BrewLab Recipes

A free WordPress plugin for embedding homebrew recipe cards in your blog posts - beer, mead, cider, and wine. Enter a recipe once in the admin, then drop it into any post with a shortcode or block. Readers get a clean, tabbed card with a live batch-size scaler and a US/Metric unit toggle built in.

Part of the BrewLab suite.

Features

• Beer, mead, cider, and wine - each gets the fields that actually apply
• Fermentables, hops, yeast, other additions, mash steps, and fermentation steps, each with their own admin UI
• Live batch-size scaler - type in a different batch size and every ingredient amount recalculates
• US/Metric unit toggle - every quantity on the card converts instantly
• "Preview Recipe Card" button on the edit screen - see your changes before publishing
• Affiliate links on any ingredient
• Print-friendly output, isolated from the surrounding page
• Automatic updates, right in your Plugins screen - no need to re-download a zip by hand

Requirements

• WordPress 6.0+
• PHP 7.4+

Installation

This plugin isn't in the WordPress.org directory, so install it the same way you'd install any plugin bought or downloaded directly from a developer:

1. Download the latest zip from the Releases page.
2. In your WordPress admin, go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin.
3. Choose the zip you downloaded, click Install Now, then Activate.

That's it. Future updates will show up as a normal "update available" notice in your Plugins screen, the same as any other plugin.

Getting Started

1. Create a recipe

In your WordPress admin, go to BrewLab Recipes → Add New Recipe. A recipe has its own edit screen with a few sections:

• Media - a header image and a recipe color (used for the card's header background).
• Recipe Details - brew type (beer/mead/cider/wine/other), a short summary, who to credit as the author, and free-form notes.
• Batch Details - style, batch size, boil time, OG/FG/ABV/IBU/SRM.
• Fermentables, Other Additions, Hops, Yeast, Mash Steps, Fermentation Steps - one section per ingredient/step type. Click + Add to open a modal, fill in the fields, and save. Each item shows up as a row you can click to edit or remove.

Fill in whatever sections apply. A mead recipe can skip Hops and Mash Steps entirely, for example. Click Preview Recipe Card in the Publish box at any point to see exactly what readers will see, before you publish.

When you're happy with it, click Publish.

2. Embed it in a post

Every recipe has a numeric ID, visible in the URL when editing the recipe (post.php?post=123&action=edit). If you're using the Gutenberg block, you don't need it at all - the block's recipe picker lists every recipe by title.

Shortcode, anywhere in a post's content:

[brewlab_recipe id="123"]

Gutenberg block: search for "Recipe" in the block inserter, add the BrewLab Recipe block, and pick your recipe from the dropdown.

Either way, the recipe renders as a full card wherever you place it. The underlying recipe data stays separate from the post, so editing the recipe later updates it everywhere it's embedded.

For Developers

Internal naming, for anyone reading or extending the code:

• Prefix: brewlab_recipes_ / BREWLAB_RECIPES_ / _brewlab_recipes_
• CSS classes: brewlab-recipes-*
• Post type slug: brewlab_recipe
• Shortcode: [brewlab_recipe id="123"]
• Gutenberg block: brewlab/recipe
• Text domain: brewlab-recipes

File structure:

brewlab-recipes.php     Plugin bootstrap - constants, includes loader
includes/                Post type, meta fields, admin UI, update checker
templates/                Front-end recipe card markup
assets/                   CSS, JS, icons