Beersmith

[medic699]

Is Beersmith the way to go when it comes to software? I have an iPhone and desk top and like the sync feature.

 

[CA_Mouse]

That is a loaded question. Some use Pro Mash and others use BeerSmith. There are, also, a few online resources. Each has it's own following and each has both pros and cons for using them.

That said, I personally, use BeerSmith and like the way it interacts between my tablet and laptop/desktop.

 

[trboyden]

+1 for Beersmith. That said, I do get random crashes on the Windows version which can be a bummer. Just remember to save often. SOP on Windows anyways...

 

[Oginme]

I use Beersmith also, but I recommend that you try some of the other software out there. There are some free ones and most offer a trial period to test them. While I like Beersmith over the others and find it easy to navigate, you may find the interface of one of the other programs is more intuitive to you.

Also, with any of the programs, be prepared to spend some time customizing the settings to reflect how you brew and the equipment you have in order to have it work accurately for you.

 

[runningweird]

I finally broke down and bought beersmith 2, so far it's been pretty decent - it can be a little clunky on the design side, but it has active development and a very helpful community. I say it's worth the twenty dollars, try it out.

 

[Curtis2010]

Like BeerSmith. Used to run the Windows version. Now run the Android version. Less functionality in the Android version, but still pretty good. Assume it will catch up over time. Much more handy to carry around phone/tablet on brew day.

 

[sikkingj]

I use beer smith and absolutely hate it's interface - it's circa 93 and needs to be burned. My mac is embarrassed to run it.

That said once you learn its idiosyncrasies it work. It isn't as user friendly as it should be but it works. The trouble is the things you expect it to be able to do - say open a beer smith file and save it or update your profile from the new file it can't do. You need to to an awkward work around to get it to work. Frustrating to say the least.

I chose beers smith because it had the largest tribe following it, I can't speak to promash, but I'm sure it has it's pros and cons as well. None of the online beer apps seem up to the task. I can't wait for a modern software to come on the market - competition will help.

 

[blakelyc]

People call me crazy, but I really like iBrewmaster2. I use it primarily on my iPhone and iPad. There is a desktop version as well, but it, too suffers from some interface deficiencies.

 

[stpug]

I like brewtarget and I like beersmith. I use beersmith much more because I'm accustomed to it, and it's reasonably accurate (as accurate as you can be in brewing I suppose). Any brewing software is clunky - sh*t, look at our brew sculptures

 

[medic699]

Thanks everyone. I have decided to try Beersmith since it comes with a free trial. Lots of information out there about it as well.

 

[Seven]

Beersmith is OK. I think there are some issues with the program that need to be resolved. One is to allow people to use the software on multiple PCs without risking data corruption. Some people like me use it on multiple PCs (say one at work and one at home) and store their recipe database on dropbox to share recipe data between computers... but if you accidentally run beersmith on more than one PC at the same time data corruption can occur. See Beersmith support forum post about this here. This is a simple fix and I've emailed the author about this and submitted a request on their contact page but so far no response. My guess is that it may reduce the number of subscribers to their new "recipe cloud" service and so the dropbox users will continue to face possible data corruption issues.

 

[b-boy]

I like Beersmith. I love the Cloud option. I have multiple PCs and tablets, so it makes the program very mobile.

I have noticed that there are times that values kind of reset themselves. I can't identify what causes it, but I think the way the some of the profiles are saved might be the iussue. Each installation I have seems to have slightly different settings. It would be nice if these were 'cloudable' like the recipes.

 

[trboyden]

I don't think Beersmith was meant to be multi-device. You'd have to engineer the application in a way that the application uses shared storage such as a database or cloud storage to do that. The cloud features it does have are more to backup and share your recipes.

It doesn't sound like too many people love the available options out there, so I am curious as to what features home brewers really desire in a "home brewer assistant" software program? I think I will start another thread to get that feedback.

I like Beersmith. I love the Cloud option. I have multiple PCs and tablets, so it makes the program very mobile.

I have noticed that there are times that values kind of reset themselves. I can't identify what causes it, but I think the way the some of the profiles are saved might be the iussue. Each installation I have seems to have slightly different settings. It would be nice if these were 'cloudable' like the recipes.

 

[b-boy]

I don't think Beersmith was meant to be multi-device. You'd have to engineer the application in a way that the application uses shared storage such as a database or cloud storage to do that. The cloud features it does have are more to backup and share your recipes.

Yes - I understand that. I probably use Beersmith differently than most people.

I have a PC in my garage, in my home, and a phone and a tablet. I tweak recipes on all of them. Sometimes I will make a minor change that adjusts something else. I usually catch it, but not always. It's more of an inconvenience than a problem and it's entirely my fault.

As far a features, I like having the timer and all the conversion tools in one place.

I'd love to see a more robust database for ingredients that I could easily refresh as needed. The current one is fine, but I'm not super comfortable adding my own ingredients to the DB. I'd rather be able to pull from somewhere that I know has been properly vetted by someone who knows what they are doing. I'd even be willing to pay for that if it was available.

 

[trboyden]

Nope, we all pretty much use it that way...

That's one of the most frequent comments about beer brewing software in general. What I meant is it is a different engineering approach that is required to enable that as a feature, especially if you extend it out to mobile devices. Cloud (Internet) is the standard way to do that now, whether the whole app sits in the cloud or just a web service that connects to a database (the back-end of the application). The problem with that is, you basically have to then be connected to the Internet all the time. A lot of people don't like that. So then you get into synchronization which has its own issues (Which version is the new one? How often? How much data are we talking about? Etc...).

A lot of developers are making these programs in their spare time, so while they've probably thought of these issues, there is only so much development time to go around and only so much pay back. But it certainly is there for the next enterprising developer to latch onto and please the masses.

Yes - I understand that. I probably use Beersmith differently than most people.

I have a PC in my garage, in my home, and a phone and a tablet. I tweak recipes on all of them. Sometimes I will make a minor change that adjusts something else. I usually catch it, but not always. It's more of an inconvenience than a problem and it's entirely my fault.

As far a features, I like having the timer and all the conversion tools in one place.

I'd love to see a more robust database for ingredients that I could easily refresh as needed. The current one is fine, but I'm not super comfortable adding my own ingredients to the DB. I'd rather be able to pull from somewhere that I know has been properly vetted by someone who knows what they are doing. I'd even be willing to pay for that if it was available.