![]() ![]() Overall, my recommendation to everyone looking at brewing software is to try as many as seems might fit their needs and then pick the one which seems the most intuitive and meets the majority of their needs.Įdit: To address the question in the header of this thread - Yes it is well worth the cost. Sure it is not 'modern' or 'splashy', but my focus is to have functional modeling software which gives reliable results not something that 'looks cool.' The only way around trying to substitute your logic for someone else's (in this case the developer, Brad) is to write your own software or search to find something that is written towards your thinking. Like any software out there, if you fight the software and don't try to understand the logic behind it, you will probably be frustrated by it. After using it for a short period of time, I was able to adapt my thinking to the layout and format of the information quite handily. Maybe it is because I am old and programmed computers in the late 70's and early 80's before changing career direction, but I don't have too much issue with the UI. It does become a greater issue when you are looking at commercial scale systems (or so I am told). This is a minor issue and one that for the majority of the users does not affect daily use. At present it is an all-or-nothing calculation. There are a few things that I would like to see better modeled, such as thermal expansion scaled to temperature. It is annoying to have to do this, but every time that this has happened to me the cause has been a forced Microsoft update (I am running on Win10). This can be easily done within the program. Forced shutdowns of your operating system can cause loss of data and the need to restore from archives. There is an issue at present where BeerSmith will update the archives for recipes and profiles upon the closure of the program. The expansion of capabilities for wine, cider and mead making has made the program more versatile for a number of other brewing/fermenting type of applications. While he does not do the research and modeling himself (that I am aware of) for individual parameters, he has been quick to incorporate them into minor updates to the software. While I still keep hard copy brew day sheets, the archived recipes with the recorded results are easily accessible.Īdditional things which may be of value, or not:īrad is pretty aggressive at keeping up with the findings on brewing techniques. Having said that, it is very robust and reproducible so that if you find your actual values are, like mine, 0.15 to 0.2 pH units off it is consistent in this estimation making it easy to predict actual mash pH.įor my use, it also serves as an electronic log of everything I have brewed. The pH estimation, in my opinion, is still a bit off when it comes to acid additions for mash pH control. The water tool has been much improved with the release of the last version and the inclusion of the water tool within the recipes. ![]() Most of the calculations behind the scene which can be affected by your specific process are also accessible for customization to your process data. ![]() With a good, accurate equipment profile, the program will give you your volumes and gravity targets. The ability to easily scale recipes from other sources to match your process is very handy. As a recipe builder, it is very flexible and adaptable to many types of recipes and brewing methods. Once you do it is as good at giving you accurate estimations as you are at measuring them. It takes a little effort and a few brews of taking good volume and gravity data to get the profiles matching your specific process. If you are looking for an 'all-in-one' program, then BeerSmith is probably one of the top, if not the top, one available. My comments below refer to BeerSmith 3 which is the current version available. The last time I trialed the available software packages was many years ago before I purchased BeerSmith. I am not sure you will hear much about other software for comparison here. ![]()
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