What do you use brewing software for?

[runkelia]

Disclaimer: In no way am I being critical of brewing software (I have promash & beersmith) but never really use them.
Wondering what people most use brewing software for.
I personally use it to scale recipes to my desired batch size, but thats about it.
I could do that with pencil & paper, but software is probably a little quicker.
Water volume and temps. are easily calculable with the basic calculator on your cell phone based on your grain bill and what it takes to pre heat your mash tun.
I guess it could be helpful to log your brew days, can you? I do pen on paper.
Beersmith has a large recipe database, I get my recipes from BYO, Zymurgy, homebrewtalk...

Just curious as to what folks use their software for.
Cheers!

 

[LLBeanJ]

Develop recipes, tweak recipes, keep track of what I've brewed and results, schedule future brews, brewing checklist, manage ingredients inventory. I use Beersmith.

 

[241]

Mostly just to have a centralized place to log my recipes/brew days. I'm vastly unorganized so using software helps me keep everything in one spot, and accessible everywhere.

 

[yeahfairly]

Disclaimer: In no way am I being critical of brewing software (I have promash & beersmith) but never really use them.
Wondering what people most use brewing software for.
I personally use it to scale recipes to my desired batch size, but thats about it.
I could do that with pencil & paper, but software is probably a little quicker.
Water volume and temps. are easily calculable with the basic calculator on your cell phone based on your grain bill and what it takes to pre heat your mash tun.
I guess it could be helpful to log your brew days, can you? I do pen on paper.
Beersmith has a large recipe database, I get my recipes from BYO, Zymurgy, homebrewtalk...

Just curious as to what folks use their software for.
Cheers!

DO you still own an ATARI? That's like writing on the cave wall with a piece of charcoal.......

Barbaric Man!!!!!!!

 

[ArcaneXor]

I use BeerSmith and the Bru'n Water spreadsheet. I have my system dialed in perfectly on BeerSmith, so I have a pretty good idea of what to expect when I formulate a recipe using the software. I also use it to track my recipes.

Doing all those calculations by hand would take me much longer.

 

[runkelia]

DO you still own an ATARI? That's like writing on the cave wall with a piece of charcoal.......

Barbaric Man!!!!!!!

I am more of a NES guy - that stuff was legit!

 

[ncbrewer]

I used Brew Target for a while, but I prefer using my own Excel spreadsheet. It does the calculations and the record keeping. And when there's something controversial, like the relationship of hop utilization to wort gravity, I can adjust the formulas to suit me.

 

[DU99]

i use brewmate,has a database of recipes,which you can try,does calculations,can be used for various brewing methods.also i can plan my brew day.gives a print out of what you need and when to use.

 

[grathan]

I use Beersmith to store different versions of recipes. I can click-sort every recipe version by taste rating or date. That would take all day with papers.

 

[mikfire]

I use it as an excuse to write code.

 

[dkevinb]

I use Brewer's Friend to make up recipes. I also use the BIAB spreadsheet to calculate strike water volume and temperature. I use the rackers calculator to make sure the mash will fit in my kettle. Finally I use Word as my brewing log to record recipes, procedures, tasting notes, etc. I could do all that with some books, pen and paper, calculator, and lots of time. I could also throw away my thermometers and hydrometer and guess.

But I'm an engineer and I write software for a living. I really should organize all this software into some uber-software. I always get itchy using Excel instead of a "real" application.

 

[mkyl428]

I mostly use it for formulating my own recipes it is nice to be able to add in ingredients & have it tell me my IBUs, SRM, target gravity etc.

I don't use it for strike temps, or mash water volumes, Shhh... I mostly wing it using an educated guess based on past experience with my equipment & how much grist I'm working with I'm usually pretty close. I do BIAB so if I'm off it's not that hard for me to fix.

I also write my brew logs in a notebook instead of putting them on the computer, notebooks don't crash hard drives do. Every recipe I have developed using software I also write down with pen & paper.

 

[OleBrewing]

I mostly use it for formulating my own recipes it is nice to be able to add in ingredients & have it tell me my IBUs, SRM, target gravity etc.

