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

[QuantumBrewer]

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.

 

[steinsato]

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]

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.

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]

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.

Should have said iBrewmaster - software for iPad Rocks!

 

[noiz2]

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.

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

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

 

[newbrewer2012]

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

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.

 

[mwdoher]

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.

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.).

 

[Shults]

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

 

[DeNovo]

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

 

[BeerSmith]

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

Yes - we have a lot of pro-brewers using BeerSmith now. You need to create an equipment profile for your pilot system and another for your full size system and then you can use the scale command to scale between them.

The other major factor is the "hop utilization factor" which is normally 100% but may run higher for micro breweries over 20 gallons (set in your equipment profile). Send me an email if needed and I can send you more details.

Brad

 

[DeNovo]

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

Nobody?

 

[Skarekrough]

I've been getting my feet wet for a few weeks now with Beersmith 2. I've been pretty happy with it although I think I'm probably using all of 10% of the available features!

One thing that annoys me is that the default unit for all grains is pounds. If I use three ounces of something I need to mess with the numbers to get it right.

But I like it enough to plan to give it as a gift. Just gotta figure out how to package it...

 

[noiz2]

You can change the defaults, but it would be nicer IMHO if there were a pounds and ounces setting instead of just pounds or just ounces.

Till then if you get a digital scale and set it to just pounds you can measure out that .625 lbs.

 

[ragi]

Might try entering ounce values in the entry field. For 3 ounces, try 3 oz I think Beersmith will automatically convert it or accept it, depending on your view.

I just learned a few days ago via the help file that Beersmith does this automatic conversion when researching Birx to Specific Gravity.

 

[noiz2]

Yes it does do some auto conversions, but that isn't what I was talking about.

If you need a pound and two onces of grain BS shows this as either 1.125 lb. OR 18 oz. It would be nice to be able to see it as 1 lb. 2 oz. and that is not an option.

It doesn't make a huge diference to me now because my scale can switch to fractional pounds but I used to have a scale that only read pounds and ounces and it was a bit of a pain.

 

[BeerSmith]

Actually the current version of BeerSmith will display grain weights in lbs-oz. It should be set on by default but the option is under Options->Units near the bottom as "Show English Weights as lbs/oz". I've also added lbs-oz on the latest version of the mobile BeerSmith Lite app under Options->UNits.

Brad

 

[noiz2]

Ah yes but if you double click on an item to change the quantity you get decimal pounds.

Sorry about my mix up, or maybe I was just remembering an older version. You do display Lb + Oz in the recipe display, if you want to adjust the amount it shows as decimal pounds. Again not a big deal, but not consistant.

 

[mwdoher]

Nobody?

Yes! Using it on Mountain Lion right now. I lost all my profiles and recipes in the upgrade so backup before your go from Lion to Mountain Lion. I also needed to re-authenticate my license for some reason. Regardless, it works fine on 10.8.

Cheers,

MD

 

[saxboarder]

While I'm new, I vote for Beersmith. I like that you can adjust for water, equipment, and the tools for adjusting recipes is great. having links to recipes that you wouldn't see otherwise is a great feature. The ongoing podcasts are good for added information onhow to grow in homebrewing.

 

[atoughram]

Just purchased Beersmith... Been a Promash user since the mid 1990's. Didn't want to miss out on the Memorial Day pricing..

 

[mufflerbearing]

I just loaded beersmith on my iPhone looks like it will work well.

 

[BeerSmith]

I apologize - the loading mash issue (which is intermittent) was found on the Android version a few days ago and I published updates for both versions. Unfortunately the Apple store typically takes 4-8 days to approve updates, so it will be a few days before the fix is posted there.

If you have additional issues please PM or email me at my beersmith at the beersmith.com domain.

Brad

 

[mufflerbearing]

Thanks for the response. Your advise helped and I loaded everything on it and it looks like it will help out with my brew day a lot! Thanks again.

 

[BrewDrinkRepeat]

Yes! Using it on Mountain Lion right now. I lost all my profiles and recipes in the upgrade so backup before your go from Lion to Mountain Lion. I also needed to re-authenticate my license for some reason. Regardless, it works fine on 10.8.

Cheers,

MD

Just upgraded last week; I did have to re-authorize with my license key, but none of my files or profiles were lost.

 

[fermentednonsense]

BeerSmith can be picky, but if you take the time and get your numbers dialed in, its an excellent resource.

 

[BrewDrinkRepeat]

I would say that's the same with Beer Tools Pro; you can use either app as a simple recipe database, but the real power comes in when you calibrate all of your equipment and dial in your process; then you not only can create recipes with appropriate targets, or adapt other recipes to your system, but also hit all of those targets on brewday, repeatably. Once I took the time to calibrate all of my vessels and heat sources in BTP I hit every number every time. Everything is very predictable, and repeatable. I hate when I see folks complain about spending $30 on a brewing app, they are so useful and powerful, IMO they'd be worth double or triple the price, easily.

 

[Psycotte]

Brewer's Friend is nice.

https://www.brewersfriend.com/

 

[steinsato]

I have the new beertools and Beersmith. Neither one of them seem to have every ingredient I want to add to recipes. Good luck finding something simple like munich liquid malt extract in either of them. I just upgraded to the newest Beertools and can't even figure out where the heck the ingredient database is. The left side of screen on the software is blank for me. I emailed 3 days ago and have had no reply. They could all be better in my opinion.

 

[cervid]

I bought beersmith after trialing both. It seemed to be the least annoying in some ways. What is most annoying, and easily fixed is how it adds ingredients and puts them in order. Why is there no button to move an ingredient order up or down.

Also, it's too bad you can't make up an ingredient to add. There are no fruit purees to add. There are yeasts and ingredients missing. I don't think I saw a single yeast from East Cost there. It's really annoying that you have to add crap into the notes to have an accurate recipe and god forbid you add an ingredient that is near it as a placekeeper, just to overlook it in the notes...

Considering it was just updated, and there have been thousands of copies sold, I really don't understand why it's missing yeasts and why there are no purees.. Even if it doesn't calculate the purees as fermentables..

And yes, it does seem like pretty old school windows tech, but it seemed more powerful than BeerTools and it seemed to be more widely used, and not just on here.