Hi! I bought this game in the Steam Sale - yes, I saw the reviews and I thought that for the sale price, it was worth the money. I know the bugs aren't going to be fixed and I'm satisfied with that (and yes, I understand the perspective of the people who are disappointed.)

I primarily bought it to mess around in the free play mode anyway - so things like broken achievements and story progress doesn't bother me as much. I also have never homebrewed irl nor do I intend to - this game is just a fun little toy for me to throw stuff together to see what happens. With all of that in mind, I have a few questions:

1. Keeping in mind that I basically only play Free Play mode, what current equipment and ingredient and recipe bugs are still outstanding in this build? I already know about the pump audio bug and I can endure that.

2. I heard about the plate chillers and coolers (NOT the immersion coolers) being broken and removing stats...but I can't seem to replicate that? When I use those tools, my stats don't change - it certainly doesn't drop all my IBUs to 0. Was this bug fixed? Does it not apply to free play mode? I could also be putting the tubing in wrong for intake wort and outtake wort - I've been putting the intake wort through the tap of the brew kettle and the outtake wort in the pot of the brew kettle. Is this correct?

3. I heard that carboys and even tubing and such are also broken, apparently, but again, unless I am missing something or they work correctly in Free Play, I haven't noticed anything off except for the fact that some liquids can't be poured into carboys (syrups and stuff).

4. Is there any mechanical difference between the fermenter types other that size and, for the non carboys, aesthetic? Does the conical fermenter do anything that the others don't?

5. Does using the electric kettle as a mash tun affect the final brew stats at all in a negative way? What is the easiest way to do the mash out step? Is sparging nonexistent and one basically follows the original mash out directions instead?

6. Are any of the ingredients broken/not functioning the way they should?

7. I do think some of the recipes may be broken - Double IPA in particular, for example, I follow the recipe to the T and no matter what I can only ever get 65% match because the procedures/ingredients/amounts of said ingredients listed in the recipe never give me the numbers that the final product requires. But I could also be doing it wrong, especially the tricky maintaining mash temp step - assuming using the electric kettle to cheese it also messes things up. I've tried basically every mash out strategy I've read here. For Double IPA in particular, I can never get the required amount of carbonation at the end without using a keg. I'm not too fussed about some recipes being broken, I just want to know if it's a recipe issue or if I'm doing something wrong.

8. Is there a way to tell what the final ABV is going to be before you put the yeast in, when creating your own recipes, so that you don't accidentally put a low tolerance yeast in a high ABV wort and ruin the recipe?

9. How important is getting the numbers/timing EXACT for things like ingredient amounts, mash temperature, how long the mash is sitting for, and how long hops are brewing etc? Is it okay if I pour a little too much, if the mash temp fluctuates a little off of 65C etc? The only real consequence I've seen so far is IBUs and flavors getting messed up if you overbrew the hops but is, like, letting your bittering hops brew for 51 minutes that much of a final brew killer? Is the mash step ruined completely if the grain doesn't stay in the mash tun for EXACTLY an hour? How much leeway do I have?

Thanks in advance! I know that a lot of these questions are meant to be solved through trial and error but it would help a lot if anybody had the answers to some of them, especially what current bugs are still affecting the game in a way that would impact fooling around in free play mode.