Promash

[bitter_dave]

I've just been having a go with the free promash demo.

I can imagine it would be a great tool if you were an american making complicated beers with different rest times and temps. I found that the fact that all the weights and measures were in Lls, oz, and US galons was a big pain though, as I can't think in those units. I kept on having to go back to check I'd converted measurements. I think it would be pretty easy to put together an excel sheet with a lot of the basic information on it.

Interestingly, the default assumptions about hop utilisation meant that when I ran the recipe for Gales Best in Wheeler and Prozt, the total IBUs came up as 38.8 rather than 24!

Discuss

[bitter_dave]

I really like sierra nevada pale ale, but I take your point about most american beer being sh1t.

There also seems to be this obsession among HB'ers with making beer as strong and bitter as possible, I guess it's that's a reaction to miller light! Have you heard of this 21% beer 'Utipias' that costs $100 a bottle. Why? If you want a nice spirit made out of grain, there is a little known drink called Whisky

[noby]

I downloaded the free trial some time back. It's been a while but I thought you could change your default settings to work in metric, celcius etc. Or I could be dreaming.

I think you can only save one or two sessions if you don't buy the program.

[bitter_dave]

QUOTE (noby @ Apr 24 2006, 07:48 AM)I downloaded the free trial some time back. It's been a while but I thought you could change your default settings to work in metric, celcius etc. Or I could be dreaming.

I think you can only save one or two sessions if you don't buy the program.
As far as I could tell you could change the weight measurements for certain parts of it, but not where they relate to a fixed part of the screen (i.e. a button for increasing / decreasing the oz/llbs to formulate a recipe)... I could well be wrong, however, perhaps I 'll have another look at it at some point.

You are only able to save a few recipes, and then you have to buy it. Not going to rush to give them my (limited) money though - I found the mathematical formulas on Jim's site enough to alter the ingredients of the beer I made yesterday (cheers jim B) ), and I am mathematically challenged :stun

[noby]

There's a few on-line recipe calculators that keep things simpler than pro-mash

Try beertools.com You have to register but it's free

Or hbd.org/recipator

They'll give you good guidelines, without getting too bogged down in maths.

[tribs]

Promash is the most comprehensive brewing tool currently available. Its interface is awful though and it shows that it was developed several years ago.

It looks complicated at first glance, but after using it for every batch for the past few months I have found it is invaluable. I would recommend it to anyone. I record everything from my batch. Its got a great calculator for mash & sparge water. If you want to throw in a protein rest you can accomodate it into your mash schedule. There is a little utility for diluting wort with water or other wort. Plus it lets me specify how much beer is to be bottled and kegged at a given temp and it will give me the sugar req. for priming and the psi on my regulator for my chosen level of carbonation.

There are settings to convert all the units to metric. I still use farenheit for temp though. :rolleyes:

Beer Tools as has already been mentioned is a great online tool especially for creating your own recipes. Give it your style and ingredients and it will formulate a recipe which you can then tweak. I've designed some great recipes using this. Beer Tools are working on Beer Tools Pro a standalone version with features to match promash. I am on the list of trial users at the beta stage. When I have played around with it I will let you know how it compares.

There are some excellent craft breweries in the US; Sierra Nevada, Victory, Red Hook, Rogue and Brooklyn to name but a few. The commercial beers are light in taste due to using highly fermentable adjuncts and many varieties of hops for consistency of flavour (or lack of ). The distinctive thing about american craft beers is the american hops, most notably cascade. They give their brews very hoppy fruity flavours and floral aromas which can be quite dominant. Admittedly they are not to everyones taste. Personally, I love them. The larger Sainsburys occasionally carry the odd Rogue brew, definitely worth a try. Their Youngers Bitter is magic. :beer

[Andy]

I use Promash (the free version) and set the defaults to grams and litres, simple. Regarding the IBU calcualtions there are three different algorithms supported by Promash, you can set the default algorithm in the settings menu.

<rant>What's the point of introducing a 'standard' such as IBU if there are loads of different methods for calculating it and they all give different results</rant>

[bitter_dave]

I have to confess being a ignorant about US beers, but as I say I really like Sierra Nevada Pale ale, and a local micro make a very nice 'american' pale ale. If you have any AG recipes for that kind of stuff I'd be interested to see them - I have a shed full of bottles that I feel should be filled, and I'm thinking this sort of beer would benefit from being bottle conditioned (they need to be relatively simple for a new brewer like me).

I found this recipe for a http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtop ... &start=105 , but I'm not sure where you would get magnum hops though.

Maybe I'll have another look at promash, you do a good job of selling it

[tribs]

Thanks Dave, I also keep my inventory in promash. I can take a quick look at what grain and hops I have leftover and decide what to brew with them.

I have already posted a victory hop devil ipa recipe but thats insanely hopped although very tasty. I wouldn't recommend that unless you have tried something similar. I'll post some more when I've got a few spare mins.

Regarding SNPA, I have a recipe from Clone Brews that is almost identical to beerfans on NB except it calls for Nugget instead of Magnum which is available from H&G and maybe other HB shops. Also you can use Safale US-56 dry yeast which is the same as wyeast 1056 and WLP001.

I tried an APA as my first extract brew using galena and cascade hops. It was not a million miles from SNPA. Incidentally, I used the Beer Tools Utility to create the recipe.

[bitter_dave]

I had a SNPA last night, and that's enough bitterness for me! I doubt I would enjoy a monster hop beer :blink:

If you have that recipe from SNPA from clone brews, and don't mind posting it (I know andy is interested in making SNPA as well) I'll give it a whirl and report back on how it turns out

[James]

QUOTE (tribs @ Apr 24 2006, 07:24 PM)The larger Sainsburys occasionally carry the odd Rogue brew, definitely worth a try.
These are superb beers, so tasty, with a big flavour profile, not for the faint hearted!

I'm with Tribs on giving a 'thumbs up' to american beers/styles, and just their forward way of thinking in general. Trouble I find with the UK beermaking is just that, people always want to brew UK-style beers and nothing else. There are loads of beer styles, which US beermakers seem to embrace/want to brew but are frowned upon in the UK. This I think is a shame.

[tribs]

I think its a matter of personal taste. I enjoy most of the esoteric brews found at beer festivals but I have a very diverse taste when it comes to beer. I appreciate every style I have tried so far.

I agree with James though, you don't see many if any british brewers brewing greman style bocks or belgian style tripels and why not? Its not as though we usually have access to these types of beer in our pubs anyway. I've noticed more british brewers are experimenting brewing american style cascade pale ales though. Probably because they are easy to brew and appeal to a larger market.

I suspect American brewers are more forward thinking because they don't really have a traditional style as such. Therefore they are able to embrace any style they desire. B)

P.S. John Palmer also stated
QUOTE You as the brewer have almost infinite control over the end result. Don't be afraid to experiment.

tribs

[Andy]

Amen brother!

[FlippinMental]

i don't care what the reason, their beer is shite... indeed poison to the average british ale drinker.

[BlightyBrewer]

That's a bit harsh FM.