & EBC (European Brewing Convention)
• Balance Value / BU:GU Ratio (Bittering Units to Gravity Units)
• Save Recipe to BrewersFriend Account Feature
• Boil / Mash Timers & Stopwatch (With support for Hop / Misc addition alarms!)
• No Chill Bitterness Adjustment
• BIAB (Brew In a Bag) Software Support
• Brewday Mode
• “Strict Style” Mode
• Calendar for Tracking / Logging Beer Progress.
• Forum Friendly text export (for sharing recipes that are easily replicated from someone elses brewhouse)
• Export to Formatted HTML
• Extensive database of Grains / Hops / Yeasts / Miscellaneous Ingredients (with the ability to edit or add your own)
  BJCP Style Guidelines
• Many tools incuded (Efficiency Calc, Strike Temp Calc, Refractometer Calc, Gravity Correction Calc, Boil Off Calc, Water Dilution Calc,Carbonation Calc, Alcohol % / Attenuation Calc, Hydrometer Temperature Calibration Calc, Timer, Calorie Calc)
• Backup feature (So you’ll never lose a sacred recipe!)
• Portable (< 1 Megabyte) executable file (NO registry settings / bloatware / junk)
• It’s FREE

We hope you like the app, and the new update. If you find any issues or bugs, please let us know here in the technical issues forum area if you find any issues so that we can get them corrected!

Happy Brewing!

Posted in Announcements | 2 Comments »

2015 BJCP Style Guidelines Now Live on Brewer’s Friend

We’re pleased to announce that we now have support for the 2015 BJCP style guidelines on Brewer’s Friend starting today.  Here is the set of styles that’s included in the update:

https://www.bjcp.org/docs/2015_Guidelines_Beer.pdf

Since the styles are quite different from the previous set, we decided it would be best to not automatically modify existing recipes.  This means that your existing recipes will remain in their current (old) style guidelines, so any information related to their adherence to style guidelines, etc. is preserved.  If you wish to update your recipes to a new style guideline, simply edit the recipe, choose one of the 2015 styles and save.

On the recipe editor, you’ll notice that there are two main lists of styles now: the current set, and Pre-2015 BJCP.  If you’d like to continue using the old guidelines or need them for backwards compatibility, they’re still at the bottom of the main category list for your use.

We’re excited to have the latest and greatest styles available and hope this is a seamless addition for everyone.  But if you run into any problems in using these or building recipes, please don’t hesitate to reach out:

https://www.brewersfriend.com/feedback-welcome/

Prost!

Posted in Announcements, Beer Styles | No Comments »

Brewer’s Friend Recipe of the Week!

We’re starting a new feature here at Brewer’s Friend, Recipe of the Week!

This is going to be based on views so only public recipes will be considered. If your recipe is selected as the week’s top recipe you will receive 1 year of supporting membership here on Brewer’s Friend! We’re going to do this once a week so that’ 52 chances a year to win a supporting membership!

If you posted your recipe anonymously and it is chosen for Recipe of the Week please be sure to contact me. I can see who submitted them, but since you might have decided to keep that private I’m going to respect your wishes, but I’m happy to upgrade you.

So, for the first Recipe of the Week we’re taking a look at Zombie Dust Clone submitted to us via an anonymous member.

Image courtesy of skeeterpleezer of HomeBrewTalk

The original recipe was originally submitted to HomeBrewTalk, but made it’s way to Brewer’s Friend in no time!

Zombie Dust Clone – ALL GRAIN
Method: All Grain
Style: American IPA
Boil Time: 60 min

Image Courtesy of Hockyplr of HomeBrewTalk

Batch Size: 6 gallons (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 7 gallons
Efficiency: 70% (brew house)
Source: skeezerpleezer on Homebrewtalk.com

Fermentables
Amount Fermentable PPG °L Bill %
11.75 lb American – Pale 2-Row 37 1.8 81.7%
1.13 lb American – Munich – Light 10L 33 10 7.9%
0.5 lb German – CaraFoam 37 1.8 3.5%
0.5 lb American – Caramel / Crystal 60L 34 60 3.5%
0.5 lb German – Melanoidin 37 25 3.5%
14.38 lb Total

Hops
Amount Variety Type AA Use Time IBU
0.75 oz Citra Pellet 11 First Wort
1.25 oz Citra Pellet 11 Boil 15 min
1.25 oz Citra Pellet 11 Boil 10 min
1.25 oz Citra Pellet 11 Boil 5 min
1.25 oz Citra Pellet 11 Boil 1 min
3 oz Citra Pellet 11 Dry Hop 7 days

