Is there any good brewing software for a Mac? I checked out Beersmith and ProMash and neither are available for a Mac as far as I can tell.
Please let me know if there’s something else I should be looking at.
Thanks
There have been quite a few threads about software:
http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=406.0
http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=4825.0
http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=5730.0
Including at least one specifically about Mac software:
http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=4855.0
Refer to the above quoted threads by all means, but in a nutshell, just look for BEER ALCHEMY.
Reasonably priced, very editable/customizable and very Mac.
Written from the ground up by a Mac user for Mac users.
I don’t rely on software too much to tell me what I should be doing (my tastebuds do that better than the software can) but the software can be useful for sharing recipes, scaling them, and doing rough calculations.
I’ve been using Homebrew Formulator for two years now, like it a lot.
Here’s a link: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/20249/homebrew-formulator
I have been using this
http://sourceforge.net/projects/brewtarget/
It works fairly well once you figure it out.
Got Beer Alchemy all set up including the link to the iphone… and don’t use it. I have a ring binder and make “numbers” spreadsheets for each batch. It’s just handier to have paper to look at or jot a time down than it is a laptop. What I do have and use all the time is an iPhone app called BrewMath.
Thanks everyone.
What I’m really after is a method for figuring out my strike temperature for the water that will be added to my grain. I sort of “winged it” last time and it didn’t go as well as I would have hoped. I know ProMash is supposed to help calculate this. Besides that, I don’t think I’d be using a calculator for too much. I have used BeerTools on-line before to get a sense of how an idea compares to the standards for that style but I’m not really looking to re-create styles yet as much as perfect a plain pale ale.
I’ll check all of these out.
I always use this:
Thanks Jeffy. That’s what I was needing.
I just played around with it for a few minutes (I really have to stop thinking about beer when I should be working) and it is interesting to see that the volume of water has much more impact than the temp of the grains.
The impact is based on weight (mass, actually) and the weight of the water far exceeds the weight of the grain. In addition, the specific heat (or heat capacity, can never keep them straight) of water is 1.00 so you get 100% of the benefit of it’s heat. The same value for grain is around .38-.40 so you only get about 40% of the benefit of it’s heat.
Easy ROT w/ room temp grains and preheated mashtun: strike temp = desired mash temp + 13. Units in *F.
Yeah, but what about the mash thickness? I would change quite a bit from 1 Qt/# to 2 Qt/#.
Can’t you install Wine and run ProMash on Mac? I do it on Linux.
I can barely turn the thing on. Not much of a computer person so unless it’s easy and straightforward, I’m at a loss. I’m sure it’s good advice but I have no idea what Wine is.
I ran into the same issue about a year or so ago. I went with beer tools and am happy with it. I still do hand calcs but that may be the engineer in me… ;D
Wine is a windows emulator, allowing you to run windows apps on your mac. dosn’t require you to actually load windows on the mac.
Try this
[ ( 0.2 / QRTS PER LB ) * ( MASH TEMP - GRAIN TEMP ) + MASH TEMP ] = STRIKE WATER TEMP
THIS DOES NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT HEAT LOSS DUE TO MASH TUN THERMAL MASS
Look for a program called WineBottler. It’ll make a bootable app out of beersmith that requires no knowledge of wine. http://www.wells-inc.com/howto-beersmith-on-a-mac-with-wine for directions on using winebottler.
or just go with beeralchemy, it works great for me.
The BrewMath app does that…
Thanks Oscarvan.
Brewmath hs now been downloaded to my iPod. Now I just have to spend some time checking it out. Another unproductive day at work I guess…