BeerSmith - BeerTools - Promash. - Which is best? What do you have?

The online tools are cute, but for $25 you can have something portable that saves all your recipes for the long haul.

alcibiades said:

Am I the only idiot who uses free online tools?

I regularly use beer recipator, and brewcalcs for my water. They work fine.

http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator

http://www.brewcalcs.com/

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I agree that they do work, but sometimes you have to play with them a few times until you can get your water dialed in properly. See, I have never used programs. I've always typically done 1.25 quats/lb for my mash and sparged until I made my way up to 6.5 gallons (for a 60 minute boil) or 7 gallons (for a 90 min boil). Lately I've been lazy and have started just eyeing it. That's where I've run into problems! Last night I brewed a 1.045 APA after a 100 minute boil b/c I added way too much sparge water.


I really want to use these programs, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to calculate how much water to use for my batch sparge with beersmith.

Can anyone help me out?

iI BOUGHT PROMASH ON LINE - ONLY GOT THE HELP SECTION BEEN TRYING TO REACH SAUALITO BY PHONE/ON LINE FOR A YEAR!!! WILL NOT ANSWER ME THINK I'LL SWITCH TO BEERSMITH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FRED(H.M.F.I.C.) -BATBOY BREWERY CINCINNATI OH HAIL LARRY!2010

U've never brought me any beer from Ur stash dude. I'm upset. *SNIFF*

after trying all three of the most common ones, I settled on BTP for a few reasons. believe it or not, I picked it because it was the most difficult to set up. after years of being an almost non stop comp. geek, I fell in love with its functionality and support from the developers. after tweaking it over several brews, I now have something that I have the utmost confidence in and feel I can trust its numbers completely.

Crazytwoknobs said:

Yeah, what's the story on that? Is version 2 not coming out ever?

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Well, since it was last updated in March 2003 (coming up now on 7 years ago) I think it's safe to say that there isn't going to be a version 2. Too bad, since there's a lot of geeky things to like about promash. But its interface and organization is ridiculous compared to BS and BTP.

I actually own all three, and have been using BTP. For kicks I reloaded the other two this weekend to revisit them and see if maybe there are some elements I'd missed before that perhaps I'd utilize more now, but I'm not seeing any reason to switch from BTP. I'm not sure why BS seems to be the most popular.

I checked the forum on the promash site after my last post, and the reason that version 2 won't be coming out is that the wife of the main guy behind promash had some situation wherein the guy had to stop working on promash. I don't remember if she became debilitated or died or what, but don't expect another version unless the company gets bought out.

Orfy said:

Trying to get a view to allow brews trying to make a decision of which of the big three is right for them. (If any)

What do you like about the program you use?
What is it missing?
What does it do really well?
Why did you go for the one you did?

I know we did one previously but there have been major updates.

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Promash:
1. its fairly simple to use
2. updates.
3. easy to use, easy to build recipes
4. I didnt reasearch anything else

bottom line, I hate promash. Why I still use it, I dont know. Its crappy, it lacks updates, and I feel almost as if I were robbed. I didn't research like I should have. PM is so old, and outdated I almost feel as though it should be "freeware". Beer Smith offers so much more for less money IMO. I had issues with getting my "license" from PM and it took almost a week to get it. The gentleman from PM claimed to had sent it via...-I use gmail and carry a blackberry...never once have I ever "missed" or not gotten a email. I also had to call him out on the PM forum to get it...as he wasn't responding to emails.

Stay away from promash.

Crazy, the guy needs to pass the torch onto someone else.

I purchased beersmith recently, and haven't used it yet for a brewday. But having just messed around with it a bit, it *feels* old. The icons are ancient, the text is ugly.... I don't know, at least it was cheap.

it was cheap and is updated.

I use BeerAlchemy for recipe calculation, but I do all my water/brewday calculations using a simple little perl script I wrote. I wrote a php app for my salt addition calculations.

I currently use an Excel spreadsheet that I created myself. It calculates everything based on the ingredient and batch/boil size inputs. Also has tasting/racking/bottling notes and dates and an index to provide a quick comparison of all my past brews.

I plan to start all-grain soon and will need to modify the base worksheet to account for this, but part of the reason I use my own spreadsheet is that I like messing around with all that stuff!

I created a program that I think takes the best features of all of the above programs in one and it is free. I wrote the program for my own home brewing and I wanted to make it available to all brewers. I'd appreciate anyone taking a look at it and letting me know what you think. Let me know if you think anything needs to be added or if it needs any additional features. I's available on my blog below.

Thanks for the help.

