A variable ingredient addition that can be both tracked (for inventory) and has a “reporting tag” so it can be viewed in the analysis tab for comparing against previous batches. Useful for mash acid additions that would be added based upon mash pH readings and may entail multiple additions throughout the mash.
Thanks for the suggestion, Tait. If I’ve understood you correctly, this is a duplicate of Recipe-level variables for Calculated Fields, e.g. allow "Add ingredient" quantity to be the result of a calculation
If so, can you please vote for that one and confirm for me so I can close this thread? If not, can you please explain further? Thank you.
Hey Luke,
I read through that feature request thread but I am not sure that request as written accomplishes what I’m hoping for here, though maybe it could. I’ll explain it out a bit more and if you see how it does this already then let me know. We can then close this thread and I’ll vote for the other.
The “variable ingredient” as I’m referring to it, would be at recipe level a “target or estimated” amount by volume, weight or units. But at the batch level the operator would enter the actual added amount/volume/weight (this recorded amount could be deducted from inventory and could have a reporting tag). The amount added though is not necessarily the result of a calculation (which is what I understand to be the purpose of the Calculated Fields) maybe this is where my request differs?
If I am reading the example of the water back calculation accurately that is a fairly straight forward calculation of dilution. On the other hand, calculating a mash acid addition to move an in-process mash to the desired target pH value is well outside of my knowledge and I suspect most of the brewers without chemistry PHDs just estimate based on experience with that particular malt bill and that particular water chemistry: add acid, measure pH again. So I don’t think we’d want to rely upon a calculation using a measured pH to determine mash acid additions. I suppose if someone was skilled enough to basically re-write BruNWater type calculations in Breww then that’d be killer but definitely not something I’d be able to do.
Thanks, Tait. I think I have a better understanding now; I think this is essentially two related, but separate features:
- The other one that I linked you to. This would certainly include the ability on a “calculated ingredient” to set a “target or estimated” amount as we would need this figure to do a Pre-brew stock check, even if the final quantity cannot be determined until later in the process.
- In addition, the ability to compare the quantity of any ingredient (no need for this to be limited to “calulated ingredients” only) used over multiple batches. This is very much like the “comparing against previous batches” feature, but for quantities of stock used. It might be best for us to hook this into the reporting tags feature, but it may not be, and either way this is an implementation detail that we probably don’t need to determine at this stage.
I should also add that in the meantime, you can use the Stock item usage in beer batches raw data explorer report to export this data now and manually make your own reports based upon this, if you need to.
Can you let me know if that covers what you’re looking for? If so, I’ll repurpose this thread into the second part (comparing ingredients quantities used over time) and we can implement your requirements over two separate threads. (And if I’m still misunderstanding, please say!)
@tait-simpson could you please confirm that this is what you’re looking for?
Hey Luke - thanks for the followup and apologies for not responding sooner.
This is exactly what I’m after.
Happy holidays to you and the whole Breww team and community!
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