I’ve heard brew software being mentioned in a lot of threads and would like to get one. Any body have any recommendations? Obviously, free would be best
There are a number of good beer software programs available. I do not know of any free ones. I really enjoy BeerTools and the price is really low!
Gary
Do you have a mac or a pc? If you have a pc then BeerSmith is the way to go. If you have a mac then go for BeerAlchemy. Just my two cents.
Promash is almost the default for a PC - it’s the most intuative brewing software I’ve used (not to say it is intuitive - relative to other brewing software though…).
Qbrew on Linux is free (as in beer and as in speech) and it’s more than decent. Not sure if it’s available on PC.
Beersmith works perfectly on Ubuntu and Windows.
I feel like BeerAlchemy would be the go-to on a Mac since the iPhone version is so great.
My current favorites are BeerSmith when I’m on my computer and BeerAlchemy when I’m not near a computer.
I switched from promash to beersmith recently, because promash is old and never updated. I would have been fine keeping with promash, but when I got a new computer I couldn’t find the disks. I think beersmith is better because it is more current and actually being maintained. And it’s a decent program too.
Check out Hopville.com They have a free beer calculator called Beer Calculus. I’m not a big fan, but it’s free, and everyone’s recipes can be shared.
I started out using the Hopville.com BeerCalculus program. This suffices and gives you some interesting insight into recipe formulation. However, I’ve moved on to Beer Alchemy for the Mac and must say it was well worth the nominal fee for the return. It is regularly updated. It has quite a number of beels and whistles beyond recipe creation that really add meaningfully to its utility. A little weak on the built in ingredients list but anything you personally want to add can easily be input. Actually enhances the amount of fun I have homebrewing.
Brewtarget.
It’s free, it’s on most platforms, it’s free, has good support, it’s free, and it’s actively maintained and updated, not perfect, but it’s free.
Download it here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/brewtarget/
I have used BeerSmith since I started using software. It is well worth the price. It is regularly updated and backed with a great web site, Blog and forum. There will soon be a new edition that is Mac compatable. I contribute my current brewing succes to this sotware and sanitation.
Promash has always worked for me. I don’t care if it’s ever updated, because it does exactly what I need it to do right now. Very stable, even under Win7.
I’m a beersmith user and have been for over three years. It’s easy to use I like the format.
Beersmith for me as well.
I use BeerSmith for most of my calcs, but still use the venerable (but never updated) ProMash to fill in the holes that BeerSmith can’t quite fill. At least BS is getting a major upgrade.
I’m a long time Promash user. It’s a well thought out piece of software, and I don’t care if it’s been updated or not since it does everything I need to do. I’ve been struggling to learn Beersmith, but the paradigm is so foreign to me that it’s taking me a while to get comfortable with it.
Used both ProMash and BeerSmith for a while and settled on BeerSmith. (Actually now have two copies as I won a second as swag in a homebrew comp).
I have contributed to both ProMash and BeerSmith, Both are good.
Jeff has some personal family issues that he needs to focus on and thus has not been working on the new version of ProMash. It has not been updated in a long time. ProMash has a limit of 255 ingredients, I have maxed it out and when I try something new, either hop or grain, I have to delete something to make room for it.
BeerSmith is maintained on a regular basis and for me is more flexible. Brad is working on a new version and has included many suggestions from users. It will be multiplatform including both windows and mac.
At this time I use BeerSmith.
I like Beersmith ok, but since migrating over to Apple products over the past year (work-related migration) I recently tried BeerAlchemy, and like it a lot. I know Beersmith is going to have a Mac version Real Soon Now, but I need software that can support my brewing needs today, not RSN.
I’ve tried Promash, Beersmith and Beertools and settled on Beersmith. I’ve been using it for a few years and it works well for me and I prefer the user interface compared with Prolmash or Beertools.
If I ever hit 255 ingredients, then I’ll just need to go back and remove the ones I don’t use. There is no possible way I would ever need that much variety. The other option would be to load another copy of it on the same computer and split the ingredients between different beer styles.
I’ve been very happy with BeerTools Pro for the past several years.