Brewing software which is best?

[DC]

Hi all, I am finally thinking of taking the plunge and getting myself some brewing software and was wondering which is the best/value for money will probably get it as a present off someone for Christmas

PS !Its for my windows laptop

Cheers DC

[Aleman]

Promash is my preferred option . . . but has not been updated from it's windows 98 days (ver 1.83c) . . .and does have some errors.

I have had a look at Beersmith, but as it does not support promash files natively then I'm not sure about it.

If I could acquire a mac then I'd go for Beer Alchemy

[Matt12398]

I like Beersmith which can be used on Windows and Mac. You can get it for £18 I think and can be run on two machines so gives you the option to go halves with someone.

I've used the Beer Alchemy iPhone app which I've not found overly useful but not sure how that compares with the full program.

[jonnyt]

The best value for money is Brewmate, given it's free

[Dave S]

I use Brewtarget, which is also free. I've used Brewmate and there's probably not much between the two, but I find Brewtarget just has the edge.

[Belter]

Promash is my preferred option . . . but has not been updated from it's windows 98 days (ver 1.83c) . . .and does have some errors.

I have had a look at Beersmith, but as it does not support promash files natively then I'm not sure about it.

If I could acquire a mac then I'd go for Beer Alchemy

I realise you know far more than myself about brewing etc so feel free to correct me but I've used beer alchemy and I find it shockingly bad. calculations are missing parameters, compared to beersmith it seems entirely flawed but... without promash. support then fair enough

[orlando]

I've used 3, two free one paid for. I bought BeerSmith2 and one of the reasons for this is that it is constantly under development and updated, Alemans experience suggests that the project is abandoned, so if you are going to buy it makes sense to pay for one that is going to be around in the future. Recent developments are a lite version for smart phones that has timers built in for mash and boil hop additions, copper finings etc. I wouldn't be without it and find the ability to add notes to the recipes of both how you brewed the beer and what beer tasting results you experience means you have a highly detailed record of what happened. If you are going to rebrew a particularly good beer you need that level of detailed record taking.

It will only get better in my view.

[alix101]

Beersmith...its excelent.

[Aleman]

Promash is my preferred option . . . but has not been updated from it's windows 98 days (ver 1.83c) . . .and does have some errors.

I have had a look at Beersmith, but as it does not support promash files natively then I'm not sure about it.

If I could acquire a mac then I'd go for Beer Alchemy

I realise you know far more than myself about brewing etc so feel free to correct me but I've used beer alchemy and I find it shockingly bad. calculations are missing parameters, compared to beersmith it seems entirely flawed but... without promash. support then fair enough

Considering the rave reviews it gets on US brewing sites I'd be surprised if that was the case. I used it back in June to formulate a Cascadian dark, and found the results to be very close to Promash (OK so I had the author sat at my shoulder ) . . . it is a 'different' way of thinking, but if there is anything left out then Steve (steve_flack on here) will respond to questions posted to his support email pretty quickly to either fix it or explain why it's 'missing'

I am going to download Beersmith 2 and have yet another look at it, I love the more modern interface, and as Jeff (author of Promash) has stated that he will not release the code for open source development . . . and he does not have the time to develop it himself it's time to move on.

[darkonnis]

I use brewmate and beersmith in tandem. brewmate for if I want to put something together quickly and get ballpark estimates (IE I made a kit the other day as my brewery isn't up and running while i wait for a few fittings, much quicker to work out its %% when adding sugar/DME than using beersmith) Its also useful for jotting down ideas for recipes.

Beersmith is a much nicer interface and has lots of little fiddly options which help you tighten up your recipe etc, but for randomly musing how something will turn out... Brewmate has the edge.

[seymour]

...brewmate for if I want to put something together quickly and get ballpark estimates...
...for randomly musing how something will turn out... Brewmate has the edge.

That's good to know, but for quick "thumbnail sketch" stuff like that, I still like this:
http://tastybrew.com/calculators/recipe.html
and this
http://beercalculus.hopville.com/recipe
which are free, don't require any download or installation, and always available from any online device...

[floydmeddler]

http://www.brewtools.com

Download the free trial.

[mattjazz2000]

The great thing with Beersmith is the recipe cloud, a good database that is forever growing.

[boingy]

I switched from ProMash to Brewsmith 2. Much better in almost all ways.

Two small downsides:

1. The UI is very cluttered.
2. The water calculator has no concept of CRS.

Aleman, I found a neat recipe conversion trick to move recipes across.

Brewmate, the free Aussie software can open native ProMash files and export to BeerXML format, which Beersmith can open. You do have to do one recipe at a time but it really doesn't take long. The only error I found in the conversion was the ingredients/recipe cost field. Not sure where the error happened but the estimate cost of brewing those recipes can be several orders of magnitude out. I don't use that particular field but I was amused at the outrageous prices! I tend not to use the notes and similar fields in ProMash so I can't say whether they will convert correctly.

[Goulders]

I use beersmith 2 which i downloaded via an aussie website with a discount and cost around GBP 12. I have also used beer alchemy trial version as I have a macbook, but USD 29 is quite steep. If Steve brought the price down I might be interested