BeerSmith Mobile Brewing App

[jc64]

As others have raised Brewmate in this thread I thought I would ask the question to those that have used Brewmate but have switched to Beersmith. Are you happy with Beersmith? What advantages does it provide over Brewmate? I'm using Brewmate and have trialed Beersmith but have yet to purchase a copy. So far in my brewing Brewmate has always given me great numbers to work with, very accurate, but I only scraped the surface with Beersmith. Cheers.

 

[djar007]

I went with it purely because I use a Mac. But the more I use it the better my beer is getting. I like to put heaps of details in when I make a recipe and see how it affects everything. I am sure brewmate allows the same, but I cant use it.

 

[iralosavic]

As others have raised Brewmate in this thread I thought I would ask the question to those that have used Brewmate but have switched to Beersmith. Are you happy with Beersmith? What advantages does it provide over Brewmate? I'm using Brewmate and have trialed Beersmith but have yet to purchase a copy. So far in my brewing Brewmate has always given me great numbers to work with, very accurate, but I only scraped the surface with Beersmith. Cheers.

It allows you to create profiles for so many different things that make it very customisable, which results in more accurate brewday calculus. I found brewmate to be as good, if not better (due to simplicity) when it came to single infusion BIAB brewing, but the step mash profiling capability of Beersmith just makes life easy for step mashers.

 

[jc64]

Are there timers for the step mashes?

 

[djar007]

Yes there are.

 

[Edak]

What else the mobile app lacked was inventory control, I was really hoping that I could view my current supplies when on the road so if I was running low on something I could pick it up on the way past x.

 

[Parks]

What else the mobile app lacked was inventory control, I was really hoping that I could view my current supplies when on the road so if I was running low on something I could pick it up on the way past x.

That is a great idea.

On a not serious note it should also come with a lady who keeps my inventory in sync every time I forget to "remove from inventory" my recipe.

 

[Truman42]

I think beersmith lite may suit my needs. I would rather create and edit recipes on my PC and just use the timers etc on beersmith lite on brewday on my ipad or iphone.
If I need to change something in my recipe on brew day its just a short walk to the study to adjust it on the pc and synch it to the cloud.

Probably the only thing that would push me to pay for the full version is as Edak says if it had inventory control. So many times Ive been at KK and brought supplys only to come home and realise I needed something else.

 

[brad81]

Just bought the Lite version yesterday, today the full version is out, bought that too.

I'm liking the idea of copying your equipment and ingredient profiles. Equipment profile appears to be pretty straightforward, though you (as outlined in the doco) you need to save the ingredients one by one. Not seamless, but I guess good to start with. It'd be cool if I could store my profiles in the cloud and then sync them down, but haven't really dug that deep yet.

 

[bum]

I think beersmith lite may suit my needs. I would rather create and edit recipes on my PC and just use the timers etc on beersmith lite on brewday on my ipad or iphone.
If I need to change something in my recipe on brew day its just a short walk to the study to adjust it on the pc and synch it to the cloud.

Probably the only thing that would push me to pay for the full version is as Edak says if it had inventory control. So many times Ive been at KK and brought supplys only to come home and realise I needed something else.

Perhaps the Beersmith app could include an ordering option where the discrepancy between your recipes and your inventory are automatically ordered through your supplier of choice and automatically paid for via PayPal?

 

[bignath]

spent last night mucking around with the full version (have had the lite version since it was released).

A couple of bugs that need a bit or an ironing out...When i switch my units to metric, i noticed that it doesn't change the temp unit in mash setup from F to C. Although it asks for the temp in Farenheit, it is actually calculating the value as Celsius when you save, close out of the setup, and then "view" the recipe, the degrees are shown as Celsius there, but the initial setup is labelled as Farenheit. Hope that made sense....

Also, there are some issues with the displaying of the correct bitterness.

I input a known recipe to me (my house beer) and it came out at the correct ibu's, but when i change the quantity of hops, save and close out to go back to recipe screen, it still has the previous ibu calculation there - even though i saved the modified hop addition. If i went back and re-saved it, it would then display correctly in the recipe screen.

That's fine for me, as i know what the value should have been as it was a known recipe, but it could cause some issues for a brewer that is formulating a recipe from scratch that has no knowledge about recipe creation.

Only small issues that i'm sure will be tidied up, and for me, they aren't deal breakers anyway, but thought i'd mention it.

Very happy with the lite version, brewing on the iPad for brewday (get music going in the background on it too), but the paid version with full editing is going to be great.

Happy with it so far...

 

[MaltyHops]

spent last night mucking around with the full version (have had the lite version since it was released).

A couple of bugs that need a bit or an ironing out...When i switch my units to metric, i noticed that it doesn't change the temp unit in mash setup from F to C. Although it asks for the temp in Farenheit, it is actually calculating the value as Celsius when you save, close out of the setup, and then "view" the recipe, the degrees are shown as Celsius there, but the initial setup is labelled as Farenheit. Hope that made sense....

Send in bug report? [ developer ]

 

[jayahhdee]

Just grabbed a copy on Android and while I haven't used it for a brew I like the feel and layout, cleaner and easier to use the the desktop based software it seems. Hopefully I'll get to give it a run in a week or two.

 

[browndog]

Bought this and find it does not run smoothly on my Nexus 4. Took a look a the Beersmith forum and low and behold there is a post about it running slowly on Android with a reply from Brad stating that it runs slowly on his Android tablet and he puts it down to it not being native to Android. He does say he is trying to make improvements though.

 

[bradsbrew]

Thanks Tony, I'll hold off.

 

[Alimacoz]

Hey guys,

I'm moving from extract to BIAB an wondered what you all think will be better for a relative beginner, Beersmith or Brewmate?

I love hat I can get beersmith on my ipad but is it going to be overkill and confusing for a beginner?

 

[browndog]

Brewmate for sure due to it's simplicity and price.

 

[bum]

Are you comfortable with computers generally?

Beersmith is more fiddly but it's not that hard. "Graduating" from Brewmate to Beersmith night be harder than starting out with Beersmith to begin with (if you think that's something you might do).

 

[brad81]

Bought this and find it does not run smoothly on my Nexus 4. Took a look a the Beersmith forum and low and behold there is a post about it running slowly on Android with a reply from Brad stating that it runs slowly on his Android tablet and he puts it down to it not being native to Android. He does say he is trying to make improvements though.

I am only experiencing a slight lag scrolling up and down on my nexus4. Is that what you mean by not running smoothly? Only curious.

I'll put it through its paces next week for my testing.

 

[Alimacoz]

I'm very comfortable with computers generally, I'm a network engineer and work with them all day long but I'm just starting to think about moving from kits to partial mash or BIAB.

What I'm really looking for is a program that I can specify the equipment I have e.g. A 19l stockpot and a fermenter and not much else at the moment and then it will give me amounts of ingredients that I need and the timings of the mash and additions etc, will beersmith do this?