BrewPen Help

Intro

Thanks for trying PicoBrew's BrewCrafter 2. Please note that this is a Beta / Prototype product and does not receive as much testing as the official crafter on PicoBrew.com. That said, I try to fix bugs I know of in a timely manner. Why does it exist? To allow us to try new features and experiences outside of the normal codebase and potentially to be the beginnings of a new unified crafter experience.

It works a little differently from the crafter on PicoBrew.com, here are some of the differences

• It is completely separate from PicoBrew.com and all of its interaction with PicoBrew data must be through secure API. This is by design and allows us to test our API.
• It maintains its own database. The upshot of this is that you must create a new account here, you must add or import any ingredients you want to use, you must create or import your recipes.
• It will let you do dumb things, but it will try to tell you if it thinks you are doing so. It is not heavy on constraints, you can try many new things. You should know what you are doing and accept the consquences.
• It strives for a clean, spartan, interface. You will usually find advanced features somewhat hidden in the various three vertical dots icons. Liberal use of tooltips and hover states will also help.
• It does not hide or abstract what is happening. You have direct control over ingredients and machine steps - it does its best to tell you how this impacts the recipe. The machine steps are exactly what will happen on the machine.
• Locations are important. You have to tell it what location an ingredient is in, you have to tell it what location a step is acting on. That is the only way it can link the two and figure out how that affects stats. A good way to see how this should look is to import a BeerXML recipe from PicoBrew.com and then see how it looks in BrewPen.

Sign Up

1. Go to Sign Up! and enter your Name and Email.
2. Click Submit
3. Look for email from info@brewpen.com. Click on the link it contains to complete sign up.

Submit a Bug or Feature Request

1. Go to Bugs & Requests.
2. Make sure your Bug or Feature Request is not already there.
3. Click Add New Issue.
4. Check back to see status changes.

Design A New Beer

1. Go to My Ingredients and enter some ingredients that you want to use in your recipes.
2. For fermentables you can enter either yield (1-100) or SG (1.000 - 1.046)
3. You can always edit or delete an ingredient later.
4. Go to My Recipes and click on the "Make a new recipe" plus icon of the "New Brew" tile to start a new beer.
5. Select a Type "Beer: Z Series" and enter a Name for your beer. Click Save.
6. Your new beer now appears as a new card in your beer list, click on the "Edit" pen icon of the tile.
7. Enter your Batch Size.
8. Click "Add Ingredient" to start adding ingredients.
   1. Click on Select to choose an ingredient from your "My Ingredients" (note: you can type search characters here to filter choices)
   2. Enter an Amount, or Click on the vertical dots next to Amount to bring up the Unit Calculator - you can use this to enter a value in as Lbs, Oz, Kg, or G (all values are stored in lb).
   3. Select a Location for the Ingredient.
   4. you can use (-) icon to delete an ingredient. "Add Ingredient" will always add an ingredient to the end of the list.
   5. Note that Stats will not be correct until the proper Machine Steps are in place.
9. Once you have your ingredients in go back to the top of the recipe and select a "Brew Type" - after selecting a Brew Type it will give you the option of auto-generating Machine Steps for your Mash Type. It will overwrite any Machine Steps that are already present. You can choose not to overwrite. Select Yes.
10. You can also manually add, delete, or edit Machine Steps just like Ingredients.
11. You can collapse both the Ingredients and Machine Steps sections by clicking the caret icon for that section.
12. Remember: No OG stats show unless you have a fermentable ingredient in the Mash Location and a Mash Step. No FG shows unless you have OG and Yeast. No IBU unless you have hops and boil steps. If the stats don't look right something is wrong in your recipe.
13. Check the notes section in the upper left of the dashboard to see any potential problems.
14. Click the "Save" button when you are done.
15. If you refresh the page before clicking Save, your unsaved changes will be lost.
16. You can click on the right caret above the title to dismiss the dasboard panel on the left, but usually best to leave it.

