Beermate Or Brewsmith

[Muscovy_333]

Brewmate...and i have never looked any further.
I keep all of my records (decoctions, temp steps, salt additions etc.)on the notes page and have a completely paper free record. ( I have a system for recording my notes)
Fast, reliable and user friendly.

 

[Bribie G]

:super: MHB's BrewBuilder :super:

I saw that in action at his shop last year, you can design a recipe, take it into his shop or email it and he'll make up the exact recipe pack for you - I think it was at beta stage or something when I saw it, very handy if you live in Newcastle area.


As I was discussing with DKS on way to t'club the other evening, one thing these programs don't seem to cater for is Mash temperature vs FG.

For example if I mash at 70 I'm going to get a vastly different (and less strong) beer than mashing an identical grain bill at 62 As I use mash temperature as an important tool in designing a beer, it means that whatever I do the software is only going to help me so far. I mainly use the software to make sure I'm more or less to style for BJCP purposes, e.g. getting the colour and IBU and grain composition.

I may be wrong but I don't see this feature in Beersmith and it's certainly not likely to be in Brewmate at all. Corresponded with Rob about it last year and when I Googled around some of the issues raised by mash
temp vs attenuation it became obvious that it's not a simple linear thing, you'd need to be a Nobel Scientist to work it out. <_<

 

[seamad]

Have used both brewmate and bs2. Pretty well all my brews are stepped mashs so bs2 it is.

Have found bs2 to be accurate and simmple to use, like the print out of brew steps for both brewday and for record keeping as i write notes about the brew / beer on the sheet for future reference.cheers
sean

 

[keifer33]

Ive been persivering with beersmith since i started brewing seriously and still find something nearly every brew is off.

Funnily i just got the beersmith newsletter and v2.1 is due mid may which will have a brew timer aswell as cloud storage if recipes.

 

[seamad]

Bribie,
Ive found when using bs2 that fg does change if you change yeast or mash profiles. Nearly all my brews finish within a point or so of what bs predicts. The notable exception being saisons which have finished up to ten pints lower than predicted!

 

[JaseH]

I'm a relative newb and use Beersmith2 - originally because it was the only decent application I could find which ran natively on Linux. At first it looked overly complex but I picked it up pretty quickly and now I love it. I find it pretty accurate.

There are some things I would change/improve, like the brew log feature. But its also being actively developed so I figure it will only keep improving.

 

[jayahhdee]

I have both BM and BS2 installed but have found i really only use BM for designing recipes and then I record everything in a separate spreadsheet set up to my liking.

BS2 seems overkill, especially for BIAB.

 

[stux]

I use BS2 for recipe design, it works well enough for that and runs on a Mac. BeerAlchemy worked in an ass-backwards method for me, and didnt allow multiple windows

For actual brew day math I use my own spreadsheets

 

[Screwtop]

As I was discussing with DKS on way to t'club the other evening, one thing these programs don't seem to cater for is Mash temperature vs FG.

For example if I mash at 70 I'm going to get a vastly different (and less strong) beer than mashing an identical grain bill at 62 As I use mash temperature as an important tool in designing a beer, it means that whatever I do the software is only going to help me so far. I mainly use the software to make sure I'm more or less to style for BJCP purposes, e.g. getting the colour and IBU and grain composition.

I may be wrong but I don't see this feature in Beersmith and it's certainly not likely to be in Brewmate at all. Corresponded with Rob about it last year and when I Googled around some of the issues raised by mash
temp vs attenuation it became obvious that it's not a simple linear thing, you'd need to be a Nobel Scientist to work it out. <_<

Yes Bribie, too many variables, amount of dextrinous malts/adjuncts, mash temp, yeast strain, yeast health, pitching rate, PH, fermentation management etc, etc.

Good mash temp control using recirculation reduces the mash temp variable, the rest is up to the brewers "horse sense" :lol:

Screwy

 

[Truman42]

I use BM and like the timers and the notes section which I use to copy and paste notes from the recipe database or certain comments made in the discussion thread about aspects or changes to the recipe.

What I dont like is they dont have a wide variety of grains in there and although you can add them its hard to find the potential extract for a lot of them.

 

[bigfridge]

Bribie,
Ive found when using bs2 that fg does change if you change yeast or mash profiles. Nearly all my brews finish within a point or so of what bs predicts.

+1

 

[Bribie G]

A handy feature of BM is the xml file that it produces for each recipe. If you click on the xml it opens up in IE, hit print and a very noice perfectly formatted A4 sheet gets printed to slip into a folder in the brewery. That's how I record all my brews now:

Screenies:

 

[Fish13]

Yeap love that feature of brewmate. The ease of making changes rocks. The only thing that may need a look at is the brewday notes page. Fairly hard to make adjustments.

 

[Muscovy_333]

Looks like another "Horses for Courses" situation

 

[mikec]

I was informed by the good folk at BM that they have a step mash option in beta at the moment... huzzah!

 

[sponge]

As many other have noted, I much prefered BS1 to BS2. Tried too hard to include too many things IMO and made a mess of it.

But since I paid for it, I use it purely to determine grain weights (using %'s), SG and IBU's (and an idea of colour).

Apart from that, water additions, mash times, etc get done using the old fingers and toes.



Sponge

 

[Screwtop]

I was informed by the good folk at BM that they have a step mash option in beta at the moment... huzzah!

+1 Huzzaah!

 

[felten]

I use bs2, it works for me.

Try them all and pick one you like. They all do the same job anyway. And if it's missing something you need, try another one.

 

[razz]

Beersmith for mine, and with the May 2.1 update it should be an improved package.
Beersmith 2.1