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

I likewise think it's a great thread... (plug my sig too while I'm at it )






Value added section: The BTP site membership is actually useless in my opinion. Yes, it lets you pull one of thousands of recipes down off the database but who would trust some random crap anyway? I think the thing you're getting confused about is using Beertools, the online recipe tool vs. Beer Tools Pro, which is an installed application on your computer. The latter doesn't care about the website and you can store as many recipe files on your hard drives as you want.

beerrepository said:

You don't need a membership at all to use BTP. If you buy a license, then you are good to go.

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Thanks for the feedback.

So if I purchase the basic package I can store more than 1 recipe I create?

I'm a Beer Tools Pro user. It's ok, but mash schedules are definitely non-intuitive. Additionally, I never hit my target temps using the values from BTP, so I'm beginning to think there's a calibration constant off somewhere. As mentioned, it would be nice if you could do different sessions for the same recipe, and tweak the sessions independently.

The UI is really good, and very clean-looking. The ability to customize ingredients or tweak a "local" (in-recipe) ingredient is very helpful, as is the ability to create your own customized ingredients.

I downloaded the demo version of Promash before buying, and the UI was a big turn-off for me. I think that and the mashing customizations in BTP are what pushed me that direction.

Reading posts, I may have to download a demo of Beersmith to check it out.

They might have gone down the path of creating mash profiles like BS did but then a new user might think they are bound to those schedules. Looking from the other perspective, BTP will calculate parameters for any type of mash/sparge schedule you want it to and once you understand how to build it, it's cake.

Watch these: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=25CB879E3C944388[/ame]

I never understood the draw to the concept of "sessions" per recipe. I'm sure I'm biased but I might brew the same base recipe maybe 3 times max and even then, the parameters and/or ingredient ratios are different each time. How is that the same base recipe now?

Beersmith is my choice. I tried ProMash and didn't like the UI. It felt clunky and 'old'.

I have been hitting my temps from day one as calculated in Beersmith. I used to do that by hand, but that was a long time ago. I have created a custom reports that allow for different formatting of a recipe. This allows for a 'brewday' log that I use on brew day and has spots for writing down all of my readings, temps, etc. I could just have my laptop running, but I am outside and usually have fire and liquids that don't mix well with it. The Brew Log is great for keeping that historical log of brew sessions so I can go back and see what I did and do some comparing.

I have not tried any other software so I have no input as to those.

rwfishbu said:

I never hit my target temps using the values from BTP, so I'm beginning to think there's a calibration constant off somewhere.

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BTP gets better the more you put into it. So if you take the time calibrate all your equipment and put it all in, then you will get better numbers. Otherwise it is just making a guess without knowing what you are working with.

beerrepository said:

BTP gets better the more you put into it. So if you take the time calibrate all your equipment and put it all in, then you will get better numbers. Otherwise it is just making a guess without knowing what you are working with.

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I calibrated. I still have problems. I'm going through some hand calcs now to see if I can trace the root cause. The place I really have problems is in the mash schedule. It seems like it should be straightforward, but I struggle with batch sparging every time I make a recipe.

I have used all 3 of the big ones, but in the end I came back to BTP. in the beginning it can be a struggle, but the more I used it and asked questions in their forum, the more I liked it.
once I began pre-heating my mash tun, making sure I "really"knew my grain temps (pre-mash) and not swagging my strike water temps or volumes, everything started to fall into place perfectly. after that, brewing enough to understand how a super vigorous boil vs a barely rolling boil and time plays its part in recipe calculations/color/caramelization and Final gravity for a specific recipe makes a huge difference as everyones methods are a little different.
I have only batch sparged a couple of times but the water calculations were spot on and everything worked out almost exactly as the program predicted. for more than 2 years, the only time anything screwed up, it was because of me taking shortcuts thinking I had it all figured out and swagging things.
I suggest if you want to be happy with this program, you should use the instruction manual built into it, it really helps.

v2comp said:

I have used all 3 of the big ones, but in the end I came back to BTP.

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Are there limitations in BTP with respect to how many recipes you can save?

No, there are no limitations on how many recipes you can save. Think of Beer Tools Pro as Microsoft Word and the recipe files are the .DOC files. It's just a bunch of files you save on your hard drive.

I think everyone should realize that Beertools Pro is a standalone program that is on your computer and that the Beertools Basic and Gold memberships are web based products that dont affect each other in any way other than if you have a memership, you can download other members recipes into your Beertools Pro program.

No problem saying it again but I said

"I think the thing you're getting confused about is using Beertools, the online recipe tool vs. Beer Tools Pro, which is an installed application on your computer. The latter doesn't care about the website and you can store as many recipe files on your hard drives as you want."

Thanks guys. I believe my confusion stemmed from the fact that I was comparing the web based tools rather than the stand alone version.

I now understand....