Update An Ingredient in a Recipe

• When you add an ingredient to a recipe Brewcrafter takes a snapshot of all the ingredient attributes. From then on it refers to its own recipe snapshot rather than the attributes in the ingredient database. Why? So that the recipe and its stats do not randomly or unintentionally change if you later change an ingredient. What if you want to update the recipe to use the new version of the ingredient? There are two ways to do this (1) Just click on the sync icon at the right of the ingredient in the recipe with the tooltip Update Ingredient from My Ingredients, or (2) delete the ingredient and add it back in, the snapshot is taken when the ingredient is added.

Manual Brew on a Pico

• When you create a new beer set its type to Beer (BIB): Pico
• The batch size is always 1.32G, in practice the batch size will probably come out a little more. The Start water is always 1.32G (5L) [11 lbs] Why is that? The Pico series of machines use steam to heat the wort. This introduces more water into the batch effectively increasing the start water, the ingredients, particularly the grain, soak up wort. Between the two variables its hard to accurately predict the batch size you end up with since it's a function of both the amount of time spent heating, and the amount and types of ingredients. We know all these variables for PicoPaks, but not for any arbitrary recipe.
• Use Adjunct locations to design the recipe boil steps, you must do this so that the crafter knows which ingredients, times, and temps are a part of each boil step for the calculations. Think of each Adjunct location as a kind of virtual hop bag. You can place all adjuncts from a similar adjunct location in the same hop bag. Remember that it's brew-in-bag and you only have one central location for everything, you are responsible for manually putting things in and removing them at the correct times. Generally follow the online instructions for Manual Brew
• Typically the hop boil stages are additive. You add new hops in for each stage and do not remove any until all boil stages are done.
• If you have good tap water use that, or you can use jugs of spring water, or distilled water if you add salts: 1/8 tsp Calcium Chloride and 1/4 tsp Gypsum for a 5L batch.
• You are limited to 4lbs of grain, and 2lbs DME to raise OG. As much hops as will fit in a bag, but if you over-pack them they will not extract.
• To import and scale a recipe for Manual Brew:
1. Click on the New Brew tile Import an XML Recipe icon
2. Select and import the recipe
3. Click on the pen to edit the recipe
4. Click on the elippses next to Batch Size to Scale to Batch Size
5. Enter 1.32 G as your new batch Size and Click Yes, Scale the Ingredients
6. Click on the dropdown for Recipe Type and select Pico (BIB) Beer
7. Click on the ellipses next to Brew Type and Click Yes, Generate New Steps
8. Click Save
9. You are now in a good starting place to fix/tweak the 5L manual Brew recipe

Add Pause & Chill Steps

1. Open your beer for editing.
2. Click Add Step
3. For the new step enter:
• Connect to Chiller
• Temperature: 0
• Time: 0
• Drain Time: 0
• Location: Pause
4. Click Add Step
5. For the new step enter:
• Chill to 63F
• Temperature: 63
• Time: 10
• Drain Time: 8
• Location: Pass Through
6. Click Save

Enter a Boil Time for a Hop

Adjunct Boil Times are not entered directly on the ingredient. Instead the ingredient inherits the boil time from the machine step that has the same location of itself.

1. Click Add Ingredient
2. For the new Ingredient:
• Select an ingredient
• Enter an amount
• Select an unused adjunct location, like 'Adjunct 1'
3. Click Add Step
4. For the new step enter:
• Step Name, like 'Hops Boil 1'
• Temperature, like 207
• Time, like 10 - this will be your boil time for the ingredient
• Drain Time, like 8 or 0 if there are more adjunct steps
• Location, like 'Adjunct 1' - this should match the location above for the ingredient
5. Click Save

Change Units Displayed

All amounts are stored as lbs in the database, but you can change how they are viewed and entered by simply clicking on a unit type (LB, OZ, KG, G) under 'Select Unit Display' This will only change how you interact with the amount it will not change any amounts. You can also still use the legacy 'Unit Calculator' next to the amount field if there is a need to see the amount in multiple units at the same time.