Mash Guidelines
Amount Description Type Temp Time
22 qt Temperature 155 F 60 min

Yeast: Fermentis / Safale – English Ale Yeast S-04
Attenuation (avg): 72%
Flocculation: Medium
Optimum Temp: 59 – 75 °F
Starter: Yes

Image courtesy of Skeeterpleezer of HomeBrewTalk

So what makes this recipe so popular? Aside from being a clone from a very popular commercial brew this is a dead on clone. Many, many brewers have noted how their finished Zombie Dust clone taste like it was straight from the 3 Floyds Brewing Company itself. Although not an original recipe anyone who’s ever developed a clone will tell you that getting all the little nuances of a beer as popular as Zombie Dust is a challenge and one that SkeeterPleezer took on with great results.

From everyone at Brewer’s Friend I would like to thank you for being a member and checking out our newest feature, “Recipe of the Week!”.

Posted in Announcements, Beer Styles, Brewing, Uncategorized | No Comments »

New Brewer’s Friend Android Apps!

Fellow Brewers,
We’re very excited to announce that we’ve released 2 new Brewer’s Friend apps for Android!

Brewer’s Friend Premium
Our full-featured recipe builder, brewing calculators, brew session manager, etc. Sync your recipes with the cloud and your BrewersFriend.com account. Unlimited recipes and brew sessions so you can make unlimited delicious beer.

Brewer’s Friend Free
The Free version of our recipe builder, calculators, and brew sessions. All the features of the premium version, but limited to 2 recipes, 2 brews, and without cloud-syncing. Get a taste of the full version before purchasing.

Both apps feature:

• Complete recipe designer with pre-populated list of grains, hops, and yeast. Ability to add your own custom grains.
• Fully supports metric units!
• Work in Specific Gravity or Plato.
• OG/FG/IBU/SRM, yeast attenuation automatically calculated.
• Supports All Grain, Extract, Partial Mash, BIAB.
• Tells if recipe matches style.
• Pick the equations and units you prefer.
• No Chill – Extended Hop Boil Time Supported.
• Target ‘to the fermentor’ or ‘to the kettle’ batch sizes.
• Journal for tracking events like gravity readings, volume collected, dates, and tasting notes.
• Tracks what phase the brew is in.
• Brew timer feature supported.
• Supports hop stands (whirlpool and hopback hop uses), recipe CO2 level field, milliliters as unit in other ingredients section.
• Stand alone calculators.

The apps are now available on the Google Play store. This is a major set of new features for us, so we’d be happy to hear any feedback or ideas you may have. Feel free to reach out to us at mail@brewersfriend.com.

Looking forward to continuing to make great beer together,
The Brewer’s Friend Team

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FREE Brewer’s Friend Windows Program

2022 Update: Unfortunately, the Windows version of Brewer’s Friend is no longer available as it didn’t offer the accuracy or features that we offer in the web version. Please give the full featured online recipe builder a try.

We are pleased to announce the release of the Brewer’s Friend Windows App!

Free Brewer’s Friend Windows Program

It is a Free Program with the ability to export the recipes that you create with it to your BrewersFriend.com account and also has the ability to import recipes that are have been exported from BrewersFriend.com as well as loads of calculators, and the same ingredients that you would find on the website!

Here are some of the features:

• Simple, Fast & Accurate Recipe Formulation
• Save & Open recipes in BeerXML file format and Open Promash Recipe files
• Fermentables Calculation can be switched from Percentage to Weight or vica verse “On The Fly” – Simple!
  Hop quantities can either be entered in Grams (g) / Ounces (oz) or by Grams Per Litre (g/L) / Ounces Per Gallon (oz/Gal)
• Temperature support for both Celsius & Fahrenheit
• Volume support for both Litres and Gallons
• Colour Calculations in both SRM (Standard Reference Method) & EBC (European Brewing Convention)
• Balance Value / BU:GU Ratio (Bittering Units to Gravity Units)
• Save Recipe to BrewersFriend Account Feature
• Boil / Mash Timers & Stopwatch (With support for Hop / Misc addition alarms!)
• No Chill Bitterness Adjustment
• BIAB (Brew In a Bag) Software Support
• Brewday Mode
• “Strict Style” Mode
• Calendar for Tracking / Logging Beer Progress.
• Forum Friendly text export (for sharing recipes that are easily replicated from someone elses brewhouse)
• Export to Formatted HTML
• Extensive database of Grains / Hops / Yeasts / Miscellaneous Ingredients (with the ability to edit or add your own)
  BJCP Style Guidelines
• Many tools incuded (Efficiency Calc, Strike Temp Calc, Refractometer Calc, Gravity Correction Calc, Boil Off Calc, Water Dilution Calc,Carbonation Calc, Alcohol % / Attenuation Calc, Hydrometer Temperature Calibration Calc, Timer, Calorie Calc)
• Backup feature (So you’ll never lose a sacred recipe!)
• Portable (< 1 Megabyte) executable file (NO registry settings / bloatware / junk)
• It’s FREE

