The level of information here is unbelievable. What a place....the guy who developed the software is active on HBT and quick to help out.
As a dedicated Machead, I use Beer Alchemy.
Here's a question for the crowd: Why use beer software at all? What does it get me or how does it make my beer better?
Right now, my all-grain brewing is pretty mechanical: 1.5-2 qts of mash water to each pound of grain (enough to cover the grain + about 2cm in the mash tun), 170 or 176 strike water temp to get either a 152 or 158 mash temp, mash for an hour, raise the mash to 170F for 15 min, lauter, boil for an hour adding hops as appropriate for the style. Any math that is done is done on my fingers and I don't worry so much about mash efficiency or my water Ph...it all just seems to work out. I write down what worked and what didn't in a note-book to remember for later .
Do software users do this, or obey whatever the computer gonks out?
I don't think you need brewing software, but it takes some of the drudgery out of calculations and it lets you quickly and easily see what changes when you substitute various grains or quantities in a recipe you are designing.
I don't use any specialized software right now though. I work out all the details I need for brewing on paper, starting with the recipe to calculate how much of each grain I need. Desired OG is an input to that process. I don't care much about precise SRM. IBUs are the hardest calculation. I have no problem tracking hop additions of any number of hops because I pre-measure them and put them in little cups with a label on them to indicate what they are, how much, and when to add. Pretty simple.
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