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BrewPlanner- Getting Started

We look forward to helping you efficiently plan, schedule, and execute your brews.

 

Contact us at support@brewplanner.com with questions or comments.

 

Read below for information about how to get the most out of your BrewPlanner experience.

• Getting started
• Assign Tanks + Sections
• Assign Beer Styles
• Setting Tasks
• Schedule a Brew
• Batch Numbers
• Possible Scenarios Represented by a Combination of Orders
• Icons, Labels and Tasks
• Notes
• Messages
• Make changes to an order
• Publish
Getting Started

Getting started:

  1. The “Dashboard” is where you will go to see the schedule of all your brews. As you will see when you login there are three sections- the brewing section on the left, fermenting section in the center and packaging section on the right.

  2. The menu can be found by clicking on the three horizontal lines in the upper left corner of the screen.

Assign Tanks + Sections

  1. From the menu, click on “Tanks + Sections”

  2. To add a new tank or column, select whether you are adding to the brewing, fermenting or packaging section, then type in the name of the tank or column as it will appear on the dashboard (ex: AM turn, FV1, BT3, TallBoy, etc.) Enter the volume of the tank.

  3. The “Brewing” section is designed for scheduling your brewhouse turns. Each turn should be represented by a separate column.

  4. Click “Add”. The tank will now appear on the list below and on the dashboard.

  5. Tanks will be ordered first by section, then numerically and then alphabetically.

  6. If you need to delete or change a tank, just select the box to the left of the tank name. The type of tank and name will appear above. Type any changes and then click either “Change” or “Delete”.

Assign Tanks

Assign Beer Styles

  1. From the menu, click on “Beer Styles”

  2. Enter the beer style name.

  3. Enter the number of days this beer style will be in the fermenter and in packaging. (note: these days can be changed in the future or with each individual order, but these will be the default number of days that appear on the dashboard when this beer style is scheduled).

  4. Select the color that will represent this beer style.

  5. Click “Add”. The beer style will now be shown in the list below and the corresponding settings will appear under each column.

  6. Note: The beers will be displayed alphabetically in the list below. This is also the order in which they will appear on the dashboard when choosing your beer style. If you would like your most frequently brewed beers to appear at the top, name them accordingly.

  7. To add pre-configured default icons, click on the beer style and along the top bar you will see the options “Set Brewing Icons”, “Set Fermenting Icons" and “Set Packaging Icons". When one of these are clicked, there will be a drop-down menu with each day number the beer is in the chosen section or the number of different turns. Click on the number and then choose the task from the drop-down menu of icons. Labels can be added for more specific information. Labels will appear as a small oval next to the icon on the dashboard and will display 3-4 characters (see more info under “Icons, Labels and Tasks” below). Click “Add” and the task will appear in the list below. For example, if you will always dry hop on day 9, click on 9 and choose "Dry Hopping". Multiple tasks can be assigned, each of which will be represented by an icon on the dashboard every time you enter a brew order for that beer style. (see more about icons and labels in the “Icons, Labels and Processes” section below.)

  8. To change or delete, just select the box to the left of the beer style. The color and name will appear above. Make any changes and then click either “Change” or “Delete”.

Assign Beer Styles

Setting Tasks 

  1. From the menu, click on “Tasks”. This is where you can add different tasks or processes for each section- brewing, fermenting and packaging. These tasks provide more specific information about the brew and you will have the opportunity to add them to each day. These can be tasks such as PH, gravity, O2 and include start times, end times, total time and extra notes.

  2. To add a task, first select the section where the task will appear (brewing, fermenting, or packaging).

  3. Enter the name of the task.

  4. Type in the sequence number. This will determine what order the tasks will be displayed each time you enter more information about an order.

  5. Click “Add” and the task will be displayed in the menu below.

  6. To make changes or delete a task, just click on the box in the left column, make changes and click “change” or click “delete”.

  7. All of these tasks will now appear as options when a brew is created on the dashboard.

Setting Tasks

Schedule a Brew:

  1. From the menu, click on “Dashboard”

  2. On the dashboard, all the tanks should now be visible along the top bar with their volumes displayed in yellow and names displayed in white.

  3. To create a new brew, find the date along the left side bar. Double click in the space under the desired tank. Note: brews can be created by double clicking in any of the three sections and dates will be populated accordingly. For example, if you double click in the packaging section, this will be the day of packaging and the dates will be populated in reverse.

