I’m new to home brewing and the first three things I did to prepare for this hobby was to join AHA to gain knowledge from the experienced brewers on the forum, read John Palmer’s book How to Brew, and install a copy of BeerSmith2 on my Mac. Now I’d like to reach out to all of you and ask what brewing calculators do you use or make reference to when brewing.
I use Brewer’s Friend almost exclusively this point. The developer is very responsive to questions and concerns, and is constantly providing useful updates at a fairly quick pace. It’s perfect for me because everything is online, so I can access all my recipes and inventory from my work PC, my home PC, tablet and phone. The calculators are extremely helpful as well.
I’ve used ProMash and BeerSmith, and I much prefer the latter.
BeerSmith is intuitive enough to be accessible to brewers of all levels, but the functionality helped me really dial in my process as I progressed as a homebrewer. I wasn’t able to consistently hit my targets until I started using it.
Just one man’s opinion. This is an unpaid advertisement.
Being an engineer by trade, I do nearly all of my own calcs. For those I’m too lazy to do (SRM/IBU), I use Beer Calculus.
I’m using Beersmith and like it a lot. It has far more functionality than I’ve even begun to touch, but someday I’ll have the time to spend with it.
For basic recipe building and style guidelines it’s great.
And I’ve been hitting my numbers pretty damn well recently, which is nice.
Beersmith and Brun’ Water.
+1. My 2 favorites.
Being an engineer by trade, I know the most effective and efficient method of calculating recipe specs is with brewing software 
I’m thinking of switching back to text-only internet too.
Really though, I use BeerSmith.
I do my own calcs also, using a spreadsheet I built. It calculates gravity, bitterness, color, mash volumes, mash temperatures, and yeast starter growth.
I used to use Beersmith and found it to be pretty helpful. But I wanted to make my own to better understand what the calculators were doing, and also so I could customize it as necessary.
I use EZ Water 2.0 for mineral additions.
Quick and efficient is for work - slow and relaxing is my weekend mode. Plus I like to play with the numbers. 8)
BeerTools Pro. Best option on the Mac as far as I can tell. I’d be fine doing the calculations by hand (i.e. in a spreadsheet), but the logging and inventory tracking sold me.
being a former engineer by trade. i use ibrewmaster for my iphone and ipad. i do idiot checks on the numbers. it is not so much so that i can use it to create a recipe as it is that it stores it and the batch information right on my phone when i want to show it to somebody.
I CANT WAIT to be a “former engineer”…