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What's New in BeerSmith 2

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BeerSmith 2 has been redesigned from the ground up to make it easier to navigate and use.

 

New in BeerSmith 2.3

Major Features

oSupport for above HD window scaling and 200% font size on windows
o New "Session" tab consolidates overlapping data related to a session, and session data can be reset so you can track which data was entered for a given recipe
oBetter Recipe Editing (see below) with focus and keyboard shortcuts
oAdded mash pH estimator (based on water profile and grain bill) as well as a pH acid adjustment feature (for lactic, phosphoric or acid malt) based on measured pH on the Recipe mash tab
o  -- Also added a separate stand-alone mash pH adjustment tool
oCorrected a variety of focus issues so keyboard focus is saved as views/dialogs are changed
oWater can now be priced, inventoried and added to the shopping cart
oAdded water profile stats to water profiles including recommended brewing ion levels, Residual Alkalinity, hardness, chloride/sulfate ratio, bitterness profile of water - now available for all water profiles.
oAdded field for Mash Water Addition to equipment profile to allow for equipment that may have a significant recoverable volume under the mash screen and need more mash volume
oIncreased custom field display to 26 fields in Design view (up from 13)
oCan now lock/unlock recipes to prevent them from being changed (currently desktop onlY)
oLate sugar and extract additions now work properly for all grain, and partial mash recipes
oSignificantly modified late extract calculator to more accurately estimate IBUs as gravity changes over boil
oYou can now navigate folders via the title bar when viewing subfolders of My Recipes
oAdded options in equipment profile to allow carry over of remaining boil hops to whirlpool (for utilization)
o  -- This feature can also be used for "no chill" as it does a hop-by-hop calculation of IBUs added while cooling
oAllow override of "Another copy is running" error to account for case where crash on Mac creates stale lock file
oAdded support for CO2 Hop Extract as well as Isomerized Hop extract in recipes (in ml)
o   -- CO2 extract should be boiled - use alpha content for alpha percentage (typically 35-70%)
o   -- Isomerized extract need not be boiled - use iso-alpha percentage as the alpha percent for hops (typically 40-60%)
oYou can now record detailed fermentation gravity and temperature and graph it against age profile planned on session tab
oNew "Recover from Backup" command (File menu) lets you view or recover from automatic backups made
oMac version has better support for Retina devices now

Recipe Editing:

oYou can now add multiple items when adding ingredients by choosing the "Add Ingredient Without Closing" button from within the add dialogs
oAdded duplicate button to duplicate ingredients in recipe design view
oNew Hop Adjust button lets you adjust individual hop IBU contributions all at once
oIngredient editing now uses simplified dialogs with detail buttons
o   -- This feature can be turned off (use old dialogs) from Options->Look and Feel->Simplified Recipe Editing box
oFlexible sizing of recipe design view - now allows wider ingredient list on wide screens
oUndo button below ingredient add buttons can undo last ingredient change in design tab
o   -- Also allows undo of scale, convert, adjust gravity and adjust bitterness functions when recipe open
oAdded key shortcuts to recipe design view (only when list has focus) - Del=Delete, Ctrl-h = Add hops, Ctrl-M=Add Misc,
o     Ctrl-Y=Add yeast, Ctrl-G=Add grain, Ctrl-W=Add water, Ctrl-D=duplicate, Ctrl-s=Substitute, Ctrl-A=Select All
o     +/-/==Increment/Decrement amount, Ctrl-z=Undo Last Item, [ or ] will decrement or increment time for item
oYou can now cut/paste ingredients within the design view - use Ctrl-c (copy), Ctrl-v (paste), Ctrl-x (cut), Ctrl-A (Select All)
oIn-place editing of ingredient amounts from within recipe editor (Windows)
oFixed focus issues so focus remains on ingredient list as adds/deletes are done
oIngredients can now be multi-selected for delete/duplication and incrementing/decrementing
oNew field for carbonation based on measured final volume is below the carbonation estimate (based on est final vol)
oAltered formats on recipe design pages to allow ingredients, notes, mash to expand with window size
oAdded brew date to starter page and also calculator to estimate Dry Malt Extract needed for starter (tool and starter tab)
oCorrected discontinuity in mash temperature adjustments to FG estimates - now handles mash temps < 144 or > 159 properly

Lesser Features

oDisabled undo button when dialog editor is open - was causing confusion for many users
oEnter/Escape key now saves/cancels most dialogs and there is a look/feel option to allow closing of tabs also
oAll dialogs make better use of wide screens now - larger fields and graphs scale
oCorrected "Ctrl-z" to undo edits within a field (previously it did not work properly)
oButtons can now be activated using the space bar keyboard shortcut
oCorrected bug when adding mash step from recipe mash tab that could cause crashes
oCorrected bug in cloud that could cause errrors on cloud account above its recipe limit
oAllow "not fermentable" to affect FG for all grain types (previously was sugar, extract, dry only)
oAdjusted color schemes to be more neutral
oAdded "color" indicators and recommended ranges for water ions to water profile tool
oCorrected bug in water profile tool where selecting a water profile (base, dilute, target) did not update totals
oAdd of a folder in My Recipes now has an "undo" button
oCorrected minor math error with boil cool percent that could throw off pre-boil volume for very large cool percentages
oFixed '&' bug on Mac where using an ampersand in the recipe name could cause a crash
oCorrected Water Avail from Mash to reflect tun deadspace (previously not reflected in displayed value)
oProgram now gives you an option to upgrade your cloud space (if desired) when cloud space fills up
oYou can now set the number of digits after decimal (Precision) for the Currency under Options->Units
oCorrected rounding issue where values were sometimes shown as "x lbs 16 oz" when showing pounds and ounces
oAdded feature to allow "lock file override" if the program has a copy that did not close properly.
oImproved mouse wheel propagation for dialogs (however if you use the scroll wheel in a list it will still scroll the list)
oRemoved black background from style sheet that was messing up many people when printing
oMade BJCP 2015 Style guide the new default style guide
oIncorporated 2013 and 2016 yeast and hops add-ons in the default add-on