  4. A window will appear with the title “New Brewing-FermentingPackaging”. By default, BrewPlanner will schedule a brew in all three sections. In the lower left-hand corner there are 3 toggle switches. Here is where you can choose where this new order will appear. Turning off any of these three sections will change the title to reflect where it will be scheduled. For example, turning of the “packaging” switch will change the title to “New Brewing-Fermenting”, signifying that the brew will be scheduled in the brewing and fermenting section but will not appear in the packaging section.

  5. Select the beer style from the drop down menu and the default number of days in fermenting and packaging will automatically populate. To change either of these dates, click on the date and a calendar will appear. Click on the desired date and click “Ok”.

  6. Entering the volume of the batch will allow you to schedule the brewhouse turns and ensure that the batch is scheduled in the correct tanks. If you choose to enter the volume, enter this in the lower right field.

  7. The tank that was clicked on will be the one that appears in the drop-down menu. If changes need to be made, one of the available tanks can be chosen from the drop-down menu.

  8. The first available tank from the other section (either fermenting or packaging) will be assigned. This can be changed by clicking on the drop-down menu. Only the available tanks with the required volume will be displayed.

  9. Special comments about the brew can be entered in the “Brew Comments” section at the bottom. These comments can later be viewed by double clicking on the brew order which will once again bring up this change order window.

  10. Batch numbers are automatically assigned. Read more below under “Batch Numbers” to learn more.

  11. The number of brewhouse turns required to fill this volume will be populated and can be viewed under the “Brewing” tab. For example, if your brewhouse has a volume of 15bbl and you are creating a 60bbl batch, four brewhouse turns will be created for this batch.

  12. Click “Save” and the brew order will appear on the dashboard in the color of beer that was previously assigned. Each of the sections of the new order will be bouncing, making it easily identifiable which columns belong to the same batch.

  13. Much more information can be added for each batch. This will be explained further in the “Icons, Labels and Tasks” and “Notes” sections below.

  14. **REMEMBER TO PUBLISH** Any time the green circle with the cloud icon appears in the lower right corner, there are changes that have not yet been published. This means that the viewers will not be able to see the most current changes. Click on this circle any time you are ready to publish the current schedule.

Schedule a Brew

Batch Numbers

  1. Batch numbers help keep track of the orders that are brewed and also link different orders together on the dashboard. For example, if you have two brews that were assigned the same batch number, clicking on one will highlight both orders, providing a visible link between the two. Clicking and dragging one to a new date will also move the other(s).

  2. When a new order is added a batch number will automatically be assigned in the bottom left corner but is not required and can be deleted. Batch numbers can be added later by double clicking on the order and typing in the number inside the change order window.

  3. Once batch numbers have been assigned, the next order that is created will automatically have the next consecutive number assigned.

  4. Batch numbers are alpha-numeric. If a letter and a number are used, such as C48, the following order will retain the letter and assign the next consecutive number, C49.

Batch Numbers

Possible Scenarios Represented by a Combination of Orders:

  1. If you would like to separate one fermenting tank into two packaging tanks, for example, you can do so by creating one brew in fermenting and packaging and one brew only in packaging. Be sure that brew created in just packaging has the same date range as the packaging section of the other brew and assign it the same batch number as the brew you first created.

  2. For a beer that is not filtered or carbonated, a brew can be created in brewing-fermenting or just fermenting without the necessity of having a corresponding packaging or brite tank.

  3. Other tasks such as maintenance or cleaning: First a separate task must be created under the beer style menu.

    • Add a beer style called “special task” (or any title of choice).

    • Choose the default number of fermenter and packaging days (although these can be changed at the time of creating the order).

    • Choose the color you would like to use for the special tasks.

    • From the dashboard, double click to add a new order, switch on the section where you would like to schedule the special task. Select “special task” from the beer style menu, select chosen dates and add any task icons (repair, cleaning, etc.). Labels can be added to provide more information.

    • Click save and you will see this special task on the dashboard. BrewPlanner will recognize when there are special tasks created to make sure that a different order is not scheduled in that same tank on that day.

Possible Scenarios

Icons, Labels and Tasks

  1. Icons can be added to represent different tasks in your brewing process. These can be pre-configured as default icons that will appear each time you schedule a brew (see “Assign Beer Styles” above).

  2. Other icons can be added, either at the time of the brew creation or after it has already been created. When the New/ Change window is open, you will see a tab along the top menu bar for each of the sections that were selected from “Brewing”, “Fermenting” and “Packaging”.

