Starting a Brew Session

When you first create a brew session you'll need to confirm a couple settings before you start.

Brew Session Setup

Starting a brew session

Recipe to Brew

Just showing you the name of the recipe to confirm it's the correct recipe you're brewing or recording.

Batch Code:

With Brewer's friend, you have the option of using batch codes as a shorthand, these are great for putting on bottle caps, beer labels, keg labels, etc.

Auto-batch codes takes the first letter or number from each word or number in the name of the recipe to create an abbreviation for ‘Brew Sessions’, and then auto increments each ‘Brew Session’ by the number of times brewed. E.g. The first two ‘Brew Sessions’ of recipe named The Best Beer increment as TBB001 and TBB002.

Reset batch codes annual

In your general settings you have the option to reset your batch codes every year back to 001. Handy for those that make a lot of batches, whether you're an exceptionally active small batch homebrewer, or a professional.

Equipment Profile

Here you can confirm which of your equipment profiles you're using. Note that this does NOT change any calculations in the recipe, so if you want to scale or re-plan the recipe stats, you should do that before starting your brew session. This will adjust the volume calculations within the brew session though.

Brew Step Profile

Here you can choose your brewing profile to walk you through your brewday from setting up your equipment, all the way to pitching your yeast and putting your fermentor wherever it is you fermenter!

Don't worry, while there are preloaded default steps for you to use they are also full customizable in your My Brew Steps page. For more information, head over to the Brew Steps documentation!

The current brewing step profiles correspond to the 4 main brewing methods used today.

Chilling Method

Here you can choose your chilling method, this doesn't change anything at the moment and is solely for your documentation and references.

Snapshot Recipe

Here you can create a duplicate of your recipe as a Snapshot, this snapshot will be tied to the brew session and is useful to keep historical records independent of the main recipe. Once this beers ready, you may think to yourself "Hmmm I think it needs just a touch more ...."

I always use snapshots so I can feel free to continue tweaking my recipe without getting things mixed up!