My Two Cents Worth

By Charlie Webster

SUDSW Beer Recipe Database Program Review

A discussion with a couple of members over the holidays about “what are you using to keep your brewing records” caused me to obtain and install a copy of SUDS for Windows, a shareware beer recipe database program for testing.

As a test, I decided to enter the data for the Pale Ale that I brewed last Saturday, so I started the computer, loaded Windows (there is also a DOS version for those who “don’t do Windows”), and launched the program. Being shareware, you have to read a “doc” file before installing the program, and once installed, the on-line help, provided through the Windows help mechanism is excellent. I had no trouble installing the program, or importing the sample recipes included with the program.

SUDSW provides a free-form recipe sheet; any number of log entries linked to that recipe; a mini-database of hops varieties with space for you to enter the alpha acid content; any number of "judges tastings" for the recipe, including a 50 point score sheet and notes; printouts of all information related to the recipe; and import/export capabilities to allow recipes to be exchanged with other users.

SUDSW is a recipe database, and as such is intended for record keeping. It does not include the extensive calculation capabilities of some of the commercial brewer’s software programs. It does however make good record keeping (an essential ingredient of successful brewing) easy.

The recipe editor is much like the Notebook utility included with Windows, so there are no new commands to learn. Saving a recipe causes a Recipe Details dialog box to appear asking for Recipe Name, Category (you can choose from those supplied or enter your own), Starting Gravity, Final Gravity, brew length (quantity of beer made), and Age Time. Opening a Log entry for a recipe gets a dialog box asking for Date Started, Date Bottled, Starting Gravity, Finishing Gravity, and Hops IBUs. To help calculate the bittering, there is a mini-database of hops varieties provided, with room for you to add your own, and space for you to enter the alpha acid content for each (which must be done before the IBU calculator will work). The IBU calculator allows you to select or enter up to four hops additions, each with independent variety, alpha acid, and boil time. The resulting contribution of each to the total bitterness is calculated and appears in the Log entry. The calculations agreed with the figures I get using a spreadsheet and a look-up table for utilization.

Once a recipe is entered in the database, you can search the database by category, brew method (extract, full-mash, or partial mash), ingredients, starting gravity, or any combination of parameters.

The program will print recipes (though seemingly only to dot matrix printers, it lost the first 1/4" of each line when printing to my laser printer), log entries, tasting notes, and even bottle labels.

If you are looking for a way to use the computer to help you keep your brewing records, I would recommend SUDSW (there is also a DOS version available, but I didn’t test it). If you are looking for a program to help calculate color, water salts additions, extraction efficiency, or bitterness for five or six hops additions, get one of the commercial brewer’s programs, but for what it does, SUDSW is worth the $20.00 registration fee! SUDSW is available on the Compuserve Homebrew Forum (GO BEER) and on various other beer related BBSs, or from:

Michael Taylor
1626 Main Street
Bethlehem, PA 18018-1905