Import A New Beer

1. Go to My Recipes and click on the "Import an XML recipe" cloud icon of the "New Brew" tile to import a new beer.
2. Click on "Select XML File.
3. Select a BeerXML file on your PC.
4. Click "Import".
5. Your new beer now appears as a new card in your beer list, click on the "Edit" pen icon of the tile.
6. All of the recipe ingredients are automatically added to your My Ingredients. If a new recipe being imported has an ingredient that Exactly matches an existing ingredient then the importer will use the existing ingredient instead of adding a new one.
7. You may need to scale your new imported beer to a different batch size. If so, click on the vertical dots next to Batch Size, Enter a new Batch Size, and click Yes. Don't forget to Save your changes.
8. Note that you can export any of your recipes as BeerXML from PicoBrew.com and import them here. See next section.

Export A Beer From PicoBrew.com

1. Go to Recipes on PicoBrew.com and click on My Recipes.
2. Click on a recipe.
3. Click on the Export link.
4. The BeerXML file will be in your downloads folder.

Create A New Session

1. Go to My Logsessions and click on the "Make a new session" plus icon of the "New Session" tile to start a new session.
2. Select a device Type.
3. Select a recipe (this will display a list of your "My Recipes").
4. Add Notes if you wish.
5. Click Save, you can change all of these settings later.
6. Your new session now appears as a new card in your sessions list.
7. Click on the "Edit" pen icon of the tile to change any of the previous settings.
8. Click on the "Import CSV" cloud icon of the tile to import a CSV of log points from a supported device.
9. Click on the "Export CSV" cloud icon of the tile to export a CSV of log points from your session.
10. Click on the "Sync" icon of the tile to display the URL that a supported device can post log points to. Not all device types support posting at this time. The session status must be set to Enabled to recive log points.
11. Click on the "Status Toggle" icon of the tile to change the log recive status for the session. If Enabled (Green) the POST URL can recive new log data from a supported device. If Disabled (Red) the POST URL will not recieve any new data, it will return a 404.
12. Note: that there is a very strict format for importing CSV and recieving POST data

View A Session

1. Go to My Logsessions and click on the center of a session tile.
2. The current log points will be displayed on a graph. Each graph is specific to the device type.
3. You can look at a raw log file by clicking on the Raw button.
4. You can download all the points as a CSV file by clicking on the Export CSV button.
5. You can add a new timestamped datapoint by clicking on the Enter Single Log Point button. This is useful if you are manually creating a graph from observations. Note that this may not yet work for all device types and that the session must be set to Enabled. Timstamping is automatic. Note that it will not graph until at lest two points exist.

Stats Displays

• Bin Loads, Adj[1-4]: Any ingredient assigned to that specific Adjunct Location will accumulate to its sum.
• Bin Loads, Mash: Any ingredient assigned to the Mash Location will accumulate as follows: If the Ingredient Type is Sugar it will accumulate to the ‘sugar’ sum, If the Ingredient Type is any type *except* Sugar it will accumulate to the ‘solids’ sum.
• Fermentables Graph: Any ingredient in the recipe, regardless of location, of Ingredient Type Sugar or Ingredient Type Grain will show in this doughnut graph.
• Hops Graph: Any ingredient in the recipe, regardless of location, of Ingredient Type Hop will show in this doughnut graph.
• OG: The batch size and any ingredient of Ingredient Type Grain or Ingredient Type Sugar which has Location Mash or Location Ferment will affect OG. Also any ingredient of Ingredient Type Hop with Location Adj1-Adj4 will impact Start Water, which will minimally impact OG.
• FG: The first occurrence of an ingredient of Ingredient Type Yeast, and the OG will affect FG.
• ABV: This is affected by OG and FG.
• SRM: The batch size and any ingredient of Ingredient Type Grain with Location Mash; or Ingredient Type Sugar with Location Mash or Ferment, will affect SRM.
• IBU: The batch size, OG, and any ingredient of Ingredient Type Hop in Location Adj1-Adj4 with a Boil Time > 0 will affect IBU. Dry Hops: ingredients of Ingredient Type Hop with Location Ferment do not affect IBU. Whirl Pool Hops: ingredients of Ingredient Type Hop with Location Mash do not affect IBU.

