BeerSmith 2.0

[petep1980]

Go to recipes. If you don't see the reports on the bottom of your screen after you select a recipe (single-click), click on the icon that rack04 highlighted in his post. One of the report options is the brew day sheet. It can also be found by clicking on the Brew Steps icon on the right of the ribbon bar (home tab).

That was easy. Thanks.

 

[motobrewer]

When I click on "notes", then start typing notes, I can't get back to the actual recipe.

 

[wildwest450]

Fair enough, wasn't trying to be dismissive of your complaint, and I apologize if that's how you felt. If anything, it's my biggest peeve so far... not only because it's buggy, but because even if it wasn't, it's obvious Brad intends to use the same, extremely flawed method.

Don't sweat it, I didn't take it that way. It's just frustrating that something so simple was overlooked.

I don't remember the first addition having all these problems.

_

 

[wildwest450]

When I click on "notes", then start typing notes, I can't get back to the actual recipe.

Why can't you just click the recipe design tab? It works for me.


_

 

[motobrewer]

lol, i'm an idiot.

i didn't realize the screen shifted down

 

[Homercidal]

I've had a problem ever since beersmith 1. I can't get the mash profile to do what I want.

I want to know how much sparge water to add. Every time I do it, it tells me all kinds of crazy things. Previously I drained my mash tun and sparged twice. Recently I've gone to sparging once. But it keeps telling me to add .5 gallons then 4 gallons or what have you.

I just want to tell it I want to sparge 1 time! Or maybe 2 times. Isn't there a setting for that? I play with all kinds of things, but it never seems to come out right. I know I'm doing something wrong.

I batch sparge, no mash out.

EDIT: Never mind. Somehow I played with it one more time and figured it out.

I did find out that you need to close your recipe and re-open whenever you adjust the mash process.

 

[motobrewer]

I do the same thing, Homer. never got to work in 1.4, haven't gotten it to work in 2.0

single batch sparge, no mashout - just tell me how much to sparge with already!

 

[weirdboy]

I did find out that you need to close your recipe and re-open whenever you adjust the mash process.

Yeah, or make any changes at all apparently. How none of these huge bugs were detected in the beta is beyond my comprehension. Were the beta testers actually using the program?


At this point I feel like I threw my money away on this "upgrade".

 

[Homercidal]

I do the same thing, Homer. never got to work in 1.4, haven't gotten it to work in 2.0

single batch sparge, no mashout - just tell me how much to sparge with already!

If you select "Infusion Mash, no Mash Out" then make sure you have "Drain Mash Tun Before Sparging" This sets "Batch Sparge Mode". Set your mash to use 90-100% of your tun. I think this will allow you to usually do a single sparge if you want to. Otherwise, if you want to do 2-3 sparges, you can check the "equal batches" and lower the mash tun % to fill until you get the number of sparges you want.

I think the problem I had was not knowing that you had to re-open the recipe to see your changes.

Yeah, or make any changes at all apparently. How none of these huge bugs were detected in the beta is beyond my comprehension. Were the beta testers actually using the program?


At this point I feel like I threw my money away on this "upgrade".

I haven't had a chance to really use it, but this is one thing that feels like a big WTH?? to me. I'm no programmer, but having to close a recipe an reopen to adjust the mash kind of sucks. Seems like there would be a way to have the software automatically do that, or make it transparent behind the scenes.

It's going to take me a little time to get used to the new layout, just automatically knowing where things are. It seems there are least two places to find most tools.

 

[Sithdad]

I've made adjustments to my mash schedule in the recipe and it updates that recipe right away, however that only updates the current recipe. If you're going to make changes to your mash profile then you'd have to close the current recipe and re-open it to put the new profile into effect.

 

[jsweet]

lol, i'm an idiot.

i didn't realize the screen shifted down

You may be an idiot after all but, I noticed the same thing and find it to be a huge PITA. I figured it out, but every time it happens I'm irritated at having to mouse back over to the scroll bar, THEN up to the top.

There's a lot of little kinks like that. Still, for me, the tabbed interface alone is worth the upgrade, even though 1.4 is a little more streamlined and occasionally a little more straightforward.