I don't use it for strike temps, or mash water volumes, Shhh... I mostly wing it using an educated guess based on past experience with my equipment & how much grist I'm working with I'm usually pretty close. I do BIAB so if I'm off it's not that hard for me to fix

Yeah I use it for formulating recipes. I could take the time and calibrate the program to my system but I don't brew enough to fiddle with it.

 

[mkyl428]

DO you still own an ATARI? That's like writing on the cave wall with a piece of charcoal.......

Barbaric Man!!!!!!!

Lol I do....
NES, Super, & N64 too.....

And is that a Coleco Vision?!? OMG!

 

[yeahfairly]

Lol I do....
NES, Super, & N64 too.....

And is that a Coleco Vision?!? OMG!
View attachment 236049

Holy Cow! I've got a 1960's collection of G.I. Joe's...... we could go into the antique toy business together!!!!!

How about a game of PONG......... Beer Pong that is (lol)!!!

 

[mkyl428]

Holy Cow! I've got a 1960's collection of G.I. Joe's...... we could go into the antique toy business together!!!!!

How about a game of PONG......... Beer Pong that is (lol)!!!

Hahaha sounds like a plan :rockin:

 

[runkelia]

Thanks for the responses. I started uploading my favorite recipes into Beersmith.
Question about Beersmith: I do have it on my home laptop, if I download the Beersmith app on my android phone, can I sync those somehow?

 

[MichaelBrock]

Thanks for the responses. I started uploading my favorite recipes into Beersmith.
Question about Beersmith: I do have it on my home laptop, if I download the Beersmith app on my android phone, can I sync those somehow?

You can't really synch the two. The best you can do is upload the recipe to the cloud from one of the two and then download it from there with the other. I have Beersmith installed at work and at home (both on PCs) and I have all of the data files stored in dropbox so the two installations are "synched" to a degree. I sill have to be careful to remember to close the program if I want to access it on the other computer. Things tend to get overwritten otherwise. But this isn't an option for the mobile version.

 

[jtratcliff]

I have all of the data files stored in dropbox so the two installations are "synched" to a degree. I sill have to be careful to remember to close the program if I want to access it on the other computer. Things tend to get overwritten otherwise.

I do the same thing with brewtarget.

 

[rekoob]

yes, although I'm pretty new at using it also I have moved them from one to the other.

 

[runkelia]

You can't really synch the two. The best you can do is upload the recipe to the cloud from one of the two and then download it from there with the other. I have Beersmith installed at work and at home (both on PCs) and I have all of the data files stored in dropbox so the two installations are "synched" to a degree. I sill have to be careful to remember to close the program if I want to access it on the other computer. Things tend to get overwritten otherwise. But this isn't an option for the mobile version.

Thanks for the information. To be clear, you said you use dropbox, not the cloud (beersmith). I don't know much about the cloud or dropbox. I know I can install dropbox on my Android, I would assume I would need to install it on my laptop as well.

 

[ajdelange]

99.9% of the time I use it to answer questions for people on this site e.g. some guy got a wild pH prediction from some calculator or spreadsheet and wants to know if it's reasonable.

 

[MichaelBrock]

Thanks for the information. To be clear, you said you use dropbox, not the cloud (beersmith). I don't know much about the cloud or dropbox. I know I can install dropbox on my Android, I would assume I would need to install it on my laptop as well.

I am pretty sure that the dropbox approach will only work when synching two computers. The file structure used for the mobile version is not the same and it would not work to share the files between the PC version and the mobile version. I use the cloud when I want to view a recipe on my tablet (which is very rarely; my mobile beersmith gets little use).

 

[runkelia]

many thanks

 

[QuercusMax]

I use BrewPal on my iPhone mostly to calculate OG, IBU and SRM, as well as to see how the stats line up with BJCP guidelines. I also use it to calculate strike/sparge water, but those are pretty easy to calculate by hand.

I keep all my notes in plain text files in my DropBox, so I can edit them wherever I am - I use PlainText 2 on the iPhone to keep my brewday notes.

 

[zeptrey]

I used to use Brewtarget...but its kinds of a pain. Does some things well but horrible with others. I use BrewToad now and PricelessBrewing's biab volume calculator sometimes. With BIAB its pretty simple to figure volume if you squeeze the bag and know your boil off rate.