Ingredient Types

• Grain: In Recipe Ingredients, Grain shows Yield in the first attribute column and Color in the second attribute column. Grain is expected to be placed in the Mash Location.
• Sugar: In Recipe Ingredients, Sugar shows Yield in the first attribute column and Color in the second attribute column. Sugar is expected to be placed in the Mash or Ferment Locations.
• Adjunct: In Recipe Ingredients, Adjunct shows nothing in the first attribute column and Time in the second attribute column. Adjunct is expected to be placed in Locations Adj1-Adj4 to show boil time, but can be placed anywhere. It has no bearing on any stat calculation, but does accumulate to Bin Loads.
• Hop: In Recipe Ingredients, Hop shows Alpha in the first attribute column and Time in the second attribute column. Hop is expected to be placed in Locations Adj1-Adj4 or Ferment.
• Yeast: In Recipe Ingredients, Yeast shows Attenuation in the first attribute column and Nothing in the second attribute column. Yeast is expected to be placed in Ferment Location. You may enter an amount but it will not be used in calculations, which assume that you will put in the correct amount for your batch size and yeast type.
• Amendment: In Recipe Ingredients, Amendment shows a Generic Value in the first attribute column and nothing in the second attribute column. Amendment can be placed in any Location. It has no bearing on any stat calculation, but does accumulate to Bin Loads.
• Coffee: When used in coffee recipes ingredients with Ingredient Type Coffee are expected to be in Location Mash.
• Tea: When used in kombucha recipes ingredients with Ingredient Type Tea are expected to be in Location Adj1 – Adj4
• Sous Vide: When used in sous vide recipes ingredients with Ingredient Type Sous Vide are expected to be in Location Mash.

Beer Brew Types (Mash Profiles)

• Single Step Infusion, Mashout

  This should be the default for most beer recipes. It is the best compromise between brewing time and efficiency of extraction. The mashout step stops the enzymes from working and boots the gravity/efficiency.

  Default steps are:

  name: "Heat Water"
  temp: 152
  time: 0
  location: Pass Through
  drain: 0
  
  name: "Mash"
  temp: 152
  time: 90
  location: Mash
  drain: 8
  
  name: "Mashout"
  temp: 175
  time: 15
  location: Mash
  drain: 8
  
  name: "Heat To Boil"
  temp: 207
  time: 0
  location: Pass Through
  drain: 0
  
  name: "Boil"
  temp: 207
  time: 0
  location: Adj1 – Adj4
  drain: 0 (8 on last boil step)
  
  

• High Efficiency Multi Step

  This is the most efficient mash profile, it extracts the most from the grain, however, it is also the longest brew time. It should mostly be used for beer with over 6 lbs of grain, or for beer with high gravity. Heating over the mash is intentional to get the most out of the grain. The times for Mash 1 and Mash 2 can be modified, but together they should add up to 120 minutes.

  Default steps are:

  name: "Heat Water"
  temp: 104
  time: 0
  location: Pass Through
  drain: 0
  
  name: "Dough In"
  temp: 104
  time: 20
  location: Mash
  drain: 4
  
  name: "Heat To Mash 1"
  temp: 145
  time: 0
  location: Mash
  drain: 4
  
  name: "Mash 1"
  temp: 145
  time: 40
  location: Mash
  drain: 4
  
  name: "Heat To Mash 2"
  temp: 161
  time: 0
  location: Mash
  drain: 4
  
  name: "Mash 2"
  temp: 161
  time: 80
  location: Mash
  drain: 4
  
  name: "Heat To Mash Out"
  temp: 175
  time: 0
  location: Mash
  drain: 4
  
  name: "Mash Out"
  temp: 175
  time: 20
  location: Mash
  drain: 8
  
  name: "Heat To Boil"
  temp: 207
  time: 0
  location: Pass Through
  drain: 0
  
  name: "Boil"
  temp: 207
  time: 0
  location: Adj1 – Adj4
  drain: 0 (8 on last boil step)
  
  

• Single Step Infusion, No Mashout

  This is a legacy mash profile that most closely resembles a typical traditional (non-automated) home brewing profile. It is the shortest brew time, but the least efficient. In most cases one of the other profiles will be more appropriate.