Since we have just released it and it is fairly new, please let us know here in the technical issues forum area if you find any issues so that we can get them corrected!

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

New Recipe Bulk Export (Backup) Ability

Hey everyone, we have just added the ability to export all of your recipes into a zip file in either xml or html format. Just go to the “Beer Recipes” menu while logged in and you can choose from “Export BeerXML” or “Export HTML” to use the new feature! This should be helpful for anyone who has lots of recipes and doesn’t want have to export them one by one!

If you have any comments regarding the feature, let us know here in the announcements area!
https://www.brewersfriend.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=2024

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New Friend Following Feature

Hello everyone, we are pleased to announce that a new feature has been added with the ability to “follow” other brewers. The follow link is on each profile page (if it is set as a public profile) and whoever you follow will appear on your ‘My Friends’ area of the dashboard with some of their latest statistics. Please let me know if there are any improvements I should make to it or any problems that you have using it here on the forum: https://www.brewersfriend.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1958

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Have Your Way with Brewer’s Friend

We’ve been working as fast as we can lately to build and fix all the great features that you, the Brewer’s Friend community, have sent our way. We’d like to take a moment to really open things up and see what you all are thinking and what would make your brewing experience even better. We want to know what you like, don’t like, want to see more of, loath entirely, want created, and so on. If you have something to say, please head over to our survey here:

https://goo.gl/forms/S9tKbgI4Nv

Thank you all very much for the feedback, and more importantly for being the best homebrewing community out there!

Cheers!

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Congrats to all the Winners!

It’s February 9th, and if you’ve been following our blog or social media accounts you know today marks the end of the first Brewer’s Friend giveaway!

We asked everyone to go back and update an existing recipe, or create a new recipe using one of our newest features, the addition of images!

231 of you added images. That’s quite the turn out!

The winners for this giveaway were selected using a random number generator. From our database I collected the username and emails of everyone who added an image to recipes, then added those members to a spreadsheet. The row number is your entry number. Random.org selected

225 – bret america
20 – chrisvdp
134 – otrum
157 – Branko
84 – kryanx

These are usernames associated with the account. We will be personally contacting all five winners to let them know they have won. I will need your address to ship out the Critter Cutters, but I have gone ahead and applied a one year subscription to the winner’s accounts providing them full access to Brewer’s Friend over the next year.

We really appreciate everyone who took the time to get entered. The addition of photos to recipes is just one of the ways we’re living up to our motto “Brew with Total Confidence”.

From everyone behind the scenes at Brewer’s Friend we thank you for your support and keep an eye out. We will be releasing new giveaways as we release new features!

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This Weeks Newest Features on Brewer’s Friend

It’s been a very busy week behind the scenes of Brewer’s Friend. We’ve been busy working on a lot of the great ideas and features members have suggested, and some fixes you guys have been waiting on. We also brought on another programmer to help us make some headway. Thanks for helping us make Brewer’s Friend better!

First in the way of new features is our redesigned front page. It had been sometime since we updated it, so new to the front page is shared recipes, quicker access to the apps, and some general information to help new members get started.

We also implemented a new Slide Ruler search so you can find the beer you’re after preciesely based on OG, FG, IBUs, ABV and more. This will allow you the brewer greater control and access to the recipe database that so many have contributed to.

We also implemented some changes to the way search works. You can know search by a list of ingredients in order to find a beer based on what you have on hand, and the new ability to search by fermentables. We hope you enjoy the latest additions to the search ability!

While I have you, don’t forget to upload photos to your Brewer’s Friend recipes. The drawing for Critter Cutters and a one year membership takes place Februrary 9th, so make sure you get your recipes updated now to be considered for the drawing. Here’s a link with more information.

Brewer’s Friend Supporting Membership and more Giveaway!

From everyone at Brewer’s Friend we hope you enjoy the new features and good luck in the drawing!

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