Am I just too demanding, or does it seem beersmith, BTP, and Promash seem hideously out-dated? The interfaces remind me of stuff I was using on Win 95, or hell 3.1!!

I can't understand why there isn't just one option with a modern, slick GUI that makes them easier to use and more intuitive.....

I just spent the last 20 minutes trying to get 'My Equipment' entered in BeerSmith, and I'm no closer to being finished than when I started.

williamnave said:

Am I just too demanding, or does it seem beersmith, BTP, and Promash seem hideously out-dated? The interfaces remind me of stuff I was using on Win 95, or hell 3.1!!

I can't understand why there isn't just one option with a modern, slick GUI that makes them easier to use and more intuitive.....

I just spent the last 20 minutes trying to get 'My Equipment' entered in BeerSmith, and I'm no closer to being finished than when I started.

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It's better with the new version

I'd like to see BeerSmith as an online application that a user could log into and run from any computer, or mobile device. I love the features of BS, but end up using iBrewmaster cause I hate being tied to my desktop.

triangulum33 said:

I'd like to see BeerSmith as an online application that a user could log into and run from any computer, or mobile device. I love the features of BS, but end up using iBrewmaster cause I hate being tied to my desktop.

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I thought Beersmith had a mobile phone app. I have beertools and was thinking of switching to beersmith for that reason alone. I guess I better look into it somemore. It would be nice to develop recipes at home, load them onto your smartphone and then have all your recipes on you. That way you could have your recipes available at homebrew meetings or when your brewing at a friends house.

I've been using beertools for 2 1/2 years now and I like it. I recently tried the new beersmith and was kind of impressed but the trial version didn't have malts and hops that I use. I'm happy with beertools and will stick with it. I aslo just print the recipes in PDF and email them to my stupid phone.

Beer Tools Pro, mainly because it's the only one with a Linux port.

Used Promash for the first year doing about 15 AG brews. Like the simplicity but hate how dated it is and lack of features and missing ingredients.

Downloaded the Beersmith trial software and have to say that I am impressed, its a little bit overwhelming at first with all the windows and tabs but once you spend an hour or so looking it over its simple enough to use. Love the added features such as scaling the recipe for gallons and eff, plus the ingredient database is much more complete compared to Promash. I'm sold, gonna buy the full version once my trial is up.

i have used beer smith for years, just upgraded to beer smith 2
supper easy pulled all my data over and i really like it,
i really love the way the "addons" works and the abilty to add and remove calculation fields from the recitpe sheet

BeerSmith 2 is great, needs a patch or two regarding the details of each ingredient but helps a lot.

I haven't tried any of these but did play with brewers friend website which seems to solve the portability issue. Interested to hear what others think.

I use and really can't see brewing without Beersmith 2. They should make an iPhone app.

ido50 said:

Beer Tools Pro, mainly because it's the only one with a Linux port.

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http://www.beersmith.com/download-beersmith/

Linux Beta is here.

jaynik said:

I haven't tried any of these but did play with brewers friend website which seems to solve the portability issue. Interested to hear what others think.

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I use Beersmith 2, and store my recipe and profile files on Dropbox, so that they are synced between my laptop and desktop. BS is independently installed on both computers, and it all works great. That being said, a mobile version of some sort would be really great.

Beersmith is my choice because of:

1) outstanding features
2) great author support and help forums
3) general community acceptance for sharing recipes
4) ability to run on different computers sharing a common data file source

Works for me.

I just downloaded and started playing with a couple of programs, Beersmith and iBrewmaster. Beersmith just was not user friendly in my opinion. I really hated that upon creating a recipe it would automatically enter it as if I brewed it on that day. And the work around is to leave the "brewer" field blank and check the box to not display anything where you are not the brewer. That's just silly...

So far I like iBrewmaster but I'll see how it goes after I brew my first few batches with it. I'm probably going to have to buy an iPad just to run that app though. Of course, I keep wanting one anyway even though I have resisted.

I bought the iBrewMaster app for the iPhone first, and really liked it. The timers, the recipe management and other features are great. One thing that makes it stand out is the batch feature and how it will integrate with your calendar. The key workflow here is that there are "recipes" and there are "batches" which may be a slightly modified version of the recipe due to circumstances of the day etc.

Fast forward a batch or two and I decided to spring for the iBrewMaster mac app. Big disappointment so far. It is buggy, lacks polish and has strange implementations of some of the features (and missing features of the iPhone app). It seems like the iPhone app is the flagship product and will get the most attention so I'm considering the Mac app a $14.99 loss for now.

I downloaded the trial version of Beersmith 2 and, once I got the initial concepts, ended up liking it quite a lot. I was able to import some Norther Brewer recipes and the tools it has included (hydrometer conversions, scaling etc) are all top notch.

