Beersmith

Im a new home brewer and am currently only doing extract brews but have looked at doing partial mashes. Is beersmith worth the investment for doing only extract brews or should i just check out some of the free ones? I've used qbrew but it is tethered towards mr beer or appears to be. Anyone have any advice they can give me?

Do you have an iPhone? If so, check out Brew Pal for 99 cents or iBrewmaster for 10 bux. There are also some android apps but im not familiar with them.

I used Beersmith back when I was just doing extract recipes....it's valuable for anyone, no matter what level you're at,if you're interested in creating recipes. The good thing is that you can download a free trial so you can decide for yourself if it works for you....

I've not spoken to anyone who though Beersmith was not worth it. However, the first software I used was the Beer Tools website. You can play with it for free.

Now I usually use BrewPal since I have an iPhone. That one is definitely worth the investment.

Beersmith probably has the best user interface, it is really a good looking program and has all the bells and whistles. The only thing it is missing from my experience is a comprehensive ingredients list. Promash and beer tools pro has a better list. Beersmith is nicer to look at though

fletchsj said:

Beersmith probably has the best user interface, it is really a good looking program and has all the bells and whistles. The only thing it is missing from my experience is a comprehensive ingredients list. Promash and beer tools pro has a better list. Beersmith is nicer to look at though

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Beersmith from a functionality standpoint is OK. I mean, it has everything you could need (except for all the missing ingredients), and the calculations seem accurate. There are many things you may never use, and some that you didn't think you'd use but now can't live without (for me it was pricing ingredients for recipes).

But as for the user interface, it's a disaster. From selecting fields in a recipe that seem to be incomplete and rather arbitrary, to the organization of ingredients in your recipe (why are the hops listed out of order?), there are countless things that have me scratching my head. I never used Beersmith 1, but I have a background in UI design, and I'd LOVE to get my hands on this thing. Beersmith makes Hopville.com's Beer Calculus look like it was designed by Apple.

To be fair, this is the most robust software out there, but I can't say I've tried them all. If you can get passed the glaring design flaws, it's worth the investment. And if that doesn't bother you at all, then hell, even better.

I think Beersmith is worth the price as it will do whatever your level is. And you will not need more later.

Other recipe makers to look into are on Brewmaster Warehouse and Hopville.com
Brewmaster leads to their sales so I have not used it, Beer calculus does a good job and both are online and free to use. I made 4 or 5 recipes on Beer calculus. They came out very good.

If I buy beer smith can I have it on 2 computers without having to buy it twice?

zuke395 said:

If I buy beer smith can I have it on 2 computers without having to buy it twice?

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The answer is here: http://www.beersmith.com/forum/index.php?topic=718.0

Hi,
We have recently changed our policy to allow for one owner to install on two computers as long as both copies are for the owner's personal use (and not for use by another person). In this case you should be fine as long as you limit yourself to the two computers you are personally using.

We do track key usage to monitor large scale key abuse, so please don't share your key with friends or other people.

Cheers!
Brad

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If you want something for free that is similar to Beer Smith try brew target. It gets the job the done and is open source.

I used Hopville while i did BIAB and Extract but Beer Smith is the way to go with AG imo. Exact temps and water volumes tends to help me alot.