New Brewer brewing from kits - what does software do for me?

[GPNewBrew]

Hi all - sorry if this is a odd or silly question. I've brewed a couple 1 gal batches of beer using kits from Northern Brewer, and just been following the directions that come with the kit, making some notes as I went along. I'm getting ready to move up to "split" 5 gallon batches (2.5 gallon batches), starting with a 5 gal kit that I just split in half, and wondering about the value of software. Obviously, the Palmer kit I will be using comes with instructions, and was originally thinking that I would follow the same path, just following instructions and keeping notes.

What does Beersmith or Brewer's friend do to help me? I have trials of both, but haven't messed with it too much as I'm not sure what I am going for. Do I enter my kit information in the tool and use the software along with the instructions to start building a database for future use, or does the tool provide something else. At first glance, it seems geared to building a recipe from scratch, or downloading a recipe from the cloud and editing as preferred, but maybe I'm missing the bigger picture.

Is it to early for me to think about brewing software if I am brewing from kits, or am I missing something?

Thanks, Gary

 

[jschein]

Get either program, I have Brewer’s Friend. Put your kit recipes in for future use, say they don’t make the kits any longer but you liked how it turned out you have a reference. Also you can copy the recipe and make changes to a new interesting hop or yeast. I go back to mine all the time

 

[BrewingAroundtheRrealm]

It's a good place to learn from. Enter the kit in to the software to see if your numbers match what the kit says you should get. I've had a few occasions where a kit was missing an ingredient or had less of something than it should have. I only realized that once I entered the ingredients in the kit and compared that to what should have been there.

The last time it happened I was more than 20 point off from what should have been. 1.030 vs. 1.054. Turns out the kit was missing a container of LME. MoreBeer sent me a free kit because of it. At that point I left kits behind and started buying everything from the LHBS. Not long after that I changed to all grain and never looked back.

 

[Bubman]

I use Brewers friend for the features below.

Scale recipes up or down.
Convert extract to all grain biab.
Convert LME to DME.

There is more to it but I still consider myself a beginner and just playing around with it is helping me understand the brewing process.

For me I find keeping things simple and learning what each process is before diving in helps too.