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Brewpastor

Beer, not rocket chemistry
Joined
Feb 16, 2006
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Corrales, New Mexico
Anybody have the skinny on the new Beer Tools Pro as compared to Promash and BeerSmith? I have Promash and BeerSmith and really prefer Promash, mostly because it is what I know. But it has its limits.

I have seen a couple screen shots of Beer Tools Pro and it looks interesting, but before I waste any more money I thought I would turn to the masses for any insight. I have a recollection that Dude was doing some beta testing on it or something like it, but I could be wrong.

What do people know, what's the word on the streets?
 
I bought it, tried hard to use it, and went right back to BeerSmith. It's prettier, for sure, but I find the interface a bit cumbersome in comparison to BeerSmith. I think it might even have some sweet functionality with scheduling complicated mashes and hops schemes, but I couldn't get past the awkwardness. Also, it seems a bit rough around the edges - it does this weird screen updating thing where the window flashes rapidly while it calculates. I haven't completely given up on experimenting with BTP, but I still use BeerSmith for creating and storing recipes.
 
I find it is MUCH better than Promash. I wish it had an inventory function (it may now, I might have an oder version). Yuri is right on the flickering. It also has some oddities that are cosmetically hard for me to accept. If you save a recipe, sometimes the hops go above the grains in the order...that is really stupid.

The recipe database and the ability to duplicate an ingredient right from the recipe page is a nice feature--where as in Promash you can't o that.

Another nice feature of BTP is the session isn't separate like it is in Promash. If you used sessions in PM you know what I am talking about. Very difficult to keep the two (recipe and session) straight.

I use Beertools exclusively now.
 
Im a Beer Tools Pro user as well, and love it. I like it over BeerSmith as well. Its been a decent tool for me.
 
You might want to check out QBrew. Its free. See my sig. They'll have a new version out shortly with more features.
 
It looks pretty fancy never used it.
chugbeerea4.gif
 
Edit: Oops... I think you were talking about BTP.


It does everything I need. An updated version is coming out that will do mash in temps, mash volumes and RECIPE VOLUME SCALING !

It has worked well for me.

Here is a screen shot for the Mac version.
http://www.usermode.org/code/qbrew-osx.png
 
I'd love to know that Beersmith and BTP do that qbrew doesn't. We can add functionality to qbrew without much trouble. Anyone care to compare qbrew to their software ?
 
I have been wanting to get BTP, but they seem to have a lot of bugs and issues right now. Think I will wait until ver 2 comes out, unless they are good about free upgrades.
 
Drunk Monkey said:
I have been wanting to get BTP, but they seem to have a lot of bugs and issues right now. Think I will wait until ver 2 comes out, unless they are good about free upgrades.

Everytime they update to a new version, the upgrade is free.
 
Dude said:
Did you design it or something? I'd check it out, but I'm not really all that thrilled with learnign a new program. I'm just now getting comfy with BTP.

No. I now know the guy that wrote it. I'm wondering what its missing compared to the other packages.
 
brewman ! said:
No. I now know the guy that wrote it. I'm wondering what its missing compared to the other packages.

I'll take a look at it.

One thing right off the bat that I think is VERY important...ingredient inventory. BTP doesn't have it yet, but I was a beta tester so I seem to have some pull with the creators--and I think I've got them thinking about it.
 
Dang you guys. Just when I thought I was set. More software to look at!:mug:
I noticed that ProMash hasn't been upgraded in quite awhile so I might just have to look at Beer Tools Pro.
 
FWIW on Promash and an updated PM. This is a comment from Jeff Donovan (creator) I saw on their forum. I'm suspecting a full re-write.
---------------------------------------

12/08/06 at 03:04 PM
Sometime in 2007 is all I can say at the moment. I understand the needs and wants of the new rev and I would say it's about 70% done at the present. As I have stated previously, I want 2.0 to last another 10 years down the road and as such I am not going to rush it out the door until I am 100% satisfied with it. The big problem for me right now is that my beautiful wife is having some major medical issues that will keep me off of it (and anything else) for the next month or two but hopefully soon the crisis will be over and I will be back onto it full bore in late January to finish it up.

- Jeff

__________________
Beer Engineer
 
I have downloaded BPT and it looks interesting enough. I like the descriptions about the hop varieties for example. But I will have to play with it for a while before I can say more.
 
I bought PBT a few weeks ago. I really like it. The schedule portion takes a little getting used to, but it is pretty flexible.

It seems like the developers are on the ball as far as updating and working out any kinks that are left. I'm very satisfied with it.
 
