Anyone ever use beer calculus?

1brewhaus · 03-14-2010, 06:28 PM

Wondering if anyone ever uses beer calculus? It is free but is it accurate and even worth messing with?
http://beercalculus.hopville.com/recipe
Thanks.

**samc** · 03-14-2010, 07:16 PM

Used it for a bit before buying Beer Tools Pro. Worked well but I prefer having the info on my computer in case the site disappears.

1brewhaus · 03-15-2010, 01:08 AM

Yeah thats a good point.

rawkstar · 03-15-2010, 01:10 AM

I've used it a couple of times. Works okay I guess, I don't have much to compare it too. I have downloaded brewtarget, so will be playing around with that. If you are looking for something free....it is open source!

**Malticulous** · 03-15-2010, 02:28 AM

I love the site. Every beer I brew is there. I know how to use it to help me make the beer I want, what else is there? An inventory would be nice but I can do that the hard day. Better mash watter calculations would be nice and it's in the works. It can calculate SG, SRM and IBU as well as any program if you know how to use it.

taddal · 03-16-2010, 08:42 PM

the software definitely has some limitations, but I've brewed twice recently using the software and hit my target O.G. dead on.

I find it difficult for accuracy when doing mash-extract (as I mostly do), but it gets the job done.

The rest of the hopville site could use a few tweaks (IMHO) to make it as easy to use as the "beer calculus" part.

my two cents,

T

WVBeerBaron · 03-25-2010, 01:30 PM

I use it all the time. I have not paid for brewing software yet but whenever I want to play around with a recipe I go to beer calculus. I combine it with brew365 water calculator, and tastybrew water infusions calculator to gather all the data I need for an AG recipe. I will even take a screen shot of beer calculus, open it in paint and add the data from the other two sites to make a "master recipe" on one page.

neomantra · 03-25-2010, 08:01 PM

I use it pretty regularly too, but also don't like the idea of them hosting all my recipes. There are lots of programs out there these days that allow you to "print to PDF". I run linux/KDE so that's an option by default

But anyways, that way you get to keep the PDF on your own computer.

With extract recipes the OG/FG calculations do seem to be pretty dead on most every time. I wish I knew how to verify the IBU and calorie calculations. I guess maybe enter it in some of these other recipe tools people use and see if you get the same results with the exact same recipe?

MVKTR2 · 03-26-2010, 01:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by neomantra

I use it pretty regularly too, but also don't like the idea of them hosting all my recipes.

They don't host all your recipes unless you save them, which automatically saves them in the database and too your user profile. You can get it how you want it then print it out if you don't want to share.

As for the program I'm kind of getting comfortable with it and am really liking it. I don't use it for calculating water additions and such, just the recipe itself. It's interesting that the different IBU calculations are so different ie Rager vs Tinsenth etc.

Schlante,
Phillip

neomantra · 03-26-2010, 04:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MVKTR2

They don't host all your recipes unless you save them, which automatically saves them in the database and too your user profile. You can get it how you want it then print it out if you don't want to share.

As for the program I'm kind of getting comfortable with it and am really liking it. I don't use it for calculating water additions and such, just the recipe itself. It's interesting that the different IBU calculations are so different ie Rager vs Tinsenth etc.

Schlante,
Phillip

Right on, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I just meant I like having my own local copy. Sharing recipes is half the fun of brewing!