Overview

There are several steps which user's should follow in order to make the most of BTP; doing so at the very beginning will save you frustration and enable you to begin to use the software to its full capacity as soon as possible. However, before proceeding with those steps, it might be useful to summarize how one typically uses the program from start to finish.

Upon opening BTP, you will be presented with a Session page (either a completed recipe or the start of formation of a recipe, depending upon how you have set your default, etc.). The Session page begins with an Ingredients display; you will insert information, as needed, to determine your batch size, and make some assumptions about how you brew (i.e., your efficiency, your attenuation, which you can adjust based on your experiences as a brewer; and the evaporation rate. Then, based upon the ingredients that you might add using the browse button, including grain and hops, or any modification of quantities of an existing recipe, BTP will indicate on the bar graphs -- at the bottom of the page -- how well your 'recipe' fits into standard style-guidelines.

If you are an all-grain brewer, your next step will be to change your display to Schedule to review your mash schedule; assuming that you have already calibrated your equipment, Schedule will tell you the volume and temperature of any water additions to your mashtun, from mashin through sparge. Within Schedule, you can select either presets (and modify them as you choose), or create your own mashing schedule from scratch. After you've brewed your batch and fermentation is finished (including any secondary), you will reopen your recipe (hopefully you will have 'saved' it), and then choose the Volume Adjustments display which will permit you to account for losses due to trub and raking, as well as the addition of primer.

Finally, you can then select Packaging as your display and decide how you want to bottle and/or keg your batch. Assuming you took hydrometer readings before and after fermentation, you can compare those readings with what BTP predicted; if your initial reading was different than BTP, go to the Analysis tab at the bottom of your session screen, and insert your actual OG Reading and BTP will automatically display what your actual efficiency was. You can then insert your actual OG reading when all fermentation is finished, and BTP will automatically display what your actual attenuation was. When you are finished, BTP also displays information available regarding the nutritional content of your beer under the Analysis tab in the bottom portion of the screen.