  3. Clicking on one of these tabs will display a window with a line for each day the beer is in the selected section (or one line for each of the brewhouse turns scheduled if “Brewing” was selected). Find the date that an icon needs to be added and choose that icon from the drop-down menu (for example: dry hopping, cooling, etc.).

  4. Labels- A short label can be added which will appear on the dashboard as a small circle next to the icon. For example, the task may be “Brew & Yeast” and the label is “1”, signifying it is the first generation of this yeast strain. These labels ideally should be limited to 3 characters but will display up to 9 characters if there are spaces between every 3 characters.

  5. Notes can be typed in the right column. These notes will only be accessed by once again double clicking on the order to bring up this window and will not be visible on the dashboard.

  6. Repeat for any desired tasks in each section. For example, if all beer that day will be packaged into bottles, the icon under packaging should be “bottle” and the label could be “30” to show that 30bbl will be packaged in bottles this day.

  7. Tasks- If tasks were added from the main menu, these can be added by clicking on the “+” on the right side of any day or brewhouse turn. The “+” will expand to show the list of tasks. You can add the times that each process started or ended and the total time will be calculated. Notes can be added for additional information. **These notes and information about the tasks will only be visible by again double-clicking on the order to bring up this menu.

  8. Click “save” and these icons will appear in the colored brew order on the dashboard.

Icons, Lables and Tasks

Notes:

  1. Brewing notes can be added for a specific day by clicking on the yellow note icon in the upper left corner of the dashboard. When clicked, a notes column will open and notes can be typed directly in the column. Click again on the icon to minimize the notes column.

  2. Packaging notes can be added to the right side by clicking on the yellow note icon in the upper right corner. The notes column will appear and can be minimized by clicking again on the icon.

Notes

Messages:

  1. Alerts and messages will appear in the upper right corner. If the messages appear in red, the “x” must be clicked to dismiss this message. Green and yellow notifications will disappear on their own.

Messages

Make changes to an order:

  1. When the brew is clicked under any of the sections, all the bars associated with this order will be highlighted, making it easy to see which orders go together.

  2. Brews/orders can be moved by simply dragging and dropping the bars to another available cell. Moving one (either the fermenting or packaging) will automatically move the other. If the move is not allowed due to a lack of available tanks, the order will return to its previous location.

  3. Brewhouse turns can be moved by clicking and dragging.

  4. To change the transfer date without changing the brew or packaging date, slide the bottom of the fermenting rectangle up or down once the small vertical arrow is in view. (NOTE: if dates that have tasks/icons entered are eliminated, these icons will also be eliminated).

  5. To change packaging date without changing the brew or transfer date, simply slide the packaging day up or down once the small vertical arrow is in view (NOTE: if dates that have tasks/icons entered are eliminated, these icons will also be eliminated).

  6. To view details of an order or make more changes (beer type, dates, comments, processes, etc.), just double click on any of the brew orders (under brewing, fermenting, or packaging) and the “Change” window will appear.

  7. You can right-click on any date within a created order. This will display a menu of options. The options here are: •

    • Edit order- this opens up the change window to the General tab where you can change all details of the order

    • Edit day- this opens up the change window right to the specific day where changes can be made to icons, labels and notes

    • Insert day above- this will add one day before the chosen date. **Note: this will shift the whole order down without changing the brew date

    • Insert day below- this will add one day after the chosen date. **Note: this will shift the whole order down without changing the brew date

    • Move day before- this will move the current day and all of its information (icons, labels, notes, etc.) one day prior. **Note: If there is already an icon and information on the day before, these two will switch places

    • Move day after- this will move the current day and all of its information to the day after. **Note: If there is already an icon and information on the day after, these two will switch places

    • Delete day- this will delete the current day and all of its information

    • Delete order- this deletes the entire order, and a notification will appear, confirming that you want to delete the whole order.

Make changes to an order

**REMEMBER TO PUBLISH** Any time the green circle with the cloud icon appears in the lower right corner, there are changes that have not yet been published. This means that the viewers will not be able to see the most current changes. Click on this circle any time you are ready to publish the current schedule.

 

BrewPlanner PRO users- contact us if you have questions about PRO-specific features.

 

We hope this helps you get on your way to planning your brews. If questions arise that are not answered here, do not hesitate to contact us at support@brewplanner.com.

 

Thank you!

The BrewPlanner Team 

Publish
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