But there's a catch.... Since there's no batch feature, you can't track your batches separate from your recipes (I could technically you *could* but it would be a mess). The main thing I like about the batch feature in iBM is that you can track "actual" values over "estimated" for things like gravity and ABV. Overall, however, I like the Beersmith feature set over iBrewMaster's Mac app by a long stretch. If Beersmith supported batches (separate copies of recipes that have a few additional features), I'd be pretty happy.

For now, my workflow will be overkill until I settle on a clear toolset.

I will keep recipes and inventory in Beersmith2. I tried to export the recipe from BeerSmith 2 into iBrewMaster for iPhone but it messes up the mash steps and brewing instructions so in most cases it is easier to just transfer the recipe from Beersmith2 into iBrewMaster by hand once I have things the way I want it. That way I can rely on the timers in iBrewMaster while brewing since its much easier to keep my phone handy than a computer (and I don't have a printer).

To further complicate things, I keep meticulous notes of the entire process, day by day, in a per-batch text file on Dropbox. Once the batch is done and served, I'll just copy and paste those notes into the BeerSmith notes field.

What a pain huh? I wish I had an app that synced my recipes between devices, had batch support, had easy inventory management and worked flawlessly.... That may be a bridge too far for right now.

I too am using ibrewmaster on my iPad. It's working great.

Icing on the cake would be the ability to send all of your ingredients (or selected ingredients) to a store for purchase right from the app.

Picked up a copy just now, hope it is good. Wanted iPad Beer Smith, but will see how I like this. Will post more once I have used it a few times.

I've had Beer Tools Pro for a few years now and it's starting to piss me off. The final gravities never seem to change which isn't that big of a deal but really gets me is when I add a fruit puree the abv doesn't budge. Doesn't matter if I add it to the mash, boil, fermenter, secondary. I can even turn the ingredient on and off altogether and the abv stays the same. It treats fruit purees as if they contain no sugar.

Also, Beer Tools Pro customer service is practically non existent. I can't find anywhere on their website to actually contact them.

QuantumBrewer said:

Picked up a copy just now, hope it is good. Wanted iPad Beer Smith, but will see how I like this. Will post more once I have used it a few times.

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So far so good. Terrific support, all questions answered very quickly along with some good brewing advise! I would definitely recommend if you are looking for an iPad app to help with recipes and schedules.

QuantumBrewer said:

So far so good. Terrific support, all questions answered very quickly along with some good brewing advise! I would definitely recommend if you are looking for an iPad app to help with recipes and schedules.

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Should have said iBrewmaster - software for iPad Rocks!

Well being on a Mac I started off with Beer Alchemy. The UI is much better than anything else I have seen and I really liked using it. But it does not have a large built in database and you can't add a custom item on the fly, so after moving across the country and starting to use a lot of new grains I was constantly having to stop go to prefs and add items and then go back to creating the recipe. That was a pain. No support for BIAB. and a few other limitations that were little pestery things.

BeerSmith came out for the Mac and it solved all the things that bugged me about BeerAchemy. The UI I find much clunkier than BA but in this case I will go with function over style.

BA had been promising fixes in the next version. Then the next version changed from a point up date to a whole new version... BUT it only will run on Lion (the very latest version of Mac OS) and that won't run on the laptop I use for brewing.

Why would brewing software need the latest OS?, who's main selling point is you can tweet from any app? Seems Apple is putting a LOT of pressure on developers to move on and basically if you want to sell through the app store you pretty much have to drop support for earlier OS's.

Anyway that killed it and BeerSmith is my new best friend.

I started off using qBrew and still use it, although I have tried a lot of other applications and web sites I like qBrew the best because it's just so accurate and easy to use. Over the years I keep adding new ingredients to the database like the latest yeast, hop and malts as they become available. You can get the free download here Screwy's Brewing Tools And Formulas

mrkristofo said:

The results might be skewed by Mac users, because only one of our software options (BTP) is up on that list.

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Doing some searching...as of version 2.1 BeerSmith is available for the Mac. I think I'm going to download the free trial and see how it runs on the Mac.

newbrewer2012 said:

Doing some searching...as of version 2.1 BeerSmith is available for the Mac. I think I'm going to download the free trial and see how it runs on the Mac.

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I have it for the Mac - and everything is fantastic. Even in the most recent upgrade (with the new cloud component), it's seamless. You'll be happy. I have this and iBrewmaster (for the iPad/iPhone), and this is great. I still use iB when I'm out and have an "aha!" moment, but I plug it all into Beersmith when I get home. The reporting, brew sheets, etc. are great for making brew day a lot less chaotic, especially for brews with lots and lots of complications (like multi-stage mashes, numerous hop additions, etc.).

I brew 380 liters on my system. Does Beersmith support the conversions to any size batch?

So, has anyone run BeerTools Pro under Mac OS 10.8 yet? How about a report?