 

[terrapinj]

new update here :http://www.beersmith.com/download-beersmith/

Update: BeerSmith 2 Build 40 (2.0.40) is available - download it using one of the links below and install it to the same Program File/Application directory as your original (Do not install it to your Documents directory)

http://www.beersmith.com/beersmith-2-build-40-release-notes/

Build 40 Major Changes:

Made boil off rate the default for all equipment profiles, and added option for fixed boil off volume as well
Mash step water/grain ratio is now editable, and the infusion temperature is shown while editing
Added a “Save As” button to recipe edit dialog (when not a new recipe)
Now include yeast starter volume in final bottling volume for a recipe (optional)
Corrected a bug in the “update notification” which prevented earlier versions from detecting a new update from the internet
Water additions from a water profile can now be added to a recipe when you add the water
Changed all BIAB mash profiles to use an infusion step as the first mash step
Large dialogs are now scaled/scrolled to fit smaller screens (such as netbooks)
Added option to turn popups off (useful on Mac) – under Options->Look and Feel

Build 39 Corrects the following problems:

Corrected issue on PC where Brew Steps preview sometimes showed an earlier version of an altered recipe
Corrected network issues – previous version could potentially “hang” if you tried to activated it but were not connected to the internet
Corrected display issue where buttons were sometimes overlapping scroll bars on the Macintosh version
Corrected issue with some custom ingredients not immediately showing up when added to inventory
Corrected sorting of items by type on shopping view and also inventory view
Color calculation is now based on post-boil volume (batch vol + trub loss)
Corrected display of dialog headings and also dialog sizes for those using large (150% or larger) windows fonts
Corrected issue on Mac where repeated clicking of Brew Steps button could cause preview window to crash
Removed mash in steps that were erroneously being displayed on some new extract recipes
Corrected calories display for metric units – now displays “calories per liter”
Moved “select fields” button to top of fields list, and corrected issue with fields being cut off at bottom
Corrected water/grain ratio display in mash adjust tool and also mash step editor – now displays metric units correctly
Mac version – corrected properties dialogs displaying below main window when opened.
Added priming sugar amount to brewsheet (now displayed near bottom)
Added field for hopped liquid extract bitterness (measured in IBU-Gal/lb) to grains/extract editor
Disabled end temps on fermentation editor if not used for currently set number of stages
Widened “Notes” field for notes – creating additional space
Changed title on brew steps/bottling ingredients to include the dry hop steps
Moved storage of Macintosh config files out of /Library directory and back to user’s directory
Corrected minor display of temperature steps – that previously showed zero water addition on a temperature step
Corrected bug that would have permitted editing of units for Misc items during inventory add (not allowed)
Temporary report files are now cleaned up on exit

 

[emjay]

Made boil off rate the default for all equipment profiles, and added option for fixed boil off volume as well
Mash step water/grain ratio is now editable, and the infusion temperature is shown while editing

I'm really happy about these 2 changes. My only significant gripes that I had with the software. Fixed boil off volume is great.

 

[terrapinj]

got the new update and now it's rounding off my mash volume ratio so you can only do it to .1 increments so 1.25 = 1.3 etc - so if you try to enter a fixed volume ie 17qts it will round up/down depending on the grain:water ratio, in my case it keeps rounding up to 17.54qts

 

[stevedasleeve]

got the new update and now it's rounding off my mash volume ratio so you can only do it to .1 increments so 1.25 = 1.3 etc - so if you try to enter a fixed volume ie 17qts it will round up/down depending on the grain:water ratio, in my case it keeps rounding up to 17.54qts

Yes - irritating no? This rounding happens in other areas also, like increment increase/decrease. If you are in lbs you can't increment in anything less than 1/4 lb because the increment amount rounds up to 2 decimal places. Apparently this "bug" has migrated to water/grain ratio.

 

[Golddiggie]

I believe that if you increase the mash volume precision level, you'll get a higher mash grain ratio. I have mine set to a precision level of 3, and my grain water ratio is to two decimal places.

Of course, I'm changing the infusion/water to add amount in order to get the water/grain ratio that I want, or can live with. More often, I'm looking to make sure my mash-out temps won't be too high, or require too much water. That way, I have enough to do a good sparge with. It's what's working well for me.

