Brewing Software ?

[Bluefin 774]

What brewing software programs do you use? I'm looking for some advise on which program I should get. I'm just going to start brewing all grain now. I have just brewed Brewhouse kits and a few canned extract kits up to now.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

[Keith]

The one and only Beersmith (and Beersmith Mobile)

[bandarker]

Beersmith is the only software program I've ever purchased, and it's been worth it.

[GuingesRock]

It's the one you love to hate, it's quirky and ridiculous, but it allows you to design your own beers, sort of. It might improve. Nothing in the brewing world is perfect any way. It's an art, more that it's a science.

[Celiacbrew]

If you listen to podcasts there is a recent one by basic brewing radio that discusses brewing software. It included a couple of free options that people recommended.

I use Beersmith because it was the only one I had heard of when I started brewing all grain. The calculations for brewing are really simple so I assume any spreadsheet based program would work great. Beersmith has a couple of features that makes it handy like being able to adjust a recipe you find to your system. Also for designing recipes you can adjust any of the parameters like OG or IBUs with a slider and it will adjust your hops or malts automatically. It also has databases of recipes and ingredients that you can add so you don't have to enter them by hand. It also has a "cloud" recipe thing that is great but also annoying. Your cloud recipes are separate from your software's recipes but to go to your mobile device you need to buy beersmith mobile and put the recipe onto the cloud. So when you enter your brewing data you have to reload the cloud version and save it over the one saved on your desktop. The guy who designed it did that to encourage you to use the cloud as your main database for recipes because he charges for saving more than a few recipes on the cloud. So the feature is great but the price to save things on his cloud are very very steep and the use of the feature without paying is clunky and kind of annoying. I use the program on my computer as my brew journal and it doesn't make it clean and easy to brew the same recipe and keep the notes separate. These are minor gripes though but had I known about them I think I would have considered one of the many free web or spreadsheet based programs instead. In the least I would try one of them for a while and then get the free trial of beersmith to compare and figure out if it is worth the $28.

Last thing is that some of the online retailers will have beersmith on sale from time to time. So it might be worth using something free until a sale comes along.

[GuingesRock]

you're a class one act Mike, you pick your topics and respond with brilliant and well informed answers. Keep them coming.

[dean2k]

Man, I should probably pick up Beer Smith one day. I cheap out with the free calculator from Brewer's Friend. Although one day I'd like to hammer out a recipe with pen and paper.

[LeafMan66_67]

Mike's response is great as usual. I use Beersmith and have done so for a number of years. I found that there was a bit of a learning curve, but once I understood the nuances of the software, I was able to dial in my system and predict the outcomes of my brew day repeatedly. I also have the mobile app installed on both my tablet and Blackberry. When developing a recipe, I will use desktop version for the bulk of the work along with the cloud storage (I got 10 or more free storage slots). That way, it's available for editing and brew day on any device. Once the brew is complete, fermented and tasted, I move it from the cloud to a "complete" folder on the desktop. If I want to rebrew it again, I just move it back to the cloud and rename it. Each brew gets a unique batch #.

There are other software programs out there, from free online versions to spreadsheets, and I tried a bunch of them when I first started, but my favourite quickly became Beersmith.

[mcgster]

Like many others on here i have tried many different software programs.

I think the two main choices out there are Brewer's Friend and Beer Smith, unfortunately i still find myself using both.

If i am creating a new recipe from scratch i find it easier to do in BeerSmith, i find most activities are quite user friendly and adaptable in BeerSmith but the one critical piece for me where it falls terribly short is cloud recipes, brew day logging and notes. These are critical for me, i take lots of notes when i brew (or at least i try to) so that when i get feedback from a competition or friends i can look back at my brew day and tweak my process to try and improve.

Brewer's Friend is a hands down winner in this area for me. The brew day notes and logging features are wonderful but it is definitely not without its issues either. I have been trying to get them to implement a fermentation temperature tracking option as i cycle my temps up and down during fermentation and i would love to be able to track this independently on the software.

Here are a couple screen shots to illustrate my "brew sessions" and what the log looks like inside each. When you brew it always takes a snapshot of your recipe so as you change it over time you have all the original history. I will say their app could use some work as well, but i have the same comment about beer smith.

brewersfriend01.jpg

brewersfriend02.jpg

[dean2k]

Dang. I'm such a lazy homebrewer I've never even logged in to BF, just used the free recipe calculator. That's really cool.

[gyorke]

I have been using Brewtarget because it runs natively in Linux. Some things like setting up a mash schedule are not intuitive but it seems to work well overall.

[spuds]

I use BrewMate, free and good enough for now.

