Wheeler's Beer Engine

[Graham]

I am just checking that I am not being particularly thick. Is everyone unable to save or print a recipe?

The ability to save and print recipes, and ingredient editors are missing at the moment. They are high on the list of things to do, but I will need to write the water treatment bit before I write the save recipes bit, because water treatment additions will need to be saved too. The water treatment calculator is a relatively big job.

Also is the export to browser function awaiting a fix?

Sort of. You are obviously using Vista. For some functions to work in Vista, BeerEngine needs to be run in administrator mode. Exporting to the browser is one of them.

Functions I would like to see added: A refractometer tool similar to the one in Beersmith (spits). A refractometer is so convenient that I use it most of the time although the readings can be a bit suspect, I feel.

A refractometer tool is planned.

Faults in current version: Adjusting boil time does not alter the EBUs. Late additions are projected as giving some very bitter beers!

You need to set "boil time compensation" to exponential in defaults (or simply hit the Tinseth button). To save this as defaults, however, you need to be in administrator mode yet again.

[likesbeer]

Hi all have downloaded so that I can adjust an existing recipe to reduce some of the fermentables and produce beer instead of wine I'm on a very slow XP machine and it works fine for me thanks Graham.
Also am complete novice so fairly clueless about making recipes so if I can use it anyone can.

But I have a question, the recipe calls for honey which isnt on your list of fermentables or maybe it is and I'm not using the correct name. Can you let me know which one I should pick from the list that will represent the honey?

Sorry if this is a daft question

Great program easy to use and install thanks

[Dennis King]

played about with it today for the frist time thought it was great thanks Graham. One thing I noticed no east kent goldings in the hops

[Stonechat]

Have just used Beer Engine on a Vista laptop. Following GW's instruction post it worked well. Thanks Graham

[Graham]

Have just used Beer Engine on a Vista laptop. Following GW's instruction post it worked well. Thanks Graham

Remember that in Vista you have to run in administrator mode for any function that needs to write to a file to work. Currently that is saving the defaults from the default pop-up and displaying the recipe in HTML. I've done quite a lot on a revised version that shouldn't need that, but I got distracted from it by making some changes to the water treatment calculator found elsewhere on Jims. Unfortunately it turned out to be more complicated to "enhance" the water calculator than I expected, and it turned into one of those things that I wished I'd never started (if you know what I mean) - I had a full head of hair when I began it, but I'm not so sure now. However, it is done now apart from a bit of tidying up, so I will have time to get back to beer engine after today.

With beer engine, whether in Vista or XP, do not set the colours to machine default, 'cos it causes it to pick up its ball and stomp off home. Fortunately it is not one of my bugs, its probably a Gatesism, but there is a fix for it, so it will not be a problem in future versions.

[Stonechat]

Thanks for the reminder. As I just used it as a calculator and then wrote the resulting figures into the Black n' Red notebook that I weigh up from and write timings and temperatures in during brewday I guess I got away with not using Administrator mode.

Previously after doing all the recipes in BYORAAH I went back to the grain bills and used them so I would have a known colour,OG and taste to work to and then tweaked the hops by with different varieties and quantities. Probably a bit sad for computer wizards, but it worked

Now looking forward to trying the recipes in the new book that hopefully the CAMRA "experts" haven't messed up too much

[PMH0810]

Profound thanks Graham; I can see this being of real assistance to me and, unlike promash et al, I appear to understand it. Why, I'd even pay for it!

[Mauri]

First of all thanks Graham. This is a really nice and simple tool.
I'm not sure if this has already been said, but I just tested Graham's Beer Engine in Linux (using Wine *insert own joke here*) and it works nicely (apart from the send to browser part, as I don't have a Windows browser installed on my Linux system). Would be a good alternative for those, like me, who are not 100% happy with Qbrew (I don't understand the bittering units calculations in Qbrew).
Will there be a native Linux version of the Beer Engine? That would be great. I am happy to help, if help is needed!
Cheers,
Mauri

[Graham]

First of all thanks Graham. This is a really nice and simple tool.
I'm not sure if this has already been said, but I just tested Graham's Beer Engine in Linux (using Wine *insert own joke here*) and it works nicely (apart from the send to browser part, as I don't have a Windows browser installed on my Linux system). Would be a good alternative for those, like me, who are not 100% happy with Qbrew (I don't understand the bittering units calculations in Qbrew).
Will there be a native Linux version of the Beer Engine? That would be great. I am happy to help, if help is needed!
Cheers,
Mauri

It was originally written for Linux, but in the migration to Windoze so much got changed to deal with Windoze quirks that it is no longer a Linux app, and it has progressed a lot since then so I am not sure how much of the later stuff will actually run anyway.

I'll have to upgrade my Linux box to the latest version, and see how much work it will take to get it going again on that. Linux is much easier than fighting the windows O.S. What sort of help can you offer? It is PERL/tk.

[Mauri]

To be honest I haven't done any Perl coding in about 3 years, but I suppose I should still be able to work my way around it, if necessary. Scientific programming is one of the things I do for a living.

[thesaintv12]

This is really nice and easy to use. I can quickly see where some of my early recipes went wrong when I input my ingredients!

Thanks Graham. I have just ordered the new version of your book (to go with the original versions I have) by way of thanks.

[Graham]

This is really nice and easy to use. I can quickly see where some of my early recipes went wrong when I input my ingredients!

A slightly updated version coming soon, Mr Templar. As soon as I have bribed someone into testing it on Vista.

[Graham]

I have put up a revised version of Beer Engine. There are several enhancements, but it is still a long way from being finished. I think the issues with Vista have been fixed, that is the file permission issues that required it to be used in admin mode in Vista. Chris-x1 has done some testing on it (thanks), and so far it is hasn't caused any issues.

It no longer crashes when using windows native system colours. A few new calculator tools have been added. And, importantly, the beginnings of a help system has been put in, which should take much of the guesswork out of using it. It can be found at the previous URL or can be found HERE

It is still very much a work in progress.

Regards

Graham Wheeler

[Jim]

Nice one Graham. I've downloaded the new version and will have a play later.

I'm looking forward to seeing the website when it's all finished - the menu list has whetted my appetite.

[Graham]

Yes the revised version (1.03) is up there. It went up on Wednesday as soon as I had fixed the 'snagette' that Chris pointed out to me. The same snagette was possibly in earlier versions too, but nobody, including myself, had noticed it.

I've been given a few ideas for minor enhancements by both mentaldental and Chris.
It has been suggested to me that the lb oz column gets in the way, and should be removed (does anybody find it useful?).

The fact that the 'total percent' background no longer turns red when the total isn't 100% has been missed. I will look at ways of putting it, or something similar, back. It was this that caused the previous version to crash when using the windows default colour scheme, so I removed it.

I will look at doing something about the irritating necessity to tab or click out of a box for the calculations to update.

Any suggestions for minor enhancements welcome.