Beersmith User?

How many use BeerSmith? If you do, what do you like or dislike about it?

 

I have the latest version. I like being able to tweak recipes before even buying the ingredients. But it is hard to get everything set up to accurately reflect your process & numbers. But it can also be added onto with grains, extracts, hops, yeasts, whatever. That's pretty cool...

 

i like it. Seems pretty accurate, and i use it to keep track of all measurements for each brew. Just change the recipe name to a #1, #2, #3 and so on, helps keep track of changes between the same recipe. The only thing i dont like is the interface. Seems cluttered and in some random order, for each page. Could use a little love and clean up. I hate the mobile app. Have to use the desk top verson

 

I use the app on the phone, its great for quick references and calcs on brew days. It also has a lot of recipes. I would recommend it.

 

I use it and think it gives a lot more ability to adjust things to what you have. If you know the malt numbers and they are different than the one in their list you can add it or change the parameters. You do have to do some input to get it to know how your system works, after that it seems very accurate.

I like when new grains or hops become available you can add on the items, or add them manually yourself.

I do agree with Terek that the interface needs some cleaning up. It is not as user friendly as it could be. I read somewhere that it is being worked on now.

I never downloaded the app, having heard that it is a light version of the PC program and that it will not do everything you need.

I haven't seen any program, at least now that I have used BS for 3 years, that I think I would like any better.

 

BeerSmith has a learning curve, but is worth the time invested in learning at least its basic features. It probably took about 10 hours of me using it to get a decent grasp. The one thing I love about BeerSmith is the amount of customization it allows - the program grows along with your brewing skills.

I figure the $28 I spent to buy the PC/Mac version has more than been repaid in saved ingredients from hare-brained recipes I have in my head. BeerSmith allows me to model and tweak the recipes before I brew and the result is usually much closer to what I imagined than when I would wing it. Hell I paid the extra $10 for the iPad version so I could play with recipes while away from home.

 

l like it. I learned on my last brew, in a 12.5 gallon kettle as opposed to 7.5, that my water volumes are off. I assume due partly to more boil off and probably incorrect quart/lb ratio. Once my equipment profiles are established and proven it'll be easy

 

I've used beersmith for several years.... a little bit of a learning curve (but isn't that true of most programs), but then the amount of customization, and ability to organize brew days/months/years is better than any other program I've found. I've tried most of them, just to come back to brewsmith. None of them are perfect.

 

Just be sure to save your recipes to the cloud function it has! I would've lost all of them a couple times due to hacker BS if I didn't...:rockin:

 

Try the "copy to brew log" function so you don't have to rename each time you brew.

 

I've been using BeerSmith for almost 3 years now and like the basic program. It does take a bit of care to get your profiles and the modeling correct to your process, but once I did it has been spot on.

Having to focus on accurate measurements and understanding the process has helped in becoming repeatable and predictable in my recipe formulation and brewing.

The interface is a bit clunky, but workable.

The water adjustment and yeast starter functions are very basic and could be improved.

The modeling equations are available for modification by the user which I like immensely.

I would like to see a brew day page for each recipe that allows you to enter all your measured results and compare them directly with the predicted values. At a glance it would show where your results varied from the model and make it even easier to improve your profiles.

 

I love that once you nail your equipment profile, it does all the math for you as far as water temp and volume. Makes brew day much faster in that regard. Once you get to building your own recipes, its also great for seeing what happens when you tweak your grains, hops, adjuncts, etc...

 

Pretty sure I have 2.2 atm. A lot to tweak, but handy.

 

New to Beersmith. I love the features,but it can be a bit overwhelming.

 

Are you Yooper on Beersmith Recipe Cloud?

 

I bought the desktop and mobile versions. One of the best investments I've made. Now that I've moved from extract to all grain, I can't imagine brewing without it. I like that it allows scaling of batch size, adjusts for efficiency of my system, calculates mash and sparge water volumes and temps, etc. I highly recommend it.

 

I ask because I just bought it. So far it looks great. I'm hoping it takes out any stress in the process so I can RDWHAHB with more ease.

 

It gets to be downright fun when you start getting things dialed in. Then you start tweaking in earnest...

 

It certainly takes the stress out of going back through pages of calculations just to see what a change in a recipe does for the outcome...

 

You can also back up the files to a USB drive once or twice a month and store that drive somewhere not connected to the computer. If you get ransomware, you might lose a few weeks of data/documents, but can restore everything else after reloading your computer.

I do this and have the BrewSmith files replicated to Dropbox for extra insurance.

 

+1 on the mobile version being less than useful...but the desktop version was well worth the $28 - does so many calcs, and the notes section lets you record what went right or wrong for future correction...

