OVHA Chat

I don't have alot of experience with ag brewing and have been reading about some of the brewing software out there and I was wondering if anyone has any advise or recomendations on which ones work the best and are the most user friendly Anything would be greatly appreciated there are alot of programs out there

I can't really offer a comparison, but I use Beersmith and it does just about everything I need it to do. Lots of tools and lots of customizations.

is it fairly easy to use

ProMash is also good. I tghink demos are available of both.

Promash and beersmith are the moat used software by brewers. I believe they are both good sources to use. I think who uses which dependens which one you use first. The brewers that started brewing when grain was discoverd seem to use promash like me, but newer brewers use beersmith. My first program wad my Texas Instruments calculator, then promash. I've tried beersmith for it's free trial, and that's it, before returning to promash.
Try them both for free. Promash will keep working as long as you don't save over 3 recipes.

john mills wrote: The brewers that started brewing when grain was discoverd seem to use promash like me, but newer (and younger) brewers use beersmith.

That's why I use BeerSmith.

They both have their good and bad points, they are both free to try, and they are both loved and hated.
There are many free utilities on websites also. If all you want is help figuring out water, IBU's and ABV they are free. I have used Chris Alvey's Mash & Sparge Water Calculator page and his IBU Calculator page sometimes. http://www.brew365.com/
I have a Excel file that let me do my water profiles EZWaterCalculator http://www.ezwatercalculator.com/
If you want to keep a log of your brews http://www.djsoftware.co.nz/
There are a lot of free excel and word docs that people have written and posted for all to use.

All that said and done, I use BeerSmith because I know it and have worked with it for several years.
If I had started on ProMash I would be saying about it.
The main reason I use a program is for record keeping. I like to keep all my recipes and go back and tweak them after tasting so I am already working on the improvements for the next batch.


(I also own ProMash, BeerTools and BeerAlchemy and will use them all from time to time)

zach spaetti wrote:is it fairly easy to use

They all take some work. You'll have to train the software to your brewing system.
This takes several brews, there are forms on all the software that will help you set up your brew structure to your software (and we're here).

Don wrote:

The main reason I use a program is for record keeping. I like to keep all my recipes and go back and tweak them after tasting so I am already working on the improvements for the next batch.

So right,Don! I have Beer Smith and Pro Mash.I have also used the free on-line software.They all work well once you adapt to them.I have also done quite well at pen and paper but that's a lot more work than I care to put into a brewing session,given that the software is so much faster and easier.Then,if you want to change/tweak some part of it there is a lot of work involved ( pen & paper method ).Owning he software allows you to organize everything and change/tweak at will.Also,you will find the free,on-line programs somewhat limited.I can't advise you which one to choose.Try 'em all,they're free to try,cheep to buy.I bought both,Beer Smith and Pro Mash,because I couldn't decide in ten days on either of them ( )

I used this free one for a while with good results.It works well and you can save your recipes as links on your hard drive.There are also some widgets on site that are very useful.

http://hbd.org/recipator/

thanks for the info I think I will start with the demos and see which one I like best

More free, recipe formulator for all-grain brewing; includes a recipe library and a Brew Blog
http://www.beerformulator.com/
Brewing Calculators
http://www.probrewer.com/resources/tools/
worthogbrewers
http://www.worthogbrewers.co.za/resourc ... alcs03.php
hopandgrain.com
http://www.hopandgrain.com/formulator.aspx
Beer Recipator
http://hbd.org/recipator/
hammereddogbrewery.com
http://www.hammereddogbrewery.com/calcRecipe.aspx

I have been using Beer Alchemy for the Mac, and it's great. It has some built in annoyances (like having to select specific brands of malt unless you create a generic one), but overall I think it helps quite a bit, especially with hopping rates, something that I seem to have trouble with since I'm too lazy to actually calculate out what I want.

It also has the style guidelines built in, which makes it easy to develop recipes to get a particular style.

Only for the Macintosh so far as I know, though (which is also why I don't use ProMash or BrewSmith).

Peter

Found another free brewing software program. It looks alot like brewsmith

http://www.brewtarget.org/

Messed with Brewtarget a little and it seems pretty good. A little tricky adding equipment profiles but all in all not too bad (I couldn't find a way to have it adjust for mash vol for deadspace). I really like the gain additions because it will let you use both pounds or ounces. This has been one of my big gripes with BeerSmith. The OG numbers came up a little lighter then with BeerSmith but that could be just a matter of tweaking the equipment settings.

The brew day instructions look pretty good as well. If you haven't shelled out the bucks for BeerSmith or any other program I would say that Sky's find is well worth a download. It works on both PC and Mac (although I couldn't get the 64 bit Mac version to work).

I played with it yesterday too.
It's not a bad little program.
I agree it needs a little more adjustability, and I couldn't get it to read my beersmith bsm files.
Other than that, and for free, its a nice program.