Android apps vs Promash or Beersmith

I've been extract brewing for about 6 months and now I'm looking into all grain brewing. I've started researching some recipe software and just curious on the thoughts of those with some experience. I have found several apps on the Android market to include one called "BrewR". Has anybody found an app that does what Promash or Beersmith software does or do I basically need to get one of these two?

Bumping this one, cos I wouldn't mind seeing an informed response. Recently joined the Android ranks myself...

I've got brewR.
I loaded it and messed with it a little then got Beersmith.

First off, if they we're exactly the same, entering and editing on the phone isn't convenient, second you can find and download Beersmith files and use them, and finally Beersmith has so many features that it's hard to beat.
I know one of the merchants on here was running a special on it for $20 or so.

You can adjust recipes, scale them, convert between all grain and extract and back, calculated gravity, ABV, bitterness, color and other things when building a recipe.
When you put the recipe in, it then has the parameters for the timer for the mash and boil. The timer will tell you when it's time for every hop, spice or finning addition.
Beersmith also keeps your brewing notes as part of the recipe.
If you all grain brew it will help calculate the strike temperature.
You can do your yeast calculations also.

More nice features I'm not thinking of also.

I have not found one, but I haven't been looking. I'm with 45_70sharps, there are simply too many variables and things to configure and I don't want to do all that on a smart phone screen. I find that a large screen is needed to display all the information that I look for in a brewing software. Beersmith has a free trial download and is often on sale for $20. I think it's some of the best money you can spend related to homebrewing. There is an android add-on to beersmith, beersmith lite, that can be downloaded for $4, but I've not used that. I think it has timers and other aids to assist during the brewing process, but I like to just write things down while I'm brewing.

I find that HomeBrew Calculator and Brewzor calculator are great apps for the phone. They help calculate ABV through temperature adjusted calculations, strike temp, priming, and have timers. As for an actualy app to build recipes I would agree with what other people have said in that a phone is just too tedious to do that type of work. If you dont want to shell out money for BeerSmith I would recomend Hopville. I use them to calculate my strike and sparge volumes.

I'll further recommend a PC-based program. The apps are nice for brew day but don't yet have the functionality.

DO NOT download ProMash. I've been using it for almost 10 years now but there is ZERO product support. A friend of mine recently downloaded it and never received the activation code to unlock the full version. He emailed [email protected] and posted messages on the forum but never received a reply. I even tried emailing Jeffrey Donovan through the forum directly but I get errors.

I understand his wife has cancer and am sorry to hear it. But if you can't support your product, shut it down so no one else will lose money instead of pocketing it and ignoring them.

I can vouch for the support of BeerSmith. I was trying to figure out how something works with beersmith on ubuntu. I sent an email to their help address and Brad Smith wrote me back later that same day. The software has and continues to serve me well.

I have nothing to do with this website FYI, i just found it to be well put together and it mimics almost all of the Beersmith functionality. And its free, not many people know about it.

http://www.brewers-assistant.com

They let you store things on their "cloud" and share them, and as far as i can tell its an unlimited amount of recipes.
Take note Beersmith, lol.

I've used hopville.com's Beer Calculus for almost every one of my recipes and it works great. I love Beersmith as well and will probably get it for Christmas this year. Promash is a little more geared towards (wait for it) pros.

I wouldn't want to work on an android app just because a PC input system (real keyboard/mouse and larger monitor) is much nicer for the rather data-entry intensive aspect of recipe formulation and brewday recording.

BrewR is a great tool for putting together a recipe idea in no time. I use it a lot from my Xoom android pad, because of it's modern and simple UI design, it's so easy and quick to work with. It doesn't necessarily offer everything you need though. Beersmith and Promash are much more time consuming to work with, and both offers real clumsy UI design, but you win on comprehensiveness, calculation accuracy and detail. Beersmith also offers the recipe cloud which is a great plus.
The real challenge for all these tools is FG calculation. This is where BrewR really falls behind. It does not take into calculation your mash temperatures, grain/sugar or yeast types. Nor does it offer any means of configuring yeast attenuation, so you end up with a very rough estimate of FG. It seems to be calculating your FG with OG as the only reference factor. So consider something like a tripel, which when mashed low, brewed with table sugar additions and fermented with a proper high gravity, high attenuated Belgian yeast, will end up with high alcohol and low FG. With such a recipe, BrewR would completely over-estimate your FG and provide a completely wrong picture. However OG and IBU calculations are acceptable. I use BrewR a lot, but I have learnt to disregard the FG it gives me, and improved my own ability to "guesstimate" a more realistic FG, based on OG, mash schedule, ingredients and yeast/fermentation.
Beersmith and promash will give you a good FG estimate, but it comes with a cost. You need to enter a lot of data into an awkward, old fashion user interface, and it takes a lot more time to formulate recipes using these tools. Oh, and you also need a PC to work them.

I have Beer smith on my laptop and beer smith light on my android tab. Love both apps. I like being able to save recepies on the cloud area and being able to retrieve them on the tablet. Beer smith light is a nice app. Well worth the few bucks. The only limitation is that you cannot actually build or design a beer with light. You can search beersmitjhs database for recipes if you don't have any saved though.

I just switched from an Iphone to a galaxy note 2, does anyone know of an app that can read beer xml files for droids?

Caucasian said:

I just switched from an Iphone to a galaxy note 2, does anyone know of an app that can read beer xml files for droids?

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Check out brewaide from the play store

I have been using beer smith PC edition for a year, and I do agree that it takes a lot o information to get accurate predictions for your brew. However, I would rather take the time to input more detailed information to get accurate results rather than the more vague results from beer calculus or some of the other mobile apps.

20-30 bucks can be hard to give up for beer smith, but after trying other programs I found it well worth it. All of the different tools make it worth it, but I think a better tutorial system would be beneficial.

Also, the tool tips when hovering the mouse over entry fields can be vague, and I can attest that they can be confusing starting out.

Check out the videos at beersmith web site if you have not already. They have some good stuff there. I still reference the vids every now and tthen even though I pretty much know the software. There is also a free trial. You can't go wrong.

FuzzeWuzze said:

I have nothing to do with this website FYI, i just found it to be well put together and it mimics almost all of the Beersmith functionality. And its free, not many people know about it.

http://www.brewers-assistant.com

They let you store things on their "cloud" and share them, and as far as i can tell its an unlimited amount of recipes.
Take note Beersmith, lol.

Click to expand...

Just saw your post - glad you like it and find it easy to use. Stay tuned for the release this summer or fall (depending on my motivation to work on it after the regular workday ) - we'll be bringing support for tablets and phones, as well as faster recipe creations (like adding multiple grain or hop at once, instead of clicking on it every time).

I use BrewR to play around with, kick ideas around and get close formulations, then I go to Beersmith and finalize everything, get my shopping list and brew sheet. Beersmith is also much more accurate with abv, ibu, srm, etc. BrewR has no calculations for mash out sparge either. In conclusion, I recommend both! Having something on your phone is good when you come up with an idea somewhere and your computer is not accessible.

I like Brewr for tried and true recipes. It's I'm my pocket and chimes at all of my hop additions. I wouldn't use it to formulate a recipe but i do use it to go shopping. Beersmith is way complicated for me I guess.

Does anyone have the full beersmith app for android and would like to comment on it? I have beersmith 2 for PC so would it be redundant to buy the full version for my android phone? maybe lite is the better option?

Any comments on the full app would be greatly appreciated!