Beersmith User?

[Stillraining]

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

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.

 

[EarthwormJim]

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.

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

 

[Oginme]

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.

 

[unionrdr]

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

 

[histo320]

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.

 

[Sheldon]

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

Sheldon

 

[Tactical-Brewer]

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?

 

[Stillraining]

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.

 

[Tactical-Brewer]

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 [emoji106]🏻

 

[myerstyson]

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.
Rev.

Rev,

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

 

[jlinz]

I've been trying to setup my equipment profile for half batches (2.5 gallons). There is a good thread in here somewhere which give some good starting numbers for a 5 gallon batch. Can't figure out if I should cut everything in half or what. Might make sense for trub and beer lost at bottling but not sure about boil off rate. Argh...this BeerSmith.

 

[gotbeer74]

Your losses will be based on your system. Brew a few batches and measure your losses at each step. Enter these losses into BS. All DIY brewing systems are different.

 

[CA_Mouse]

Setting up the profile is critical to using the software properly. Everyone should know their system abilities, no matter what software they use. Brad Smith is currently working on the next version and I anticipate some nice changes to the interface. I like the ability to tailor everything about BeerSmith to my equipment and style of brewing. Updating grains, hops and yeast is pretty simple, while updating water takes a bit of knowledge. I truly believe that this has made my brewing better.

 

[jimyoung]

I measured my equipment, did some basic calibration (boil off rates, etc.) and started from there. Once that all worked, just keep good records when you make beer and tweak it. E.g., if your efficiency was off and it's not other issues, modify that, if your volumes are off due to boil or grain soak, modify that, etc. It works quite well