 

[terrapinj]

I believe that if you increase the mash volume precision level, you'll get a higher mash grain ratio. I have mine set to a precision level of 3, and my grain water ratio is to two decimal places.

Of course, I'm changing the infusion/water to add amount in order to get the water/grain ratio that I want, or can live with. More often, I'm looking to make sure my mash-out temps won't be too high, or require too much water. That way, I have enough to do a good sparge with. It's what's working well for me.

no dice

it doesn't increase the decimal place for the ratio for me, instead it simply adds another 1000th to the total volume

 

[motobrewer]

You may be an idiot after all but, I noticed the same thing and find it to be a huge PITA. I figured it out, but every time it happens I'm irritated at having to mouse back over to the scroll bar, THEN up to the top.

There's a lot of little kinks like that. Still, for me, the tabbed interface alone is worth the upgrade, even though 1.4 is a little more streamlined and occasionally a little more straightforward.

lol, i just figured that navigation tabs would remain fixed. seems that he could easily integrate them into the upper bar.

 

[smizak]

I'm not digging this new version. Too busy, too confusing.

I've noticed that it seems to be way over-compensating for the dextrose vs. sucrose priming sugar calculation. I get an average 1/2 oz. less for sucrose, that just seems off.

Also, the yeast starter calculation is claiming I would get 408 billion cells for a 1.5 qt. starter and a 93 billion initial pitch. Not happening....

 

[mcberry]

Yikes, I'm quite disappointed in version 2. The GUI follows no standards and the ribbon bar is not used according to accepted usability guidelines. The dev should read up the Microsoft Fluent User Interface guidelines and follow them.

Some of the biggest issues from the first version still exist (only 2 decimal point precision, having to enter grains in pounds (no option for ounces), and others. Also, certain dialog boxes are too tall to even fit on my laptop screen properly.

It has potential, but I don't think it was tested properly and is not ready for release.

I understand the challenges in UX design, as I am a software dev myself. The core functionality of the software is awesome and makes brew days WAY easier...Just could use some polish.

I am back to using the old version for now (despite having won a key for 2.0).

 

[LuckyBeagleBrewing]

The only thing I really am not liking is the search. I organize my recipes in to different folders based on which site, book, magazine, or whatever and I want to search through all of those folders with a single search by ingredients. That kind of gives me a sense of what I am going to brew sometimes. Say I have a lot of Williamette hops (3lbs roughly) and I want to see what recipes use them in. I want to be able to go through all those recipes and find a few beers that sound good and brew away.

Other than the search, I like some of the other things. Tabbed interface is AWESOME. Flipping between the tabs was a most excellent decision. Now make them detachable so I can drag to other monitors. That would be sweet.

I am a programmer too so I commend Brad on what he has done so far. Yes it is a little busy in the sense of GUI design but hey when you are coding solo sometimes that happens.

I give it a B- right now but I think that will go up after some functionality is there and stuff cleaned up a bit.
:rockin:

 

[ArcaneXor]

Mcberry, you can use oz in both the old and new versions. Just type in the number followed by a space and "oz" into the field. There is a rounding issue in the new version, however, but it's not a huge deal.

 

[wyzazz]

Some of the biggest issues from the first version still exist (only 2 decimal point precision, having to enter grains in pounds (no option for ounces), and others.

Entering grain in oz (or any type of measurement) has always been able to be done. For example if you want to enter 4oz of grain, just type "4oz" without the quotes and it will convert that to lbs or whatever unit of measure you have selected. If you wanted to enter "15g" that would work as well without an issue. It won't display as such in the recipe, but that doesn't bother me.

 

[bovineblitz]

OK - I think I might have found a small bug? The Starter Size volume in the Yeast starter tab is always in gallons, regardless of what I set the Yeast Units to be in options. The Hydrate Yeast with volume unit does change. I want my yeast starters in liters, damnit!

Overall though I'm loving the new version. Good work Brad! And having the yeast starter tab saves me a trip to Mr Malty too.

I'm doing a starter with a wyeast smack pack that's a little over a month old. Beersmith 2 says the viability is about 89% while Mr.Malty says it's 69%. Also, Beersmith says to use about a 0.45L starter while Mr.Malty wants me to use a 1.1L starter. According to Beersmith, using the Mr. Malty calculations would result in my overpitching by about 250 billion cells.