 

Bs is a great program. There are lots of help videos on youtube for getting things set up and running properly.
I've gotten to where I mostly use the app on my tablet, in conjunction with Brewersfriend and Priceless Calc. My wife gives me the big roll eyes geek look on brew days...with my laptop, tab and phone all running different things during brew time. Technology is freakin awesome

 

I use it and like it.
I get annoyed because it can't (or I just don't know how ) let me make a custom equipment profile and batch size
Also it calculates IBUs for very late additions incorrectly

 

It can do both. It lets you enter in your setup and it automatically tailors recipes to it. It also lets you scale the batch size. There's a big button on the upper left part of the screen that says scale recipe.

 

Been using Beersmith since I started 5 years ago, love it. I do personally prefer the layout and design of the older version as opposed to the new. Plain simple gui that was straight to the point. I found it cleaner and less cluttered feeling, though I do love being able to run a dark theme in the new one. I run everything dark theme. With Beersmith I get my predictions and hit my numbers perfectly nearly every single time. The mobile app is good for being able to carry my recipes on my phone and access them if I need to check something. I am however not happy about recipe transfer from desktop to phone and vice versa. They require you use the Cloud and the "free" Beersmith Cloud only allows storage of 5 recipes at a time. So transferring a large history of brews takes a while. I would really like to see a sync option so that any recipe changes I make on my desktop (the only place I actually make changes) can be synced to the cloud and then recipes simply updated on the phone by clicking sync. As it is now, I need to copy the recipe to the cloud again after I've made a change or added a note, delete the current recipe off my phone, then copy the recipe to the phone. And I have to do this for each recipe individually. The mobile app is also less featured and has a much smaller ingredients database.


Rev.

 

I use BS extensively. You can customize everything, and once you have your equipment dialed in, you can "scale" other recipes to your equipment, and it does a very good job! I also like the printouts that I glue into my brewing note book (print them 2-up). I also like beersmithrecipes.com

Downsides: the interface is terrible, reminiscent of 90's crap shareware, so expect to learn and be frustrated as you go. I also emailed the creator several times and never received even a reply, so don't expect much on that front.

There doesn't seem to be anything better yet, so go with this one.

 

Interesting. I've emailed Brad a few times about several issues and he's always responded to me. However, I'm still waiting like a year and a half later for his Linux version update to fix a bug I'd reported and also to fix the mouse scrolling issue (won't scroll) when scrolling worked fine in Linux under the last version of Beersmith.


Rev.

 

I've e-mailed Brad a few times myself. Always a prompt, helpful reply.

 

I use it.

Dislikes:
1) When choosing grains , hops or whatever, the window closes after each item choice...It should stay open and allow you to pick all your grains, or hops or whatever window you have open all at once.

2) Not all of us 2 step sparge or fly sparge..The brew steps should allow for a per-calculated sparge water temp for single full volume batch sparges such as Beertargert does.

3) Id like a feature to be able to export to file your recipe right from the recipe building window as your working on it.

4) There should be a slider bar or at least a scale that lets you know if your at or below the minimal Lintner threshold for proper conversion of your grains. ( This is especially important to new brewers whom have a tendency to over grist with specialty grains.)

Likes:
Pretty much everything else.

 

If you know a little about html you can create and customize reports. Forget how to do it at the moment though.

 

I have a spreadsheet that I enter the values in to do the needed calculations and keep all records on the printed brew day sheet, but it would be nice if I had one tab on the recipe to look at all the inputs vs projected values.

Kind of a 'wish list' item.

 

I can see BS2 having something like that on some kind of related tab on the recipe page. Might be handy at that...

 

Like all programs it has a learning curve but once you figure it out it is an invaluable tool for creating recipes and brewday.

I have created my own brewday checklists, not a fan of the BS checklist.

Once you get it dialed in it is spot on with volumes and takes all of the math out of my equation. I have made duplicate recipes several times and no noticeable flavor differences.

 

Anyone in the NOVA area, we are having Mr Beersmith at our next homebrew meeting.

Sheldon

 

I will be getting this very soon. My only concern is not being knowledgable enough with what I'm actually working with yet.

Maybe that's a new guy mistake but using the app Wort as of now (since it's free), I don't know if I should "trust" the numbers it gives me for the pre boil volume etc. also the grain density to water volume kind of stuff.

Would it behoove of people like me to learn a bit more about the process before jumping into a program like this or just do it and learn as we go type of thing?

 

Jump in just don't go crazy designing a Frankenstein recipe...Use known successful ones and then tweak slightly to make it the way you want it. At least at first.

 

Awesome advice. That's kinda the key I've found. Find some clone recipes of beers you know you like, note the differences, and tweak it accordingly.

All the technical stuff still freaks me out a bit, but I'm learning 🏻

 

Rev,

I just got on the Cloud site and the "free" version allows 15 recipes, not 5.