Keep Notes

I use brewing software, well in full disclosure, I use two.

BrewCipher, which is a free program you can locate on these forums, and I use Beersmith. It keeps my recipe info as I input it, allows me to print out a sheet if I care too, and has a notes/tasting area where I can add all the notes from measurements and such during/after brewing and then tasting notes if I remember to go back and change or keep something for next time.

A simple notebook would be easy enough. Put your recipe at the top, the date, the version of the recipe, ie. V1, V1.5.

Put your amounts of grain/extract, in pounds and percentages of total bill on the sheet.

Put your hop bill, or any adjuncts you need to add to boil, like nutrient, or irish moss. Amounts and times added.

Put your yeast selection, amounts and all that stuff. If using a starter, the amount, decanted, or not.

Then leave yourself the bottom, to write down things during brewing.

Added anything to water to treat it, or change it's profile.

mash/steep temps

gravity before boil, and after boil

Volumes of boil, before, and after, and how long you boiled for

Temp at yeast pitching, temp you fermented out.

----

Then go back and add how long it too to ferment, what temp, how'd the gravity change. Did you taste it yet?

All those will help the next go around if you choose to re do the recipe and dial it in again.

 

I can't beat the amount of detail that @FATC1TY suggested, but my method is to print out my recipe and just keep all kinds of notes, including the creation of a time line for the hop additions, other ingredients, inserting the chiller into the boil, etc. in the margins of that page. It looks pretty messy when its done, but it works for me.

Here's a recommendation: if you are like me, you are tired at the end of the day when nearly done, as well as being anxious to get that important step of getting that yeast pitched, so that it's easy to forget to take a Final Gravity reading. I always write a reminder to do that in BIG LETTERS right above the step where it tells me to pitch the yeast.

 

I use brewing software to track most things, but I do a simple one page brew day outline for each batch I make. It helps keep me on track since I'm usually brewing alone and multitasking a lot (typically cellar work on other batches). I break the brew day down into steps and list them down a column (column C) in a spreadsheet. The steps are highly detailed, containing all of the information I need to make the beer, and go in a chronological checklist style format. Doing all of this "organizational staging" on a one pager before the brew day really helps make both the performing of the steps and the recording of the brew day quite easy for me.

It breaks down into three columns on an excel spreadsheet. Column A = "Target" Column B = "Actual" and Column C = "Planned Steps"

Column A and B is blank. They get filled out on brew day as I'm going. Sometimes Column A and/or B remains blank or just gets a check mark if everything went as planned and outlined in Column C. Other times Column A (target) will be used to mark down planned addition times, step times, etc. while Column B (actual) is for taking notes on documenting what actually happened and/or when it happened. Column B is a much wider column than Column A btw. Column C is nice because I put so much detail into the outline that it guides me in what details to record on brew day. It is also easy to compare the differences between my plan and my actual brew day when they are all written on one sheet side by side.

Here is an example of items listed in Column C for my last brew day (All Grain)


Cedar Aged IPA (a la Cigar City Humidor)

Make (3.5L) starter 3-4 days before with Thames Valley yeast

Mill 24# pale malt, 1.5# munich, 2# C60, 10oz victory malt
Weigh mash salts: 10g gypsum, epsom, calcium chloride (8g each for sparge, 5g each + 3g salt in boil)
Gather 1x hopshot, 3.5oz cascade, 2oz columbus, 2oz ahtanum, 1.5oz centennial, 1oz amarillo

Heat 17.5g of water (8g in HLT, 9.5g in BK) to 162F
Transfer 9.5g from BK to MLT @ 162F

Keep heating 8g of water in HLT to 190F and, once reached, turn flame off then recirculate through chiller / final transfer pump for 15 minutes to sanitize

Add Mash Salts to MLT (10g gypsum, 10g epsom, 10g calcium chloride)
Dough into 9.5g of strike water in MLT @ 161F and RIMS mash @ 148F for 75 minutes

Add Sparge Salts to 7.75g of sparge water (8g gypsum, 8g epsom, 8g calcium chloride)
Collect 6g of 1st runnings, while sparging with 7.75g of water @ 173F
heat BK once first 3g of runnings collected
target 25-45 minute runnings collection time
13.75g total runnings collected in BK (6g 1st and 7.75g 2nd)

13.75g preboil @ 1.059

1 hopshot added @ 60 minute point of 60 minute boil
BOIL SALTS: 5g of each (gypsum, epsom, calcium chloride) and 3g salt
10m = add whirfloc + yeast nutrient

FLAME OUT = add 3.5g cascade, 2g columbus, 2g ahtanum, 1.5g centennial, 1g amarillo HOPSTAND 30m
Target 12.75g post boil @ 1.067 OG
Chill to btw 63-66F, collect 11.25g in 2 carboys, ferment at 68F

 

I basically do the same thing as well. What I find interesting is that even after a couple of years when I go back and look at the recipe and notes, I start remembering things that I did not write down.

 

I usually take cryptic notes on my brewing software (that get more cryptic the more I drink).

Usually:
Salt additions, strike water vol., mash temp, mash pH
Preboil SG, length of boil, hops.
Formal OG, cooled to temp, final volume

 

In a 3 gal fermenter?

 

I have my green beer notbook , I right down everything on every recipe , even if I'm just brewing on the fly with no recipe and no target beer at the end just to see what I get , I always hope one day I'll brew the best damn beer in the world and I want to be able to make it again , haha

 

If anything is significantly different than my normal brew process I write it down , otherwise it's just gravities and tasting notes on my brewing software cheat sheet.

 

3.5L in my 5L flask