 

[usfmikeb]

I'm doing a starter with a wyeast smack pack that's a little over a month old. Beersmith 2 says the viability is about 89% while Mr.Malty says it's 69%. Also, Beersmith says to use about a 0.45L starter while Mr.Malty wants me to use a 1.1L starter. According to Beersmith, using the Mr. Malty calculations would result in my overpitching by about 250 billion cells.

Yeah, that sounds way off. No way is a half liter of starter going to be 250 billion cell count.

 

[Golddiggie]

I just go with what Mr. Malty says for my starters... I'm using a stirplate now, so I get to make smaller ones than before. :rockin: Plus, I have two flasks (2L and 3L) to use on the plate... I made a 1.75L starter on the stirplate for my last batch... It was close enough to what I needed for cell count (according to Mr. Malty)... Took off like mad in the 8-18 hour range (while no one was there to check on it)... Of course, I also hit it with pure O2 via the stone wand and O2 tank.

I have to say that I'm loving having the stirplate... SO much easier to make starters now. Plus, I don't need to worry about making monster starters. 95% of my brews won't need more than a 3L starter with the stirplate. Of course, having two flasks also means I can make two starters for a batch if I need to. :rockin:

At this point, I would trust Mr. Malty for starter size... As much as I like BeerSmith 2.0, I think there's something wrong with the math in the starter section... Hopefully a patch/update will be released (sooner rather than later) to address this...

Something else that would be nice to have... Proper carbonation calculations. I'm kegging 2.5-3 gallons of each batch, bottling the balance. Right now, BeerSmith is useless for figuring out how much sugar to add/use... Luckily, there are enough online tools that I can get the amount easily, and quickly. It would just be nice to have the option to call out that you're kegging part and bottling the rest...

 

[h22lude]

I'm glad I read this before buying the new version. I don't think I'm going to get the new version. I can just use Mr Malty for starters.

 

[Token]

Ya, I think that's a fine idea for now. I got in on the pre-buy, but I really don't think I'll be using the new one. Who knows, maybe some day I'll get real bored and try to learn to use it. But right now, version 1.4 suits my needs quite well.

 

[johnnybrew]

The new version is fine. It's much better than fine. Yes, there are some issues and kinks to work out, but IMHO it is a great upgrade in many ways. The new and expanded functionality FAR out-weighs any of the bugs people have reported. And, BE SURE TO REPORT THOSE BUGS to Brad. (No, I don't work for BeerSmith... I am an IT Project Manager and know how software releases work.)

I would recommend upgrading without hesitation. Anything that Brad fixes will be pushed to the end-users. RDWHAHB.

Brew on.

 

[wyzazz]

The new version is fine. It's much better than fine. Yes, there are some issues and kinks to work out, but IMHO it is a great upgrade in many ways. The new and expanded functionality FAR out-weighs any of the bugs people have reported. And, BE SURE TO REPORT THOSE BUGS to Brad. (No, I don't work for BeerSmith... I am an IT Project Manager and know how software releases work.)

I would recommend upgrading without hesitation. Anything that Brad fixes will be pushed to the end-users. RDWHAHB.

Brew on.

I'll second that, it's a great upgrade and the additional functionality is fantastic. Sure you have to get used to a new user interface, but that's the case with almost all software as it gets upgraded. Sure it has some bugs, but you do have a developer ACTIVELY working on correcting these bugs as they come up. I run v2.0 exclusively now and haven't had anything that was a showstopper yet.

 

[eanmcnulty]

I'll second that, it's a great upgrade and the additional functionality is fantastic. Sure you have to get used to a new user interface, but that's the case with almost all software as it gets upgraded. Sure it has some bugs, but you do have a developer ACTIVELY working on correcting these bugs as they come up. I run v2.0 exclusively now and haven't had anything that was a showstopper yet.

Getting used to the new software is taking a little more time than I thought. I have to force myself to not go back version one. Its just a matter of time I guess.

 

[wyzazz]

Getting used to the new software is taking a little more time than I thought. I have to force myself to not go back version one. Its just a matter of time I guess.

Just like making the jump from Office 2003 to Office 2007 and above, it takes a little bit of time.

