Migrating from Brewfather

BrewForge can import your entire Brewfather library — batches, recipes, equipment and process profiles, and inventory — via a guided import wizard. This guide walks you through every step.

Before You Start

• BrewForge account — sign up if you haven't already
• Free tier limits — The Free plan has a limited number of brews. If you have a large batch history, consider upgrading before importing
• Brewfather export file — You'll generate this in Step 1

Step 1: Export Your Data from Brewfather

1. Open Brewfather and go to Settings
2. Scroll to the Data section
3. Click Export All
4. Choose JSON format
5. Save the downloaded file

This file contains all your batches, recipes, profiles, and inventory in a single JSON export.

Step 2: Start the Import Wizard

1. In BrewForge, go to Settings → Brewfather Import
2. Drag and drop your JSON file onto the upload area, or click Browse to select it
3. BrewForge validates the file — if you see an error, double-check that you used "Export All" from Brewfather

Step 3: Select What to Import

The wizard shows four tabs. You can pick exactly what to bring over.

Batches

All your brew sessions, showing batch number, recipe name, and status (Planning, Brewing, Fermenting, Conditioning, Completed, Archived).

Use the search bar to find specific batches, or Select All / Deselect All to manage your selection quickly.

Recipes

Standalone recipes that aren't attached to a batch. Each shows style, estimated ABV, and IBU.

Recipes are imported with Idea status — you can promote them to a full brew later.

Profiles

Equipment, mash, fermentation, and water profiles from your Brewfather account.

Inventory

Fermentables, hops, yeasts, and miscellaneous items with their current stock quantities.

Selecting batches or recipes automatically selects the ingredients they use, just like profiles. The "Used by selection" filter helps you focus on what matters.

Recipe-only ingredients — items that appear in your recipes but aren't tracked in your Brewfather inventory — are shown with a dashed border and a purple "Recipe only" badge. These are imported as ingredient definitions without stock quantities.

Step 4: Configure Import Options

Batch Options

• Preserve original batch numbers — keeps your Brewfather batch numbering intact
• Skip duplicate batch numbers — prevents re-importing batches you've already brought over in a previous import

Recipe Options

• Skip recipes with same name — avoids duplicates if you run the import again
• All imported recipes start with Idea status

Profile Options

• Skip profiles with same name — prevents duplicate equipment, mash, fermentation, and water profiles

Inventory Options

Choose how to handle ingredients that may already exist in BrewForge:

Step 5: Reconcile Inventory

For each ingredient, choose how to handle it:

• Create as new — add as a new inventory item (the default)
• Merge with inventory — combine with an existing inventory item, adding stock quantities together
• Link to My Ingredients — connect to an ingredient definition you already have
• Link to a Package — connect to an ingredient from a community or custom ingredient package

BrewForge auto-suggests matches by exact name. Items with a match are pre-filled — review and adjust as needed. Each suggestion shows the current stock quantity so you can verify you're merging the right items.

Step 6: Import

The wizard imports your data in phases, showing a progress bar:

1. Profiles — equipment, mash, fermentation, and water profiles
2. Inventory — ingredient stock items
3. Ingredients — recipe-only ingredient definitions (created in a "Brewfather Import" package)
4. Batches — your brew sessions (imported in chunks of 10)
5. Recipes — standalone recipes

Step 7: Review Results

The final screen shows a summary of everything that was imported:

• Count of imported batches, profiles, and inventory items
• Count of skipped items (duplicates)
• Error details if any items failed to import

Click View Brews to see your imported batch history, or Back to Settings to return to the settings page.

Understanding Imported Data

Import Overrides: How Calculated Values Work

Switching to BrewForge Calculations

When you try to edit an imported recipe, BrewForge will prompt you with two options:

• Create New Version — creates a versioned copy of the brew with BrewForge calculations. The original imported version is preserved in the version history, so you can always refer back to the Brewfather values.
• Transform to Native Recipe — removes import overrides in-place, letting BrewForge recalculate all values (OG, FG, ABV, IBU, color, attenuation, water volumes, mash pH) using its own engine. This replaces the Brewfather values permanently.

The same prompt appears when you try to change the equipment profile on an imported brew.

What Maps Where

Profile and Ingredient Linking

• Profiles imported with batches: BrewForge automatically links each brew to its imported equipment profile using Brewfather's internal IDs
• Batches imported without profiles: BrewForge attempts to match equipment profiles by name against your existing profiles. If no match is found, the brew is created without a profile link — you can assign one manually later
• Recipe ingredients: Each ingredient in an imported recipe is linked to a package ingredient — either from your inventory import, or auto-created in a "Brewfather Import" ingredient package

Troubleshooting