Brewing software which is best?

[Aleman]

Thanks Boingy . . . I'll investigate that as I have made my mind up (There is a first) and bought Beersmith 2 . . .

Must admit that I like the UI, I find it less cluttered and more logical than Promash . . . of course it is going to take some time to get it set up for my systems, but that shouldn't really take too long.

I'm not a great fan of water calculators anyway, I want to have a go at writing one along the lines of Lewis & Young / Strong's approach, which is so much simpler than worrying about balanced profiles, ideal beer profiles and /or regional water profiles

[darkonnis]

Lewis & Young / Strong's approach

Pray tell? Sounds interesting and I've always got time for theories ideas/etc that people are willing to put their names to.
Cheers,
Cooky

[Aleman]

Lewis & Young / Strong's approach

Pray tell? Sounds interesting and I've always got time for theories ideas/etc that people are willing to put their names to.

1)Remove Chlorine
2) Adjust alkalinity to range for beer style (AFTER MEASURING IT!!)
3) Adjust Calcium to ensure a minimum of 100pmm calcium after treatment USING
4) Calcium sulphate or calcium chloride to push teh 'flavour ions' (sulphate and chloride) in the direction you want the beer to go. Chloride for malty, sulphate for hoppy

And that is it . . . I'm not wholly convinced by Strong's use of RO water as his base liquor though

[orlando]

Lewis & Young / Strong's approach

Pray tell? Sounds interesting and I've always got time for theories ideas/etc that people are willing to put their names to.

I'm not wholly convinced by Strong's use of RO water as his base liquor though

My turn, pray tell?

[SamT]

I use Beer Alchemy on my iPhone, as the chap I started brewing with had it on his Macbook and iPad, so it made synching data nice and easy.

I find it works really well for me ...

[Aleman]

I'm not wholly convinced by Strong's use of RO water as his base liquor though

My turn, pray tell?

I think for extreme conditions of hardness and bad tasting water (that Gordon has) then it should be considered, for more normal water conditions then it's not really required.

I brew with very soft / low alkalinity water (Calcium 16 Alkalinity 20) which is pretty close to RO, and with no water treatment my beers are very soft and the flavours 'dull' while water treatment has a great effect making the flavours 'zing' the real issue that it becomes all to easy to go over the top . . .even while staying well within the limits of the recommended levels for brewing of these ions.

One thing that I have found to make a difference is to use 10% of water from a 'harder' source . . . Hence my thoughts that Pure RO water is not necessarily a complete cure all.

There are also ions present in the water that are required by the yeast as trace elements, which will be removed by RO . . . Now they should be supplied by the malt . . . but you never know . . .which is why I always add Servomyces yeast supplement and yeast nutrient to my wort to ensure that they are available.

[Wazgilbert]

I have just successfully ported the BeerEngine1.09 windows version to Mac using the Wineskin method. Quite easy to do if you like that kind of thing, with Graham's permission I'd be glad to post up my copy to see if it will work on other peoples' machines as well as it does for me.

[banjokat]

I use Beersmith 2 and really like it. However, I find the predicted beer colour is generally nowhere near unless it's a really pale or really dark brew, so have learned to rely on experience rather than what the software is telling me. Anyone else found that ... or is it just me!

[Hanglow]

Brewtarget for me, hits all the numbers perfectly, looks great and it's free

[chastuck]

It's Beersmith 2 for me as well. having tried them all, I like the build and reliability of Beersmith. I think the "Inventory" and the "Tools" options are the clincher. I also like the extra add-ons, recipes, etc. that you can download. I know it's not free, but I think the cost is worth it.

[subsub]

Beer Alchemy for me. Got V1 on the old mac, V2 on the new one and it's on my IPhone as well. Mucho portable eh?

[chastuck]

Beer Alchemy for me. Got V1 on the old mac, V2 on the new one and it's on my IPhone as well. Mucho portable eh?

Believe it only works on a Mac though.

[greenhouseuk]

I always use Beer Calculus on Hopvillehttp://hopville.com/

[subsub]

Beer Alchemy for me. Got V1 on the old mac, V2 on the new one and it's on my IPhone as well. Mucho portable eh?

Believe it only works on a Mac though.

Yep, you want portability you have to pay the piper unfortunately

[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.

I must say that I've recently moved onto Beersmith 2 due to the discounted licence offer, and I'm really liking it. I find that the calculations compare well with BrewTarget, but as another poster said, the Inventory and add-ons really make it.