 

[ArcaneXor]

Having worked with it for quite some time now, it's really mostly a cosmetic update over the previous version.

The refractometer calculations still use the old, inaccurate algorithm instead of the improved formulas by Sean Terril. Choice of yeast still doesn't seem to affect projected attenuation/FG. The yeast starter/pitching rate calculator produces completely different results from Zainasheff's. The water profile calculators don't have anywhere near the features that any of the free spreadsheets online have. Many of the most common malts are still missing from the ingredient database. The more I work with it, the less I am happy with my purchase - I expected these things to be updated or at least significantly improved so that I don't have to use 10 other calculators to do my brewing calculations. I am very puzzled that the creator of the software did not fix and/or was not made aware of these issues during testing.

 

[wyzazz]

Having worked with it for quite some time now, it's really mostly a cosmetic update over the previous version.

The refractometer calculations still use the old, inaccurate algorithm instead of the improved formulas by Sean Terril. Choice of yeast still doesn't seem to affect projected attenuation/FG. The yeast starter/pitching rate calculator produces completely different results from Zainasheff's. The water profile calculators don't have anywhere near the features that any of the free spreadsheets online have. Many of the most common malts are still missing from the ingredient database. The more I work with it, the less I am happy with my purchase - I expected these things to be updated or at least significantly improved so that I don't have to use 10 other calculators to do my brewing calculations. I am very puzzled that the creator of the software did not fix and/or was not made aware of these issues during testing.

I would suggest you email Brad ([email protected]) with the above and help to make the software better.

 

[johnnybrew]

Having worked with it for quite some time now, it's really mostly a cosmetic update over the previous version.

The refractometer calculations still use the old, inaccurate algorithm instead of the improved formulas by Sean Terril. Choice of yeast still doesn't seem to affect projected attenuation/FG. The yeast starter/pitching rate calculator produces completely different results from Zainasheff's. The water profile calculators don't have anywhere near the features that any of the free spreadsheets online have. Many of the most common malts are still missing from the ingredient database. The more I work with it, the less I am happy with my purchase - I expected these things to be updated or at least significantly improved so that I don't have to use 10 other calculators to do my brewing calculations. I am very puzzled that the creator of the software did not fix and/or was not made aware of these issues during testing.

I don't disagree with any of your comments. And, I think all are valid points for BSmith to consider in a future release. I echo the comment that you should send Brad an email. He will listen.

Good luck.

 

[h22lude]

I don't disagree with any of your comments. And, I think all are valid points for BSmith to consider in a future release. I echo the comment that you should send Brad an email. He will listen.

Good luck.

I definitely think someone should email them and let them know the changes everyone on here has thought of. Any good company would listen to their customers. Seeing as HBT is the biggest homebrew forum, we have a lot of people using BeerSmith and are able to contribute good ideas on how to improve BSmith.

 

[pickles]

I am having trouble finding the "Add Mash" button in the Mash Profile tab as described in the Help Section. Anyone have any ideas where to find it?

Edit: I found it, you have to have the "Home" tab active as its on that tab. The Help Section doesn't mention that.

 

[bovineblitz]

I spend a lot of time staring at the program trying to find things. Most of the stuff is in the top bar of things but my brain wants to believe that that bar is universal and unrelated to the window that's currently open since the tab is below the bar.

I'm torn as to what to do because I want continued product support but I like the more logical 1 page layout of 1.x a lot more.

 

[Psych]

I now believe the new version is totally not worth moving to, long live old version! I use the old one solely now, it's so much less confusing and easy to see the important stuff that you need to see. Like finding your potential ABV: why should I EVER need to shift to another tab for that? That's a key thing I want to know when composing a recipe, every single time.

Old version = wintastic, new version = lots of fluff and confusion.

 

[emjay]

I now believe the new version is totally not worth moving to, long live old version! I use the old one solely now, it's so much less confusing and easy to see the important stuff that you need to see. Like finding your potential ABV: why should I EVER need to shift to another tab for that? That's a key thing I want to know when composing a recipe, every single time.

Old version = wintastic, new version = lots of fluff and confusion.

BeerSmith always assumes the exact same 75% attenuation no matter which yeast strain(s) you specify, so using it to get an idea of the final ABV is pretty useless