A recipe is the reusable definition of something your lab prepares: what goes in, and how much comes out. Write it once and every future batch scales from it.
The recipe manager needs the Team plan or higher. Without it, "Manage recipes" is locked and offers an upgrade instead.
Open the recipe manager
- Go to Inventory.
- Click Manage recipes.
You land on the Makeable reagents page: the reagents your lab makes in-house. Back to inventory returns you.
Each entry shows one of two badges:
- Has recipe. Fully defined, ready to make.
- Recipe TBD. Marked as makeable, but nobody has written the recipe yet.
Create a makeable reagent
- Click New makeable reagent.
- Enter the reagent's details.
- Decide whether to define the recipe now, using the Define the recipe now toggle.
- Click Create reagent.
Creating a makeable reagent does not make a batch. It defines what the thing is, not that you have any. Use "Make Reagent" when you actually prepare some. See Make a reagent from a recipe.
Recipe TBD
Leave Define the recipe now off and the reagent is saved as Recipe TBD.
This exists because the two facts arrive at different times. You often know a reagent is something your lab makes long before anyone writes down the exact quantities, and the honest options are either to record the reagent without a recipe, or to invent quantities. Recipe TBD is the first one.
A Recipe TBD reagent is a real reagent. It shows in your list, it is visibly flagged as incomplete, and you can still make a batch from it by supplying the inputs during the make flow. What it does not do is pretend to a recipe nobody has written.
To fill one in, click Add recipe on that reagent.
What a recipe contains
| Part | What it means |
|---|---|
| Base batch size | The amount the recipe is written for. |
| Inputs | Each input reagent and the amount needed for that base size. |
That is all a recipe needs, because everything else is derived. Say the base size and the amounts that produce it, and any other batch size scales from that ratio.
Choose a base size that matches how you actually think about the preparation. If you normally make a litre, write it for a litre.
Edit a recipe
- On the Makeable reagents page, find the reagent.
- Click Edit recipe.
- Make your changes and click Save recipe.
Changes apply to future batches only. The dialog says so explicitly. Batches you have already made keep the recipe they were actually made with, which is what you want: a past batch's record should describe what really went into it, not what the recipe says today.
So correcting a recipe does not rewrite history, and it does not fix a batch that was made wrong. Adjust that batch directly instead.
Finding a recipe
The Makeable reagents page has a search box. If nothing matches it tells you, and if you have no makeable reagents at all it says that instead.
A suggestion on granularity
First, the distinction that decides this. Two different things sound similar and are not:
| What it changes | Example | |
|---|---|---|
| Scaling | How much you make of the same thing | One TBE recipe, make 500 mL this week and 2 L next week |
| A separate makeable reagent | A different thing, with a different label | A 1X working solution and a 10X stock |
Scaling handles batch size, so you never need a second recipe just to make more. What it cannot do is turn one preparation into a different one: a 10X stock and a 1X working solution are not more-or-less of the same thing, they are two products that go on two different bottles.
So make a separate makeable reagent for each thing you would label differently on a bottle. If a 1X working solution and a 10X stock get different labels in your lab, they are two makeable reagents, each with its own recipe, and the working solution's recipe can list the stock as an input. That way making the working solution correctly draws down the stock.
Each reagent holds one recipe, which is the other reason this split matters: there is no way to keep both concentrations in a single recipe even if you wanted to.
Once a recipe exists, Make a reagent from a recipe covers preparing a batch from it, and Update, consume, or adjust an item's quantity covers what happens to the inputs it uses up. Preparing from a recipe is one of the things that separates this from a stock list.