Beersmith and Similar Software Packages

[daryl]

A one year subscription of Brewer's Friend is available this week at a 20% discount.

Use code BETTERBEER and you can use Brewer's Friend for a year for about $12. Says is expires the end of this week (Friday?).

Enjoy.

[wyzzyrdd]

I use Brewer's Friend, and I like it. But I'm a mead guy, so take that with a grain of salt.

[daryl]

I use Brewer's Friend, and I like it. But I'm a mead guy, so take that with a grain of salt.

Or taken with a wee dram of honey?

[UndeadFred]

I suppose if I was as much of an expert as many of you are I'd only use BeerSmith. I own a legal copy, yes. There are TOO MANY options and the UI of the software makes Lotus Notes look good. It's not horrible, but *I* wouldn't have written it that way.

I use Wort for Android for 90% of what I do. Online Brewers Friend Calculator (free) for water adjustments. I enter those into the notes on the Wort app. I probably would have written it that way and it's always improving, and it's free.

Wort has some imperfections but it's fast and easy to use and does the stuff that matters. I simply am too disorganized to have BeerSmith keep track of my grains and hops. I simply look at my bins--say-- on the Wednesday before Brew Day when I do a starter and go to BIY on Friday if I'm missing something. Good enough for me.

Fred

[andrewmaixner]

I didn't think that anything made the Lotus Notes interface look good, except for possibly SAP

[whitedj]

I didn't think that anything made the Lotus Notes interface look good, except for possibly SAP

I think you'd be surprised by how many poorly written programs are very expensive out there. [emoji35]

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[carrisr]

There's no reason you have to use any if the features BS offers. I don't use the inventory either for example. But yes, it's a bit cluttered. The most useful thing about BS, in my opinion, is that you can really dial in the specific metrics of your system. That makes scaling recipes to your setup much more accurate. May not matter for some, but I have to scale just about every recipe I want to try.

I paid $20 for it six years ago and haven't had to pay for any of the upgrades. A bonus is the free mobile app and cloud transfers. I can create the recipe on my desktop and load it to my phone for reference later. Easier when I'm collecting ingredients etc. Online tool do that too if course.

I do like what I've seen in Brewer's Friend though. I just don't want to pay a subscription when I already have something that works. I like their yeast starter calc a lot and use it regularly.

Oh, and I also appreciate the fact that BS runs on Mac and Linux.

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[jjpeanasky]

I guess I'm the weird one, I use BrewTarget and love it. The last few releases have brought some neat features.

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[Matt F]

I still use ProMash. Bought it a LONG time ago!

[daryl]

Bought into a subscription to Brewer's Friend.

So far so good. I've not mastered the nuances of the tool yet, but it was helpful on my 10 gallon brew day. Between using Matt's Mash Tun and doing a recirculating mash....I only fell short on OG by about 2 points.

I am using the inventory option...and having this stuff accessible on the cloud is going to make shopping at BIY or online easier. When I do a brew session, is allows me to deduct the grain bill from my inventory automatically.

What I experienced this past brew day, is that I did not have to take a lot of brew notes. Really, must making notes of specific gravity (and the temps that I was measuring SG), and maybe a few comments. If I had my laptop handy..all of those could have been entered in the brew session.

I wondering how long I going to use my brew notebook.

[Eric B]

I second Randy. BeerSmith has been awesome for me. Bought it a couple of years ago. Like Randy said it makes scaling recipes a breeze. I'll tend to brew a 5 or 10 gallon batch and wanna scale it up to a 1/2bbl batch and it works everytime.