Reviews: BeerAlchemy and BeerAlchemy Touch

I recently switched back to an iPhone from Androids. Why did I switch? Crappy battery life. That's another story for another day. Around the same time, my Dell laptop (which was only a year old) crapped out, so I bought a Mac. I had previously had a Mac but sticker shock drove me away. Anyhoo - I had been using BeerSmith (which is great) but found myself wanting for some OSX brewing software love.

Beer Alchemy has been all the talk lately, so I gave it a whirl. It has the distinct advantage of having an iOS app that can sync with the desktop version (or work on its own). The price is a bit steep at $29.95. It has the usual feature set - nice builtin ingredients list, mash profiles, etc. One thing that BeerSmith has that Beer Alchemy lacks is builting equipment profiles (dead space, thermal mass, etc.).

Clearly, the sync feature is great. The iOS application is very full featured with lots of builtin calculators for refractometer calculations, ABV, etc. One thing that's maddening about the iOS version is that adjustments of recipe parameters (IBU, OG, SRM) are all done with slider bars in the software. This makes it very difficult to get it set to the exact number you want. Also, it lacks a builtin countdown timer which I think would be an awesome addition (and one that I believe some Android brewing software has).

Also - note to others - if you've not used brewing software recently, make sure that the volumes that it's feeding you for your recipe are accurate for your equipment.

I learned this the hard way yesterday when I (ahem) made 3 gallons of dubbel.

Fortunately, topping up with water still got me close to my intended OG.

Would I recommend the software? Yes. Major limitations I've hit are above and workable.

Pizza

Location:New York

Idiots

Nothing I appreciate more than the fact that any low-grade idiot with a keyboard can post whatever they want on the internet. My latest find comes from "Anne F" and the Mannsfield-Storrs Patch (of idiots, one would assume). The article covers brining turkeys. I was looking for a decent brine recipe for Thankspigging.


To wit:
"In an era of health consciousness, high blood pressure and many out of shape, it seems lunacy for someone to recommend, and a responsible news service to report, a recipe that soaks a healthful food (turkey) in pure salt. Why not just take a syringe with the brine water and mainline it into a vein? Nutso!"


Yes, "Anne F", yes! The overwhelming evidence that salt is so terrible for you (please note my sarcasm). Dietary sodium intake has much contradictory evidence as to whether it worsens blood pressure. I'm also unaware of any evidence linking sodium intake with "out of shape". Further, when brining not all of the salt is absorbed into the meat.


Let's also not forget about evidence that turkey isn't really a "healthful food", oh and what about this, too? Let's also remember that cooking meat is also bad for you.


So let's all just gnaw on some bark! Congrats "Anne F" you are my idiot of the month (and in front running for idiot of the year).

This year's Thankspigging wines

Plus Hickory smoked stout and Denny's Rye IPA.

Thankspigging

Behold a new American holiday - Thankspigging!

Russia Classifies Beer as Alcoholic

Russia Classifies Beer as Alcoholic: "

BBC News:

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has signed a bill that
officially classifies beer as alcoholic.

Until now anything containing less than 10% alcohol in Russia has
been considered a foodstuff.

"

I'm aghast.

Renaming illegally named files in Windows

I tried and tried and google'd the hell out of it. The only reasonable way seems to be to burn a live CD of Linux. Shame nobody makes such a utility.