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Seven

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So I purchased Beersmith to hopefully improve my brewing...

I watched the how-to videos on the beersmith website.

I went through the beersmith FAQ and help and support pages.

However, I still feel lost when using this program. I'm primarily brewing extract batches now but I hope to eventually move to all-grain in the near future.

So how did others LEARN how to use beersmith? I feel like I'm just plugging away at the program and making a lot of guesses and assumptions and I don't have a level of confidence that I'm doing the right things.

Is there a step-by-step tutorial for beersmith somewhere that will help noobs like me get started with it?

Thanks for any suggestions!
 
So I purchased Beersmith to hopefully improve my brewing...

I watched the how-to videos on the beersmith website.

I went through the beersmith FAQ and help and support pages.

However, I still feel lost when using this program. I'm primarily brewing extract batches now but I hope to eventually move to all-grain in the near future.

So how did others LEARN how to use beersmith? I feel like I'm just plugging away at the program and making a lot of guesses and assumptions and I don't have a level of confidence that I'm doing the right things.

Is there a step-by-step tutorial for beersmith somewhere that will help noobs like me get started with it?

Thanks for any suggestions!

I'm in the same boat. I am still trying to get it all dialed in. Hopefully I am getting there... slowly.

As far as I know there are no turorial. Ask specific questions on here or the BS forum.

I thought i had mine pretty well dialed, in, but had a really wacky brew day on Sat. Still working on it.
 
I started searching the Beersmith forum and found most of the answers to my questions. When I first started messing with Beersmith I was lost, but now that I'm figuring it out I'm warming up to it.
 
So I purchased Beersmith to hopefully improve my brewing...

I watched the how-to videos on the beersmith website.

I went through the beersmith FAQ and help and support pages.

However, I still feel lost when using this program. I'm primarily brewing extract batches now but I hope to eventually move to all-grain in the near future.

So how did others LEARN how to use beersmith? I feel like I'm just plugging away at the program and making a lot of guesses and assumptions and I don't have a level of confidence that I'm doing the right things.

Is there a step-by-step tutorial for beersmith somewhere that will help noobs like me get started with it?

Thanks for any suggestions!

Honestly i would recommend that you read designing great beers cover to cover, Brew-smith is so overly simple it is more of a calculation machine than anything. You need to understand recipe formulation first and foremost. Learn that, and Brew-smith will suddenly make all kinds of sense.
 
Honestly i would recommend that you read designing great beers cover to cover, Brew-smith is so overly simple it is more of a calculation machine than anything. You need to understand recipe formulation first and foremost. Learn that, and Brew-smith will suddenly make all kinds of sense.

I've read DGB, I do most of my calculations by hand (or can do most of them, I have an Excel spreadsheet that I use for the heavy lifting), and Beer-smith STILL didn't make alot of sense to me when I tried the trial version.

Maybe its just me, but I do wonder if there is a more intutive software out there...
 
I agree. Beersmith won't make a recipe for you. A great way to learn is manually input proven recipes from Brewing Classic Styles and from our database here. That will give you practice finding ingredients etc. The biggest advantage for me is the Brew Sheet. If you are very careful and put in your equipment and efficiency correctly, know exactly how much deadspace your mash tun has, know the mash sytle and temperatures you want to use, the Brew Day Sheet is awesome. Once you enter that in the recipe itself, go back out the the recipe list and click on the drop down at the top of the toolbar. It will give you some options like "classic", "text" and a few others. The brew sheet gives you step by step instructions on strike water volume and temp, mashout temp and volume, and sparge volumes. Once you get used to using it, you can pretty much hit your numbers every time.
 
Edcculus;2561275 If you are very careful and put in your equipment and efficiency correctly said:
See I'm just talking about getting the thing set up right... not even for formulating recipes. I am still working on getting that right. Some of the set up is not intuitive... at least not to me. I thought I was close, but my last brew day was somewhat wacky.
 
yea, I can see what you mean. If I have time I'll try to put together a small tutorial on how to set up the program. You are right, some of the stuff is in places you wouldn't normally look. I could take screenshots etc to show where certain menus are located and how they need to be set to get the best results.
 
I don't think the user interface is incredibly friendly, but I like it that way! God I hate bubbly colorful software that doesn't even do what it is supposed to do. But I digress. I feel once you tell the software what equipment you are using and get your calibrations set for your hydrometer, refractometer, and mash tun weight (this was the big one for me) you are good to go. But again, I'm getting away from my point:

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://amzn.to/eAolRJ&h=3ad3d

The author of the software also wrote a book, I have not read it so I cannot guarantee that it will answer all of your questions. However, it is titled "Brewing with Beersmith" and is written by Mr. Smith himself... sooooooo yeah, take a peak at it or as others have mentioned, the beersmith forums have answers to most of your software questions.

Good luck!

*edit*
Direct link to amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/14...mp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1453851496
 
I feel once you tell the software what equipment you are using and get your calibrations set for your hydrometer, refractometer, and mash tun weight (this was the big one for me) you are good to go. But again, I'm getting away from my point:

See! I never would have guessed that. I just made an educated guess at what a 10 gal rubbermaid MLT would weigh. I guess I need to go weigh the thing. And dead space... how do you measure that? just to where it drains, or where it drains after you tip it on its side? See what I'm getting at?
 
A great way to learn is manually input proven recipes from Brewing Classic Styles and from our database here.

Honestly i would recommend that you read designing great beers cover to cover, Brew-smith is so overly simple it is more of a calculation machine than anything. You need to understand recipe formulation first and foremost. Learn that, and Brew-smith will suddenly make all kinds of sense.

I ordered both of these books and I will see if it helps me with this software. Thank you both!
 
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