God bless,
Jake
http://missionarybrewer.wordpress.com/

I use BeerSmith because I've found it simple to use and versatile. I like the printed brewsheet that it has. One thing I would like to see is a fly sparge option and under equipment a 3 tier setup so it's not telling you to add water but instead it tells you to bring the temp up.

I have been using Beer Tools Pro lately. I'm not a real fan. I'd like to get something different but I don't want to keep spending money on software.

with Beer Tools Pro what the heck do you need a membership for?
something about it i just dont like. what cant you do with the software that you can do with it and your membership fee?

Actually, there are some tool on the web site that aren't in the software. Figure that one out.

you dont need a membership to use BeerToolsPro, the membership is for access to the database of over 7,000 recipes on Beertools.com and its recipe creator.
for some just starting out, it will give them a great jumping off point for new recipes they might want to brew without much researching.
the guys keep updating it and with a little time spent learning how to set it up and use it correctly, it is a very nice program. it comes with a printable user guide that explains everything.
while everyone has there own preferences, and any one of the software programs will work just fine for most, I tried them all, and BTP held my attention and the guys there actually add feature requests made by the users consistently. if you have to add the majority of ingredients yourself, the software should be priced accordingly, IMO.

uechikid said:

I have been using Beer Tools Pro lately. I'm not a real fan. I'd like to get something different but I don't want to keep spending money on software.

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What exactly don't you like? It's definitely the least intuitive of the bunch but it's also highly customizable and flexible. It might do what you want but it's not obvious how.

uechikid said:

I have been using Beer Tools Pro lately. I'm not a real fan. I'd like to get something different but I don't want to keep spending money on software.

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Have you tried BrewTarget? Open Source and free. I know rocketman has been working on getting a new version out with some fixes and improvements, but pretty nice.

I have used beersmith and promash(just the demo) and so far I much prefer Promash, so much so I ordered it online yesterday even though it hasn't been updated in 7-years. I had an issue with beersmith where it became locked on "preview pane", so the interface became ugly. I also like in promash how it keeps the hop profile, grain bill, and yeast separate in a recipe. It also has no option for costs which is cool because this is a hoppy. Beersmith has a calender, which is nearly impossible to read. I do not like though in Promash how you have to create a recipe before you can create a brew session.

I just downloaded the beertools demo and it looks difficult.

have beer tools pro for mac its a good good program

I've had promash for about 2 years and BeerSmith for about two weeks now. I've brewed a couple batches now on BeerSmith and greatly prefer ProMash still. I'm gonna give it one more day before tossing aside.

I really like the tools of BeerSmith but hate how they aren't imbedded into the 'recipe' or 'session' like in ProMash. I also hate not having multiple windows open.

I bought a new computer a few months ago, so I downloaded another trial of beersmith to give it another try. I just dont get it, I have used Beertools Pro for 3 years and I couldnt imagine moving to Beersmith.
I have read where several people have tried beertools pro and thought it too complicated, I admit it took a few minutes to get going, but the included manual as well as continued updates made it very easy for me to figure out.
I personally think the discrepancy in numbers comes more from the length of time beersmith has been available rather than actual usage problems. btw, I have been known to be wrong from time to time however......

v2comp said:

I bought a new computer a few months ago, so I downloaded another trial of beersmith to give it another try. I just dont get it, I have used Beertools Pro for 3 years and I couldnt imagine moving to Beersmith.
I have read where several people have tried beertools pro and thought it too complicated, I admit it took a few minutes to get going, but the included manual as well as continued updates made it very easy for me to figure out.
I personally think the discrepancy in numbers comes more from the length of time beersmith has been available rather than actual usage problems. btw, I have been known to be wrong from time to time however......

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I really wish I would've given BTP a try too - at this point though, I've already put too much into software. Promash it is!

I use both PM and BS, but by necessity. BS is horrible at recipe formulation and aging hops. I actually use PM to get my adjusted hop AA and put it into BS as a new hop such as Chinook 2008. If you use BS to change the age on one hop, it changes all of them! I hope this changes for ver 2.0.

I only used BeerSmith. It is suitable, but defiantly getting old. Those note fields are too limited and the beer colors could be upgraded. Hop and grain lists need updating - I've done that manually, but lost it all when I bought a new computer and didn't back up my updated hop and grain lists. BTP looks interesting, since the owner is maintaining it and keeping it up to date.

I've been really happy with Beer Tools Pro. Been using it for about 2 months now without any problems.

steinsato said:

I've been really happy with Beer Tools Pro. Been using it for about 2 months now without any problems.

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it's great stuff! :fro:

Just got ProMash - I like the simplicity.