  Default steps are:

  name: "Heat Water"
  temp: 152
  time: 0
  location: Pass Through
  drain: 0
  
  name: "Mash"
  temp: 152
  time: 90
  location: Mash
  drain: 8
  
  name: "Heat To Boil"
  temp: 207
  time: 0
  location: Pass Through
  drain: 0
  
  name: "Boil"
  temp: 207
  time: 0
  location: Adj1 – Adj4
  drain: 0 (8 on last boil step)
  
  

• Custom

  This mash profile closely resembles the High Efficiency MultiStep profile. This mash profile should be used when the mash steps will be dramatically altered. Add any number of mash steps. Note that altering the default machine steps may affect the accuracy of the predicted beer stats.

  Default steps are:

  name: "Heat Water"
  temp: 102
  time: 0
  location: Pass Through
  drain: 0
  
  name: "Dough In"
  temp: 102
  time: 20
  location: Mash
  drain: 8
  
  name: "Mash 1"
  temp: 152
  time: 30
  location: Mash
  drain: 8
  
  name: "Mash 2"
  temp: 154
  time: 60
  location: Mash
  drain: 8
  
  name: "Mashout"
  temp: 175
  time: 15
  location: Mash
  drain: 8
  
  name: "Heat To Boil"
  temp: 207
  time: 0
  location: Pass Through
  drain: 0
  
  name: "Boil"
  temp: 207
  time: 0
  location: Adj1 – Adj4
  drain: 0 (8 on last boil step)
  
  

Tips and Tricks

• Don't forget to Save after making changes. Or if you want to erase your changes that you have not yet Saved just refresh the page.
• In order to sync a recipe to your Z you will first need to register your Z with PicoBrew.com in the normal way, and then enter your PicoBrew Token in the Profile on this site. You can find your PicoBrew Token in the Settings section of your profile on PicoBrew.com - it is called "Profile GUID"
• Get used to checking the Notes section of the dashboard for things that may be wrong with the recipe. The crafter is not heavy-handed about constraining you, so you can do a lot but the downside is that you have to make sure all is good, the Notes section will help you.
• Generate Machine Steps will apply the default template of Machine Steps that correspond to the Brew Type you have selected. Generally this is what you want, but it will blow away any Step Changes you have manually entered. Also you will likely have to enter Boil Times for adjuncts if you have not already done so. It will try to preserve them if it finds them while generating steps.
• The adjunct comparments employ a cascading system. What this means is that the each compartment gets all the time from any adjunct that comes after it. For example, if the Machine Step times are 45, 10, 5 for Adjuncts 1-3 then the Boil Times are actually 60, 15, 5. You do not enter the Boil Times directly, they are calculated based off of the Machine Steps that correspond to the Adjuncts.
• The order of Ingredients does not matter, but for ease of reading the Ingredients list is always listed sorted primarily by location, and secondarily by amount.
• The order of Machine Steps does matter and must be ordered according to how the steps should execute on the Z. When you Generate Machine Steps automatically using the Brew Type function this will be correct for your brew type. You can add new steps by clicking the Add Step button, and then rearrange them with the up/down arrows to the right of each step (or delete a step). You should know what you are doing before you do this.
• Core Stats are at the top of the dashboard (in addition to the bottom of the Beer Tile). This is helpful since you can scroll the right pane independly to enter Ingredients and Machine Steps and still see the dashboard stats.
• The dashboard Brew Curve gives you an estimated time and curve shape for your brew based on the Machine Steps. It is an estimate. This will get more accurate over time as we log more brews and refine the estmation function. You can click n the vertical dots next to the Est. Time to bring up the Brew Curve Editor. It's fun to look at but you should really know what you are doing if you change the default Brew Type temps. Note the Curve Editor is immediately changing your temps if you use the sliders, but as usual, nothing is permanent until you click Save.
• The Fermentables and Hops graphs show you % of ingredients. Hover your mouse cursor over a graph section to see what it is, %, and amount.
• Bin Loads shows you how much stuff is in each of your Z bins. Adjunct bins are at the top (1-4), and the mash bin is at the bottom. If you hover your mouse over any bin it will highlight which ingredients are in that bin in the Ingredients section.
• Is it www.brewpen.com or www.brewcrafter.com? For now it is both and will be for a while. Signup still has some bugs on brewcrafter.com - It started out as brewpen but the brewcrafter name is more aligned with longterm direction of PicoBrew crafters.