Bulk swapping an ingredient across your recipes
If you stop using an ingredient, for example when a hop variety is discontinued or you change maltster, you can bulk swap it for another ingredient in every recipe at once, rather than editing each recipe by hand. You can adjust the quantities as part of the same swap.
Opening the bulk swap tool
There are two ways to get there:
- From the recipes dashboard: go to Production -> View -> Recipes -> Settings & options -> Bulk swap recipe ingredient.
- From the stock item: open the stock item's page, select the Used in tab, and select Bulk swap in recipes on the Recipes that currently use... card. The ingredient to swap out is filled in for you.
Either way, the Bulk swap an ingredient in recipes form opens.
You need the Manage recipes permission to bulk swap an ingredient. The Bulk swap in recipes button only appears when at least one active (not obsolete) recipe uses the stock item.
Choosing the new ingredient
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Ingredient to swap out | The stock item you want to stop using. Only items used in at least one active recipe are listed. Obsolete items are included, so you can still swap out an item you have already retired. |
| Swap it for | The stock item to use instead. Obsolete items aren't listed, and items that are measured differently to the ingredient you're swapping out can't be selected. |
| Quantity multiplier | Every addition's quantity is multiplied by this. For example, 10 kg with a multiplier of 1.2 becomes 12 kg. Leave it at 1 to keep the quantities the same. |
| Update planned batches | Move planned batches onto the new recipe versions created by the swap. This is enabled by default. |
Select Bulk swap ingredient to start the swap. A progress screen shows each recipe as it is updated, and when it has finished you're taken back to where you started, with a summary of what changed.
Items must be measured the same way
The new ingredient has to be measured the same way as the one it takes over from: by weight, by volume or in units. For example, a hop measured in kilograms can be swapped for one measured in pounds, but not for one counted in units, because the quantities couldn't be carried across. You also can't swap an item for itself, and the multiplier must be greater than 0.
Which recipes are changed
The ingredient is swapped in every recipe that isn't obsolete and whose current version or draft uses it. It's all or nothing: you can't choose individual recipes. If you only want to change some of your recipes, edit those recipes individually instead.
How each recipe is updated depends on whether it already has a draft.
Recipes without a draft
Breww creates a new version of the recipe with the swap and confirms it straight away. The version's comment records what was done, for example Swapped Cascade for Centennial (quantities × 1.2).
If Update planned batches is enabled, the recipe's planned batches are moved onto the new version.
Recipes that already have a draft
The swap is made in the existing draft only, and the draft is left unconfirmed so you can review it alongside any other changes you've made. Open the recipe and confirm the draft when you're ready. This also applies to recipes that have never been confirmed. Planned batches aren't moved for these recipes, because no new version has been confirmed.
If a recipe's current version uses the ingredient but its draft no longer does, nothing is changed in that recipe, and the summary tells you which recipes this applied to.
What happens to each addition
- The addition stays in the same stage with the same timing and other details. Only the ingredient and its quantity change.
- The addition keeps the unit it was entered in, so an addition entered in grams is still shown in grams.
- If the new ingredient is the same kind of ingredient as the old one (for example, both are hops), attribute values such as alpha acid are reset to the new ingredient's Default attributes, because the old item's values don't describe the new one. An addition set to adjust its quantity for alpha acid keeps doing so, as long as the new ingredient has a default alpha acid value. See Adjusting the quantity of hops added to a beer batch for alpha acid percentage.
- If the new ingredient is a different kind of ingredient, the old item's attribute values are removed from the addition.
- If a stage already had an addition of the new ingredient, it ends up with two additions of it. The summary warns you which stages this happened in, so you can review them.
What isn't changed
- Older, confirmed versions of your recipes, so your history stays intact.
- Obsolete recipes.
- Batches that are already in progress or complete. To change the ingredients on one of these, see Changing or substituting ingredients on a batch.
Stock that has already been allocated to planned batches isn't changed, even when the batches are moved onto the new version. Re-allocate stock on those batches yourself so they use the new ingredient.
If something goes wrong
If any recipe can't be updated, nothing is changed in any of your recipes, and a message explains why. For example, this happens if the multiplier is so small that an addition would be reduced to zero, or if the new ingredient is made obsolete while the swap is running. Fix the problem and run the swap again.
Only want a stand-in when an ingredient is out of stock? Use the Recipe substitutions on the stock item's page instead, which suggest another ingredient without changing your recipes. See Understanding the stock item page.