Home Brew Application

[kevin58]

Yep, it's survived multiple moves from computer to computer, currently lives on my laptop. Works fine. I find it pretty effortless, but then I don't know any better. Makes me want to know what's out there. What do you use?

I test drove pretty much all that was out there at the time and settled on Beersmith.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

I use Larry's spreadsheet. It's free. You can tell he's an engineer. It's very detailed. He's been maintaining it for years. He's even got a (nearly 2 hour) video showing how everything's calculated.

Thank you for sharing this. For those who have (or are thinking about creating) a custom spreadsheet, the UT video has some interesting ideas. For me, it played well at 1.5x (and higher).

After watching it, I was left with a couple of ideas that I might add to my spreadsheet (although, I use Excel for recipe calculations and Word for brew day process & notes).

 

[Gadjobrinus]

I test drove pretty much all that was out there at the time and settled on Beersmith.

Do you have the one-time desktop version, or subscribe? I'm techno-challenged....basically is the benefit of the subscription the ability to use the web platform for recipes?

 

[DonT]

For me, I like the software part of it, using Beersmith that is, because I can develop a recipe using the database of ingredients. I routinely check the standard specs against the recent purchase of ingredients to see if they jive. Probably doesn't make a huge difference but I sometimes think it does.

I enjoy the software part of it too, and use Beersmith for recipe creation and organization. I'll supplement that with EZ Water for water salts and acid additions. I also use a spreedsheet that @doug293cz kindly gave me to check water volumes and gravities. It's a little bit of back and forth but not too bad, and it's relaxing to me...lol.

 

[doug293cz]

I enjoy the software part of it too, and use Beersmith for recipe creation and organization. I'll supplement that with EZ Water for water salts and acid additions. I also use a spreedsheet that @doug293cz kindly gave me to check water volumes and gravities. It's a little bit of back and forth but not too bad, and it's relaxing to me...lol.

The spreadsheet DonT mentioned can be found here. It should be downloaded as either an Excel sheet or LibreOffice sheet in order to use all of its capabilities.

The sheet is a mash and lauter simulator for batch sparge and no-sparge. It can give you an idea of what might happen with a fly sparge (by using the triple batch sparge option), but might over or under estimate lauter results depending on just how good your fly sparge technique is.

Brew on

 

[kevin58]

Do you have the one-time desktop version, or subscribe? I'm techno-challenged....basically is the benefit of the subscription the ability to use the web platform for recipes?

I started with the one time desktop way back when version 2 was new. Over time I switched to the the subscription for the sole reason that I had collected far too many recipes. Each level has a limit on how many you can keep in the cloud space and the 12 or 14 that came with the the one time plan started to get problematic. For a while I simply deleted a few from the cloud every now and then but I would often have to upload them again at a later date when I brewed that recipe again. It just made more sense for me to upgrade to a subscription and not have to worry about it.

 

[danb35]

Brewfather user here. I'm also not a fan of subscription-based software, but I pay for BF, the main reasons being that it isn't that expensive and it works pretty darned well. I do not, as someone asked somewhat facetiously up-thread, need access to my recipes 24x7x365--but I do have different computers in my study and in my brewing space, and it's certainly convenient that I can share information between them. It will log data from an iSpindel or a Tilt, both of which i have, and the iSpindel logging is really the reason I paid for the subscription in the first place.

I also prefer to self-host my software when possible. I'm not aware of anything like Brewfather that can be self-hosted, though. Fermentrack works fine for tracking the fermentation process, but it doesn't do anything in terms of recipe development.

 

[Stikius]

I use Brewfather when creating recipes, then print it out on paper and take notes while brewing, and then go back to Brewfather again while fermenting. Mainly due to the fact that I have RAPT Pill and it's nice to track fermentation. Brewfather or any other software does it's best at recipe creation in my opinion (I'm to lazy to calculate everything manually) and all other math related things (calculate efficiency, etc.). A spreadsheet could do the same really

 

[keggert]

I use BrewTarget. They stopped using the old web site and you can now get the updated versions here. Newest version is currently 3.0.10

 

[hotbeer]

I use BrewTarget. They stopped using the old web site and you can now get the updated versions here. Newest version is currently 3.0.10

Thanks for that information. I just assumed that when the website for the old version didn't have anymore updates that it'd been abandoned.

I just took a quick look at the site you linked. Do you know if this is the original writer or team that wrote Brewtarget. Or did someone else pick it up to maintain?

I use Brewtarget too.

 

[keggert]

Thanks for that information. I just assumed that when the website for the old version didn't have anymore updates that it'd been abandoned.

I just took a quick look at the site you linked. Do you know if this is the original writer or team that wrote Brewtarget. Or did someone else pick it up to maintain?

I use Brewtarget too.

I don't know if it is the original team. I stumbled on it a few months back when my old version crashed and deleted my brewing history/database. When i googled the problem I had that website came up as one of the answers.

I've been using it since and I haven't had any issues with it. It does open a DOS window that remains open while using the program. If you close the DOS window the program closes as well. Found it slightly annoying, but now I just ignore the window

 

[delium55]

Take a look to Beerrxcel V2 on Catégorie:Outils — Le Wiki du Brassage Amateur you find all to brew, create recipe etc.

 

[BrewDrinkRepeat]

For me, using brewing software goes far beyond a recipe database; my entire system and process is represented in the software, and for any selected recipe I can see accurate volumes and quantities, and I'm "guided" to hit all of the targets on brewday.

You have to go through the process of creating a equipment profiles in the software, but IMO it's time WELL-SPENT.

The mathematical side of recipe design is a breeze, all of my quantities / volumes are spot-on correct, I hit all of my numbers every single time, and once I have a recipe dialed-in I can brew it consistently and repeatedly, even if I change equipment at some point.

And scaling someone else's recipe to my system, or mine to theirs, is literally a click.

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I currently use BrewFather, very very happily. I don't love that it's a cloud-only model, but only because my data isn't stored locally and I have to do a manual datadump.

The subscription doesn't bother me one bit, as I get tremendous value from the software. It is the best I've ever used, and the Batch feature (the true power of BF) is off-the-charts amazing.

And hopefully, maintaining a steady income stream means they'll remain an active developer moving forward (something I cannot say about the last software I used, Beer Tools Pro).