# Which beersmith?



## SnailAle (27/2/18)

Tossing up whether it's worth jumping from the once off basic setup of beersmith to the gold. If the gold was a once off it'd be a no brainer but $50 a year seems steep. Old me I ouldn't care but with two mortgages and a baby very near I just don't have money to be shovelling out like I used to (wife approved post).

Do others just suck it up and go gold or platinum each year or do you manage with the basic setup if so how do you go about it. I guess once you hit the 15 recipe cap you could just print them off and scrap them for new ones. Seems like a pain though. 

Any opinions are appreciated.


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## Black Devil Dog (27/2/18)

I wasn't even aware there was such a thing as Beersmith Gold, Platinum or Professional until I searched after reading your post.

I've been using Beersmith standard/regular, or whatever it's called, for about 5 years and have zero need to upgrade. 

I'd be inclined to get the standard version, get a grasp of that first and sometime down the track see whether you really need the other 'benefits'.


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## Nullnvoid (27/2/18)

I think it's only 15 recipes uploaded to the cloud. You can store as many as you want on the hard drive. So therefore just move them around if you need to access on a different device from the cloud. 

That's what I do anyway.


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## SnailAle (27/2/18)

Black Devil Dog said:


> I wasn't even aware there was such a thing as Beersmith Gold, Platinum or Professional until I searched after reading your post.
> 
> I've been using Beersmith standard/regular, or whatever it's called, for about 5 years and have zero need to upgrade.
> 
> I'd be inclined to get the standard version, get a grasp of that first and sometime down the track see whether you really need the other 'benefits'.


The only benefit I'm interested in is the 125 stores recipes over the 15 of the basic one. The other stuff I'm indifferent to. 

What do you do when you've maxed out recipes?


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## Old Bloke (28/2/18)

You can always save your Beersmith database in the cloud. Keep as many recipes as you want.


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## JDW81 (28/2/18)

I've had the basic program for years and it's perfectly fine. For the $20ish I paid for it in 2011 it has well and truely given me value for money.

I don't use the recipes that come with the program, as I prefer to build my own.

The basic program does all the gravity calculations, is easy to change your equipment profiles and adjust efficiency to guide your recipes. I don't know if the 15 recipe cap is new, or just applies to cloud storage but I've got hundreds of recipes saved in my program.

For $50 a year I wouldn't bother.

JD


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## SnailAle (28/2/18)




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## n87 (28/2/18)

Thats only online storage.
By default it stores them locally, so if you don't need to share them all... just get the standard


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## SnailAle (28/2/18)

n87 said:


> Thats only online storage.
> By default it stores them locally, so if you don't need to share them all... just get the standard


Ahk that makes sense, I'll buy it tonight. 

Cheers for the help gents


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## Nullnvoid (28/2/18)

Refer to post #3  

Kidding, as long as you get it sorted mate!


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## Moog (28/2/18)

if I see a recipe from the cloud that I want, I just copy it, and build it in the program myself, my main reason for doing it this way, is to practice using the software


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## fungrel (1/3/18)

Why not use a cloud based platform like brewersfriend? The whole beersmith ecosystem is antiquated and designed to extract the most money out of those that still use the service.

100% cloud platforms are ubiquitous across all devices, access any recipe anywhere. I don't believe beersmith is worth the money when I can pay $10/year for a product that's usable wherever I am with unlimited recipes.


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## philrob (1/3/18)

I use BeerSmith2 standard version, after upgrading from the original BeerSmith, and it's a once only payment on any of the versions.
The only continuing payments are when you want to optionally upgrade your cloud access from the standard, as far as I can see
I've never used the cloud function. I don't need access anywhere other than at home, and I don't use other brewer's recipes. In fact, my recipes are made up on the fly in my brewery based on ingredients at hand, and only entered into BS2 once I have the mash underway. I'll then use it to work out the hopping schedule. Has worked fine for me now for the last 11 years, and it contains a record of all my brews over that time.


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## Danscraftbeer (1/3/18)

Standard BS2 for me too. $30 once off payment, or was it $22? cant remember, and I find no limitations with it. I can download as many recipes I want off the cloud, not that I do anymore. Only when I began all grain I downloaded loads of different style recipes off the cloud but got the impression that no guarantee whatsoever that any of those recipes are any good! pff. As in, any eager brewer/many newb can upload recipes and reading through a lot of them seemed silly. Like infinite so called educational youtubes made by halfwits and newbs. I never even reference them anymore unless I here of a good recommendation of a proven recipe etc.
$0.02


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## Engibeer (9/3/18)

Just store your recipes on another cloud, create a direct link to that location mapped to your local drive and then specify that as your location in beersmith.


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