Home Brew software, which is the best value?

[jamis]

What homebrew program are you using? - is it worth the money?

[jamis]

ok so Beersmith seems like the way to go, so its DL the trial from beersmith website, which is activated to full program by the reg key from craftbrewer?.. and at $30 cheap!

[Stu H]

Hey there,

I'm looking at getting some brewing software, but I've got a mac.... Have any of you guys used products from these guys?

http://www.kentplacesoftware.com/index.html

[MrC]

I can't help personally but there is some info here that might be worth a look:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/brewing-software-mac-101380/

It might be worth trying the BeerAlchemy free demo and decide for yourself.

[Bambule]

I hadn't found Beer alchemy to be all that good at least compared to Beer Smith. What I do use is Homebrew Formulator which works just fine and its free, so long as you can get your head around working in imperial measurements

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/20249/homebrew-formulator

If you need more, you can always run beersmith on virtual PC or some other emulator.

[JR]

I got both beersmith and promash - I really like the little tools and calculators of promash but I perfer to make keep my recipies in beersmith.

[JoKing]

Beertools is the way to go if you have a mac. I run it on PC and it is awesome.

[denimglen]

Beertools isn't too bad. I tried it but after using Beersmith for so long I found the interface a little different confusing.

I like the idea of being able to sync BeerAlchemy with your iPhone - almost makes me want to get and iPhone...almost.

[Roger Corbett]

I have never used brewing software, but then I am just getting back to all grain brewing after years of basically being sidetracked onto distilling. I just downloaded a freeware program called Brewtarget 2.1 which looks as though it should be pretty good once our local grains, hops yeast etc. are added to the database.

[paul m]

I've just started using brewers friend on my phone- free app on android- does the job

[TIm Boyd]

I paid for beersmith and its worth every penny. Real easy to build recipes on, calculators are robust, ingredients are current (you can also add all gladfields malts with a plugin from the Gladfields website). Useful mash and boil timers.

Persnally there are a few niggles but on the whole its a great tool to keep you on track during brew day.

[Peter Smith]

And it does water additions  BS all the way, learning new features every day, inventory , shopping list etc

cost of brew, not sure there is much it does not do.

It doesn't in my opinion calc FG well as you alter mash temp for a given yeast, but hey there has to be some black art left in the process

[Roger Corbett]

Having now bought BeerSmith 2 I have to agree - it is both awesome but also a little daunting! I'm struggling to understand the various terms, abbreviations and how to use them. Where to get information such as "mash tun specific heat"; IBU/%IBU. Hell when I was all-grain brewing years ago I just followed a recipe and adapted it from brew to brew without all this technical stuff. I guess I will just have to play with BS for a bit before I use it but the other thing is where to get the ingredient information  for local grain, yeast & hops to add into the data base?