I'll say it up front: I'm not a distiller. I'm a leatherworker by trade, and I build a free tool that records a craft as the process you actually ran instead of a row in a spreadsheet. I keep being told distilling is the case where a flat record falls apart the hardest, so I built out the distilling side and I'd rather hear from people who actually run a still than guess.
Here's the thinking. A table tells you what you used, not how you got there. A spirit run isn't a row of numbers, it's a sequence of decisions you can't take back: where you made the cuts, what came off the parrot when you did, what you kept and what you set aside to redistill. A spreadsheet flattens all of that into one yield figure and loses the part that mattered.
So the tool, called HideSync, records the run instead. It's free, and it runs entirely on your own computer.
What it does, in distilling terms:
- One run, three products. A run gives you heads, hearts and tails. Most logs record one yield number. Here each cut is its own tracked thing with its own quantity and proof, so the hearts you keep and the heads and tails you set aside to redistill all stay separate, with the run they came from attached.
- Follow a bottle home. This is the part a spreadsheet can't do. A blend is recorded as a tree, not a row: you can open a finished bottling and trace it back through the blend, both casks, the proofing and maturation, all the way to the runs that made it. It opens one hop at a time, so a deep, many-cask history stays readable instead of turning into a wall of cells.
- Compare runs across batches. Re-run a recipe and the records line up side by side, so you can see exactly what changed between a batch that came out right and one that didn't.
- The gear is linked. Every still, column, cask, parrot and hydrometer can link back to the real product you used, so a shared recipe points at the exact kit behind it.
It isn't spirits-only. The same model fits a hydrosol or essential-oil run (the botanical charge in, the oil and hydrosol out, the separation step, the yield ratio), and it carries the fermentation spine behind any of it, so a wash or a mash sits in the same record as the run it feeds.
If you already log your runs, you've probably used a calculator app or something like StillNotes, and fairly. The calculators are good at a single number, and StillNotes is a real run log. HideSync is a different shape: it keeps the whole thread connected, the run and its cuts and the maturation and the blend, as one open, portable record rather than stopping at the still. The production and compliance systems chain those stages too, but their backbone is inventory and duty accounting, which is a different job from a process record you own. There's also no shared interchange format for spirits the way homebrewing has BeerXML, so an open, documented file format is part of the point here.
If you brew as well as distill: this is not trying to replace Brewfather or BeerSmith. They're mature, they're loved, and they stop at fermentation. HideSync sits alongside them as an open, cross-craft record that carries the wash through into the run, and it cross-links to a small fermentation library in the shared commons.
Everything is searchable and versioned, with full history kept. The files on disk are plain, open-format files rather than a locked database, and there's a complete export, so your records stay portable if you ever move off it.
To be straight about it: the app itself isn't open source. It runs entirely on your own machine with no cloud and no tracking, and your data is open regardless, the format is documented and the export is complete, so nothing locks you in. The shared library is CC-BY.
On cost: it's free, no account, no paid tier. There's a Ko-fi link if anyone feels like tipping, but it's optional. I built it because I wanted it for my own work.
There's also a small public shared library on GitHub you can browse or pull into the app. I've seeded distilling into it: stills and columns, condensers and parrots, casks and measurement gear, the techniques behind a run (stripping versus spirit run, making cuts, reflux, proofing, barrel aging, gin vapour infusion, hydrosol separation), generic materials, and a layer of real-product entries that link back to the maker's own page. It's young and CC-BY, so anything you add keeps your name attached under that license. Contributions welcome, not required.
Runs on Windows and Linux, with auto-update. No macOS build, and none planned; the phone companion runs over your home Wi-Fi as the cross-device answer, not as an install. On Windows it shows an "unknown publisher" warning, which just means Windows doesn't know me: "More info" then "Run anyway", and scan it first if you're unsure.
There's a guided distilling walkthrough inside the app that runs the whole loop with screenshots, from setting up the run to tracing a blend back to its casks.
Download and a proper tour: https://rillmark.org/hidesync.html
The shared library: https://github.com/Skund404/proto-commons
Questions or follow-along: r/HideSync
I'd genuinely like to hear what's wrong or missing from someone who actually runs a still, especially the parts I've modelled like an outsider would. And if you try it for a week and then drop it, telling me why is the most useful feedback I could get.
Pascal