Keeping brewing records

[Maltloaf]

Also I don't think my beers are up to a good enough standard to benefit so its probably immaterial whether I make notes or not

You'd be surprised. It's only by little tweaks here and there you get better. If you don't record different things you tried how do you know what worked and what didn't?

Absolutely!

As soon as you start playing around with anything, even adding stuff to kits, you should keep notes of some sort. Especially if there's any danger of the beer hanging around long enough for you to forget what's special about it.

Plus, once you've got a couple of hundred bottles kicking around it's quite easy to leave a few samples to 'age' a bit more. Some half-hearted beers can really improve, and once that happens it's really good to have a record.

[UserDeleted]

I was lucky enough recently to see a Fullers Brewing ledger from 1890, it was a real eye opener as to just what was recorded (*), 2 Pages to a beer, with

Style,
Malt - What, Whose, and How much
Sparge volumes - Number of batch sparges and volumes
Hops - qty per barrel and where they came from.
Yeast - Where it came from, and qty
Fermentation notes.

The great thing about brewing on the same equipment day in day out, is that there are much less variables to record, and if you do vary something it stands out.

We use Promash for recipe formulation, then print out the recipe and notes, record details on that, and file it in a loose leaf binder.

(*) and a real eye opener as to teh amount of work that the Durden park guys put into translating these ledgers for Old British Beers and How to Make them

[louthepoo]

I do the same as Horden HillBilly, i write it down on paper and copy it onto my PC in my brew folder!

[bitter_dave]

I've got an excel spread sheet I use to formulate recipes, and keep very brief notes on this as well (not as detailed as I should)

[steve_flack]

I was lucky enough recently to see a Fullers Brewing ledger from 1890

I've seen the same one (Geoff had it at the time) - were you at BeerBloke's do or was it somewhere else?

[Curious Brew]

I've just started an Excel spreadsheet but as I've only done TC and Alco-lemon so far it's obviously not as in depth as yours.

I'll add more columns as I progress to a beer and onwards.