[jtmwhyte]

I use the paid version of brewer's friend and beersmith mobile. I own a license for BeerSmith 2 on PC but about a year and a half back I bought a chromebook, so aside from side booting a Linux build I can't access it.

[gm-]

I like Beersmith 2, easy to use. I usually print out a brew process sheet from it and make notes on that when I brew, as I don't want any electronics near me when I am brewing

[Bluefin 774]

Thanks everyone for the very detailed advice. This place is great for getting information so quickly. I will try a few free programs and will get some trial programs. I plan to just use my laptop computer as I don't use a smart phone and I am not planning on using a mobile device for cloud apps. The Beersmith sounds good and I have heard that many people use it.

Thanks again gang,

[bassriverbrewer]

i've tried a couple by far the best is Beersmith another online program that i liked and is a great source for good recipes is Brewers friend

[Halifax_Jeff]

I have been using Brewtarget because it runs natively in Linux. Some things like setting up a mash schedule are not intuitive but it seems to work well overall.

I've also played around with brew target. If you run a Linux system the price is right. Beersmith seems to be a lot more user friendly but still has a slight learning curve.

[RubberToe]

Beersmith on Linux here.

Sent from the brew timer.

[mumblecrunch]

Just to add another voice to the crowd. A rambling, borderline incoherent voice to be sure, but a voice nonetheless.

I used Brewer's Friend for my first brew and was fairly happy with it, but I didn't want to spend $10 on a year's upgrade without at least checking out some other options. I remember thinking that $100 seemed expensive for a lifetime membership and $10 seemed like too much for a year. Considering that with downloadable software you're generally looking at a new version every couple of years that's likely going to cost you nearly full price (upgrade pricing is rarely better than a 30% discount), I'm not so sure I was right about that. Although with the on-line model, you do risk the product you paid for completely disappearing whereas with something you download and install you've at least got what you originally paid for even if the developer falls off the planet. I'm still torn a little on that I guess.

So next I checked out BeerSmith but they use a time limit model on the free version and I wanted to get a brew in before I committed to a buy. Poor weather led to my trial running out before I brewed and having to start over with a clean install and rekeying my recipe and equipment profile annoyed me. So I bailed on that and installed Brewtarget. I like the open source angle, the price and the multi platform nature (I've got Linux, Mac and iOS in this household). I like that it actually uses BeerXML instead of it's own slightly bastardized XML schema like BeerSmith does. I like the way it handles different brewings of the same recipe. The mash calculators take some getting used to but eventually I got there. I don't like how easy it is to make a change and how hard it is to undo it; even though it technically doesn't save until you tell it to, I found several types of changes take effect and can't be reverted easily without restarting the app (remembering not to save when prompted). Eventually I took to doing all my experimentation with copies of recipes and then making final changes to a master copy.

So between that and having found some recipes in BeerSmith's XML format (haven't found a tool to convert BeerSmith XML to BeerXML other than BeerSmith) I decided to give BeerSmith another try. It helped that I got it for $20 or something (OBK deal of the day; happens every couple months I think). I have problems with BeerSmith too, they're just different problems than I had with Brewtarget. I don't love the way it handles the brew log, for example, and as others have mentioned, you need to put a recipe into the cloud to make the mobile app worthwhile. I guess you could then copy it down from the cloud to the log afterwards, but that seems annoying. I've paid for the app now but haven't actually used it. Maybe I will next time and will love it.

The one feature that BeerSmith has that Beertarget doesn't and that I'm loathe to give up is integrated inventory management. Given my brewing situation, I'm often not in a position to plan my brewdays very far in advance. So I may have a brewday planned for two weeks and then it gets nixed at the 11th hour or I may not have a brew day planned and then the night before I get the all clear to brew the next morning. Because of this I keep an inventory of ingredients on hand and a couple of recipes at the ready. Having inventory all taken care of including removal when a recipe is brewed has been a big help to me. If you're the kind of brewer who picks up their kit on Thursday night from Dave for a can't-be-cancelled Saturday morning brewday, inventory isn't going to matter at all. But I don't feel like I could live without it.

The latest version of Brewtarget has implemented inventory so I may very well give it another go. I note that Brewer's Friend also does inventory now (I don't think it did when I tried it), so I may also check that out again (especially after seeing mcgster's post about how useful the notes are). I think there's room for improvement in all of them right now, TBH, and there's at least a few other packages I haven't even tried due to them being Windows-only (ProMash comes to mind).

[mumblecrunch]

I have been using Brewtarget because it runs natively in Linux. Some things like setting up a mash schedule are not intuitive but it seems to work well overall.

I've also played around with brew target. If you run a Linux system the price is right. Beersmith seems to be a lot more user friendly but still has a slight learning curve.

Brewtarget has downloads for Windows, Mac and Linux. So the price is right no matter what you run