 

New in BeerSmith 2.2

oBeerSmith 2.2 has a simplified interface to make it easier to use and less cluttered
oA new Search All command was added to let you search all local recipes
oA new Cloud Search command gives you easy access to thousands of recipes others have shared on BeerSmithRecipes.com
oThe Recipe Archive was added - it stores all of your recipe adds, moves, edits and deletes so you can easily access older recipes or altered recipes
oAdded whirlpool/steep hop IBU contributions for steeped/whirlpool hops based on 90C/194F steep temperature and time/util
oGrains/Extracts/Sugars can now be marked as not fermentable (such as lactose) and will contribute more to FG now
oThe shortcut bars are replaced with a simpler view tree on the left bottom sidebar, with the ability to store and use favorites.  Right click on any item in the shortcut bar to add a new favorite.
oThe large ribbon was made optional (now off) for a cleaner overall look and feel - it can still be turned on from the View menu
oNew Equipment Wizard to make it easier to create equipment profiles
oThe Check Updates command can now download the newest version of BeerSmith in the background and will prompt to install it when done
oA Gravity Adjustment tool determines how much dry malt extract is needed to hit a target gravity level if your original gravity is off
oCSS is now supported for custom reports (Mac, PC) and new cleaner CSS based recipe report and brew steps were added
oFixed bug "Not enough space in cloud folder" that could occur with some non-cloud pastes
oFixed printing from tool views, and printing in general is smoother and less confusing
oBrew Steps are now opened in a separate tab (better viewing) instead of a "small font" window
oThe glass is now displayable in custom reports using the $GLASS tag
oChanged automatic backup file times so older backup files are kept longer without being replaced as often
oBetter error handling for corrupted options files as well as data file error handling to avoid losing reg key or data if a file is bad
oCopy Local and Copy Cloud commands added to cloud and local views for easier transfer (also on cloud search)
oYou can now customize columns in the the Inventory view and Ingredients in design view
oThe short items "ioz", "iqt", "igal", "ibarrel" can now be used in any field to specify conversion of imperial units
oA new simplified startup screen to help you get started

 

New in BeerSmith 2.1

oBeerSmith 2.1 has two major changes as well as a number of smaller updates included.
oThe BeerSmith Cloud folder is the most significant change.  It allows internet connected computers to share recipes via a cloud folder - so you can work from more than one computer.  It also is tightly integrated with our new web site at BeerSmithRecipes.com so you can share a recipe with the community and search from thousands of recipes others have created.
oThe new Brewday Timer is the second major new feature.  It gives you a mash/steep and boil timer for brewing your beer.  It displays step-by-step instructions for these two critical stages with an integrated timer and alarm to tell you when to add the next major ingredient additions or steps.

 

New Look and Feel for 2.0

oThe entire program was rewritten from the ground up to support tabbed and windowed browsing - making it easier to work with multiple recipes and tools.
oYou can open recipes, tools and other views in either a new tab or window
oA ribbon and integrated toolbars make all of the functions and tools more accessible
oThemes allow you to customize the look and feel of the program

 

Macintosh Support

oBeerSmith 2 is now available for the Macintosh, and both versions have compatible file formats and are nearly identical

 

New Recipe Design Tab

oThe recipe design process was also redesigned from scratch
oA beer glass shows you the color of the beer in real-time as you add new ingredients
oThe style guide comparison includes graphical bars to show which items are in or out of style
oThe expanded ingredient display can be sorted and now shows the current inventory of each item
oA section is dedicated to user selectable fields - rather than fixing a few fields in the display we let you choose the ones you want most when designing a recipe
oYou can now adjust grain percentages using the Grain Adj button next to the ingredients list

 

New Recipe Tabs

oWithin the recipe editor, we've added tabs to help you focus on individual pieces of the brewing process including extended session data
oThe Yeast Starter Tab can help you estimate the right size yeast starter to use with your liquid yeast
oThe Mash Details Tab lets you adjust and record details of your mash session - and includes a visual graph of the mash process
oA Fermentation Tab helps you manage fermentation, bottling and aging details.

 

Brew in a Bag Support

oWe now have mash profiles to automatically support Brew-in-a-bag (BIAB) brewing

 

Profiles for Carbonation and Fermentation

oBeerSmith recipes now support profiles for both carbonation and fermentation, making it easy to select the perfect bottling and aging profile to match your beer.

 

New Data Format

oBeerSmith now uses *.bsmx format files, an extended XML format that is easier to extend and add to as new features are added to BeerSmith
oBeerSmith can still freely import and export BeerSmith 1.x (*.bsm) files as well as BeerXML open format recipe files

 

New Tools

oA new Yeast Starter Tool will calculate your yeast starter size
oThe Water Profile Tool now has a button that will calculate the ideal water additions to match a given target water profile
oA number of other tools have been updated, revised and improved

 

New Add-ons

oThe new add-on tool lets you download and manage ingredient and recipe add-on packs from the BeerSmith website