I apologize for this topic if it is somewhere else, but I cannot find it. I am asking for suggestions about Brewing Software. What do people think the best ones are.
Thank you for your help as I am new to Brewing.
I began with ProMash. Unfortunately, ProMash died years ago.
I tried BeerSmith. I was and still am impressed with BeerSmith (seems I learn something new all the time). Also Brad Smith is top rate. Have a question/concern, etc. Email him. He will reply.
I know there are others whom complain about brewing software. Please keep in mind the software is only as good as the information we supply. By this I mean, for example, malt specs and brewing equipment (where brewing equipment is more important for all grain).
Some will complain about “My OG was higher than the software predicted.”. OK, were the malt specs correct?
Whatever software is picked, it will take a few brews to “dial in” the settings.
Hope this helps.
Been using BeerSmith since version 1.xx and tried many others. Nothing compares. Now you can get both the desk-top and web versions for as little as $14.95/year.
I also use BeerSmith. I have looked at a few others but stuck with it.
I think you can try BeerSmith, Grainfather, Brewfather, and Brewers Friend for free. They all have apps and all are good.
Beersmith user for years and it definitely works for me, and admittedly I don’t use it to it’s full ability.
lol i am the sole user of brewtarget. i am dialed in on it, it’s free, and it works for me.
Another beersmith user here. I started out brewing with it and it does everything I need it to do. It’s not perfect and I don’t use all the features, either. I use Bru’n Water for water adjustments instead of beersmith.
I’m still using beersmith 2. I’m not in love with the subscription pricing on the new version.
I started with BeerSmith 2. It was great but you needed to be good with spreadsheets to know what was going on. BeerSmith 3 made improvements. But when my subscription was about to renew I tried out Brewfather. Brewfather is a superior product when it comes to easy to use and easy to follow. So I’ve made the switch.
Appreciate what Brad Smith has done for homebrewing but the water module in BS3 was more complicated than it should have been especially on the phone app.
Your mileage may vary and both are solid but given the equal price, Brewfather gets my vote for easy to use and easy to move back and forth with the phone app.
Nick
I use BrewFather. It’s not perfect, but it works for me. Interface is mostly intuitive and handles no-sparge BIAB well. You have to kind of trick it into doing ciders or meads & the water additions interface has some quirks.
At the time I was comparison shipping, it had a better mobile app than BeerSmith, but I’ve heard that BeerSmith mobile has made some significant changes since then.
Edit: fixed a typo.
Another BeerSmith user here. Easy to use once the equipment profile is set up and fine tuned. Very stable. Great software.
I have had pretty good luck replicating (and customizing) some calculations in excel to make my own brewing “software.” Starts out pretty easy from the HBU and ppg calculations but over years evolved to a 6MB file. Seems to work for me. Brewer’s Friend has calculators you can use for free, but with subscriptions (that I have always been too cheap to pay for) you can save data.
I started with Promash almost 25 years ago and still use it sometimes. The carbonationcalcultor in it is first rate, for instance. Tried Beersmith for a while nd just couldn’t get into to. Used the Grainfather software and got good resukts, but all the cool kids were raving about Brewfather so I tried that for a while. Didn’t care for it and now I’m back on Grainfather. One of the things I like about is that it implements the mIBU formula, which I feel gives me better results.
beersmith for recipes, bru’n water for water adjustments
I used Beersmith, Brunwater, and then Brewer’s Friend. I haven’t seen a reason to move beyond that at this point. I will go back once in a while and run things through Beersmith and Brunwater, just to see if the results differ, but Brewer’s Friend is my current software for now. I have watched a lot of videos showing BrewFather and it seems impressive and fairly intuitive to use, but I have my system down and I am too old to change, I guess.
Brewer’s Friend for me as well. I started there and never had any reason to change. Not saying it’s the best, because I’ve never compared it to any other software. It just works.
I use BeerSmith. Although it has a few quirks and shortcomings, the strengths far outweigh the weaknesses. I like the database of ingredients, which is easily expanded by the user, the inventory tracking and the Brew Log record of all my brews.
I heard a talk about mIBU (maybe it was your show I forget) and it sounds awesome. I hope it makes its way to Brewfather. I use a counter flow chiller so it stays hot longer than if I had used an immersion chiller. mIBU takes that into account.
I am still using ProMash.
It works in VM and I am not planning to change it.
Brew n Water for water adjustments
And brewing spreadsheet for Brewday just to keep detail time and record.
Why not try the Grainfather software instead of Brewfather? You dont have to have a GF to use it. It works with any system.