Bru'n water vs EZWater vs Beersmith

[Airplanedoc]

I recently read "Water", and have decided that high school chemistry 1-4 were too long ago, and my memory of them is insufficient. So what I need is a spreadsheet to do the calculations for me.

Discuss from your experience which software you chose and why. Does one do things that the other will not? Why should I choose one over the other? Are any currently updated?

Thanks

 

[sammy33]

I like Bru'n water. I also use Beersmith 2 and Beersmith Mobile (love the timer!). Bru'n water for chem calculations and Beersmith for the recipes.

ETA: I just ordered Water by Palmer. How do you like it?

 

[mblanks2]

I use Beersmith for my recipes and Bru'n Water for my water. I never really tried the water portion of Beersmith and have always liked the Bru'n Water sheet because it was what I saw that several people here were using and it has never let me down. I did go with the upgraded version of Bru'n Water. Donation.

 

[Yooper]

I'm a pretty anal person, but not well versed in water chemistry, so I started with EZ water. My predicted pH never was correct, and sometimes not even close. So I went with Braukaisers, as it had an easier learning curve than Bru'nwater.

The Beersmith part has been useless for me.


Eventually, I figured out bru'nwater, and really loved it but I wanted to see which was closer, for a long time (several months) I used all three. Braukaiser and brun'water were almost always near each other, and EZ water was way off and brunwater usually nailed my mash pH.

I liked EZ water because it was, well, easy. But it was as much as .5 off on the actual pH, usually less, but still way off- so that made it unusable for me.

I now only switch between brewer's friend and brunwater, but I like brunwater better. I'm trying brewer's friend more and more though, as I want an "all in one" brewing application. Right now, I formulate recipes on Beersmith, and then use Bru'n water for the water additions, and then check it all on Brewer's Friend (because I like storing recipes online). Way overkill, I know, and probably more information that you asked for! But I wanted to share that I've used a LOT of those spreadsheets, and checked the predictions with actual pH measurements and actual beer flavor (been doing this a couple of years now, so have many finished batches to taste) and still give the nod to bru'nwater.

 

[atoughram]

ETA: I just ordered Water by Palmer. How do you like it?

I also just completed reading it - It was over my head...

Now I feel the need to take Chemistry 101 at the local junior college.

I did learn quite a bit, but would have learned more had I had at least a rudimentary knowledge of chemistry.

 

[Airplanedoc]

I like Bru'n water. I also use Beersmith 2 and Beersmith Mobile (love the timer!). Bru'n water for chem calculations and Beersmith for the recipes.

ETA: I just ordered Water by Palmer. How do you like it?

You will certainly be swimming in the deep end of the pool.

 

[mchrispen]

My experiences mirror Yoopers. EZ frustrated me with the accuracy problems... but if I didn't have and use a meter - would find it very simple to use. Brewer's Friend is very detailed and nice, but I find Bru'n to be rarely off my measurements by more than 0.05 units.

Beer Smith's water tool really only helps with the target profile, and ignores mash pH. That is very frustrating to me. Some people swear by it - and just use acid or alkaline in the mash to adjust pH.

I build and manage my recipes in Beer Smith - and do my water management in Bru'n Water. Once you get the hang of Bru'n - it's a great tool to model pH changes, and I play around in it more than with my recipes. Keep in mind it models and estimates - so it will not always be perfect. Also - I can cut/paste the results into the notes for Beer Smith to take a snapshot. I found the Water book a bit daunting at first, but using Bru'n to model and try to understand some of the concepts - it gets easier. I have read through twice now - got a lot more the second round.

I do like the Beer Smith cloud option - it is handy to transfer recipes to my ipad or phone. It does cost a bit more... but the access was worthwhile for me.

 

[mdabbles]

I can't figure Bru'n Water out. I use Brewer's Friend online and it has produced very good results for me.

Sent from my C5155 using Home Brew mobile app

 

[Airplanedoc]

I already have beersmith, and do like it for the recipe part. After reading Water, I figured out the that the water portion of beersmith was lacking. Cut and paste the water results from brunwater into beersmith sounds like a good idea, since I am going to be building from RO.

It sounds like those 2 guys need to partner up and add brunwater into beersmith.

 

[Airplanedoc]

So I ordered brunwater last night, I messed around with it for a bit last night, hopefully it will get easier and clearer when I am actually populating the sheets with beer info.

 

[mchrispen]

Holler if you need help. Once you got it... Easy peazy.


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew

 

[Qhrumphf]

Like most of the others here, I use Bru'n Water for my water, and BeerSmith for recipes. I've used BeerSmith's water tool to figure out additions when adjusting a different water supply to a profile I've used for a given recipe before (say, if I'm brewing one of my recipes with RO water as opposed to my tap water), where I know the profile I'm targeting will give me the right pH and right flavor with that beer. But when I actually need to figure out the target profile (and the mash pH and everything assocaited with it) it's Bru'n Water.

I used Brewer's Friend for a good while. I found it VERY easy to use, and relatively powerful, but not quite as powerful (or as accurate) as Bru'n Water.