Brewpastor said:
I have downloaded BPT and it looks interesting enough. I like the descriptions about the hop varieties for example. But I will have to play with it for a while before I can say more.
One thing I don't like about ProMash is that it doesn't have descriptions about the ingredients. I used to use Brewer's Workshop and their program had excellent descriptions. Too bad they went out of business and their program doesn't work so well with XP.:drunk:
 
I emailed the BTP and asked about updates. This was his response:

The next significant update to BeerTools Pro will be v1.1. All
current users receive that update free, and can download it using
their personal download manager at the site. Bug fixes and minor
changes have all been made available the same way. Currently BTP is
at v1.0.20. Version 1.1 will include several major enhancements that
make it a significantly improved over 1.0. Likely the next paid
upgrade will be v1.5, but that is a long way off.
 

i think b.t.p. is a well put together program but, it did to take me a while to get used to it! now that i have ahold of things, i like it alot! all in all it isnt really that bad in price either! i say go for it!
 
Does anybody use StrangeBrew? I've tried Brewsta and found it somewhat counterintuitive. Switched to ProMash and was somewhat satisfied but I can't figure out how to make it calculate batch sparging. So I got StrangeBrew and it seems to meet my needs for now. Recently downloaded BeerSmith but haven't used it yet.
 
I also have BTP and I like it alot. There are a few features I like about Promash better, but I like th interface of BTP. For the money you can't go wrong.
 
Geologist said:
Does anybody use StrangeBrew? I've tried Brewsta and found it somewhat counterintuitive. Switched to ProMash and was somewhat satisfied but I can't figure out how to make it calculate batch sparging. So I got StrangeBrew and it seems to meet my needs for now. Recently downloaded BeerSmith but haven't used it yet.

How much is the Strangebrew software. I can't seem to find any reference to price on their webpage.
 
For the money, especially with the BYO promotion, you really can't go wrong with BTP.

I still prefer Beer Alchemy, not just because I'm a Mac user, but it just does things in a way that I like.

But, my friend has BTP, I've seen it, and I may get a copy myself.

Does anyone else use two programs since everyone seems to agree that no single program does everything?
 
I bought a copy last night and I started entering in some of my recipes. The hop utilization seems to be all messed up, as it calculated my IIPA to have an IBU of 250. Also the boil volume doesn't seem to have any effect on it. I am sure there is some setting that I am missing.
 
megavites said:
How much is the Strangebrew software. I can't seem to find any reference to price on their webpage.

The Strangebrew version that I have says it's $15 to register. I've also noticed that it hasn't been updated since July, 2004.

I've used it in the past and have been pretty happy with it.

I have played around with QBrew and have noticed that the printing needs some work, and I didn't like the fact that when I added a hop type to the database I had to exit out of the program before my recipe recognized it. All in all, it has potential, though.
 
megavites said:
How much is the Strangebrew software. I can't seem to find any reference to price on their webpage.

It's shareware. The downloadable is fully functional for 30 days then most of the features are deactivated. It costs $15 canadian for a key to enable it permanently. A one time cost that includes all upgrades and support forever. It has a nice feature of calculating the cost of your beer, total and per bottle. However, the calculation is done in dollars... In Japan I pay for everything in yen. I suggested an option in the user preferences for currency and the author said he'd put it in the next upgrade.

For now it serves my purposes. Later I might consider going back to promash if they add a few more functions/options.
 
Bobby_M said:
Exactly what is the BYO promotion? Discount? I am about to buy it.

Type in BYOMA7 as the promo code, and you get it for $21.95. It's from an ad in BYO this month.
 
I just got BTP. I had only used the demos of Beersmith and Promash.
So far I dig it. I'm looking forward to the proposed ability to upload to the internet Beertools.com website.

I haven't exactly figured out the Hops utilization either. The different methods provide vastly different values. But you can change it to suit your stylee.

I wasn't impressed by Promash's interface....and what turned me off of Beersmith was the apparant lack of updates to ingredient and upgrades. BTP may have its limitations, but the designers are actively working to improve it.

While there is no "demo" if you sign up for Beertools.com (it's free) you can get a very rough feel for what it'll do.
 
Dude said:
Whoa...have you Beertools users seen the BTP wiki yet? Wow...great info there!

I have and its helped me a lot in figuring out how to use the software, which wasn't always intuitively obvious to me. My opinion of BTP is much higher now that I have a much better idea of its features and how to use them.

I hope the amount of info on the wiki keeps growing. There are still a lot of holes.
 
Steve973 said:
Yes it will import them.

How do you import recipes from promash to beertools pro? I thought it only imported XML files. I have seen the thread or links on XML files , but have not been able to figure it out . Any help would be appreciated.
 
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