Tricky when scaling recipes - you must check the ballot box "Lock Ingredients to Batch Size" before scaling the size of the batch...

I am not sure why you wouldn't make that behavior the default.

petep1980 said:

I have used beersmith and promash(just the demo) and so far I much prefer Promash, so much so I ordered it online yesterday even though it hasn't been updated in 7-years.

I do not like though in Promash how you have to create a recipe before you can create a brew session.

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actually one of the features I like about promash is that I keep my base recipe files updated as the .rec files, and when I am ready to brew I create a brew session (.brw), and pick the appropriate recipe. Once you pick the recipe within the brew session, you can edit and tweak your recipe without changing your original recipe (.rec) file. This way you can do grain / hop substitutions without changing your base recipe.

Beer tools Pro is my new fav.

It calculates carbs which is good because I have diabetes.

It also can easily engineer a partial mash recipe and account for top up water. I find the mash designer very easy to maneuver.

Beersmith is where it's at.

Like some others, I just use the online "Recipricator". I don't need a database or an ingredients inventory. I just want to make better, more consistant beer.


.Does the software have features above that improve the formulation of recipes?

Sean said:

Like some others, I just use the online "Recipricator". I don't need a database or an ingredients inventory. I just want to make better, more consistant beer.

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Wow, deja vu all over again. I was listening to archives of the Jamil Show from the Brewing Network and instead of talking about Eisbock, Jamil went off on a tangent about "making better beer". If you will allow me, I will pass on this little golden nugget of wisdom from Jamil.

Take a known quantity recipe that you can get from a "reasonably qualified" resource. I use "Brewing Classic Styles", you should use what you are comfortable will brew good beer. Then, ...and here is the tricky part... Focus on the process. Don't change your equipment or recipes, just tweak the process. If your final gravity is always too high, make sure you are pitching enough yeast. Make sure you are controlling the fermentation temps. As a last resort increase your mash temp by 2 degrees (if you brew all-grain) to increase long chain dextrins.

This just happens to be on my mind right now, because I need to do this. I change my equipment and my recipes all the time because I see improvements that I can make. I need to stop doing that and work on my brewing process, from grain milling to racking. You just stumbled into my current dilemma, so I've gone off on this preachy, soap box rant. For that I apologize. However, having written it down for someone else forces me to be more compliant to these words, so there's something therapeutic about it and someone else just may benefit from it.

Thanks for the post, you may have just talked me OUT of software!!

I just released a free, online recipe tool (http://brewershub.com/recipe_builders/new) in large part to help me understand how different hops/grains/yeasts might affect my end brew or how I could tweak a recipe to for certain characteristics. It also has ingredient recommendations based on beer style and recipe type along with the standard calculations based on ingredients.

We're planning a bunch of new features and would really appreciate any suggestions/comments.

I've played around with BS and PM. They both have their attributes and shortcomings.

I was going to give BTP a try but ran into something comparing their basic package and Gold Membership which confuses me.

I gather the GM provides access to recipes which doesn't interest me. I think the Basic Package would be what I need. However, apparently the basic package only permits you to store one recipe in memory?

This cannot be correct can it? What good is a tool like this if you cannot keep your efforts on file.

I think I'm miss reading or misunderstanding the BTP website because in reviewing the comparisons of the Basic and Gold offerings, I'm not impressed with either. They both appear to limit what you can save to a level which is basically worthless. I'm assuming I'm not understanding what I think I'm seeing.

Comments?

Sudz said:

I've played around with BS and PM. They both have their attributes and shortcomings.

I was going to give BTP a try but ran into something comparing their basic package and Gold Membership which confuses me.

I gather the GM provides access to recipes which doesn't interest me. I think the Basic Package would be what I need. However, apparently the basic package only permits you to store one recipe in memory?

This cannot be correct can it? What good is a tool like this if you cannot keep your efforts on file.

I think I'm miss reading or misunderstanding the BTP website because in reviewing the comparisons of the Basic and Gold offerings, I'm not impressed with either. They both appear to limit what you can save to a level which is basically worthless. I'm assuming I'm not understanding what I think I'm seeing.

Comments?

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You don't need a membership at all to use BTP. If you buy a license, then you are good to go. The membership is for interfacing with their online database to pull down recipes. I never use it. However, after watching some of Bobby's videos on getting the most out of BTP, I love it. It takes some time to get used to where things are and how to get where you want to go, but once you do, it is extremely powerful. Also helps that it works on both Windows and Mac. They also do a good job of responding to feedback on their forum, which is also a plus for me.

Great thread; great comments and feedback.