Brewing Widgets

Here are a set of JavaScript applets ("widgets") that perform many of those irritating calculations that we homebrewers come across from time to time.

I'll be adding more widgets in the future, so drop me a line to let me know what you'd like to see. If you sign up to the mailing list (on my home page), you'll be notified when new widgets are available.

Alcohol Content - Also calculates calories & freezing point
Bottle Priming - Calculates priming sugar by weight
Force Carbonation - Keg pressure settings
Hydrometer Correction - Temperature adjustment for readings
Extract Weight - Amount of malt extract in solution

Unit conversions:

Mass
Temperature
Volume
SG/°Plato

Notes

Fractions can be entered in most of the input fields. For example, enter "3 3/4" if you want to enter "three and three quarters". This is especially useful when converting measurements in the U.S. system.

Specific gravity measurements can be entered in several ways. The following all mean the same thing: 1045, 1.045, 45. When an SG is computed, it is reported in the first format.

Download

You can download these widgets so you don't have to go online to use them. They are available in a single zip file: widgets.zip

Or, you can download the files individually if you don't have an unzip program: intro0.html, ac0.html, bp0.html, fc0.html, sg0.html, hc0.html, ew0.html, mc0.html, tc0.html, vc0.html.

Once you've downloaded them and placed them in a seperate directory, bookmark them with your browser for easy access.

Default Settings

Many of the widgets have customizable settings for things like temperature units, volume units, etc... You can click the "Save Defaults" link to set a cookie in your browser that will remember these settings so the next time you use the widget, it'll be setup properly.

Unfortunately, some browsers don't remember the cookie settings when you've downloaded the widget and are running it locally from your hard drive. For these browsers, you can get around this in the following ways:

Access the widgets from a personal web server that's running on your machine (Windows 98 comes with one).
If you know a little HTML, you can modify the source so that the widgets come up with your default settings.