Cheap Mash Program

[Gout]

I hear people talk about promash and beersmith etc.

What are these sorts of programs worth? are there any good cheap ones?

or any advice on a good one.

very poor at the moment so prob cant afford to buy a expencive one

 

[big d]

ben
i think most of the programs have a limited trial so you can get a grasp of weather they are any good or not.
my head hurts from the pomgolian win tonight. :angry:

 

[Gout]

I've tried beer smith, i'll look for a trial of promash

P.S yeah, the miss's is "some what" pom and ahh i need another beer.

she dont even know the rules just that they won....

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR - beer time

 

[big d]

same as my wife ben ...part pomgolian.the inlaws faxed me just to remind me of there heritage and of the win as if i didnt know.
promash have a trial version you can try and work out if you like it or not.

good luck and let the forum know what you come up with.

 

[Doc]

Promash is US$24.95
Beersmith is normally US$24.95 but currently is US$19.95

Software doesn't get any cheaper than that and with the current exchange rate even more so.

Beers,
Doc

PS: With the exchange rate I've also asked for a subscription for BYO magazine. Makes is in xmas present range at the moment.

 

[big d]

is there an aussie distributor for promash or is it only available ex usa.?

 

[Trev]

big d,

Both Promash and Beersmith can downloaded online for trial from the US.

Promash Evaluation Download

Beersmith Evaluation Download

Probably personal preference but after playing with both recently I went for Beersmith, not just because it's a bit cheaper. Each of them have a bit of a learning curve and it takes a little while to cotton-on, I just found Beersmith more intuitive.

As Doc says, with the exchange rate where it is, it's not going to get a lot cheaper.

Trev

 

[big d]

thanks trev
ive checked out promash but havent as yet checked out beersmith.will look at it later on this arvo.

cheers
big d

 

[jayse]

iam going with beersmith.
i like the interface/layout etc better like trev said.
i'll get promash down the track most likely aswell. but for the moment beersmith it is.

for a freeware program which does gravity, colour and ibu calcs.
try
qbrew.

http://www.usermode.org/code.html

it doesn't have all the great features of the others but has a very easy interface for ploting in recipes.

promash and beersmith have alot more features.
they can automatically give you the boil size and boil off for your system
plus factor in loss to the trub and cooling etc.
plus you can use them to calculate f.g with a refractometer.

i haven't looked on any file sharing programs but iam sure you could find them all on them ie. grokster, morpheus.
but for $30 there worth the money though.

 

[Wasabi]

Big D,

Another alternative is StrangeBrew. I find ProMash a little too professional for the likes of me (but I can see whay people like Doc use it)

StrangeBrew handles AG, partial and kit, but it does require a bit of seting up (but they probably all do)

Strange Brew

It's $15 to register (I'm assuming Canadian$). It'll work for 30 days, and then give limited access after that. I'm going to register mine next month I think.

 

[big d]

thanks wasabi
will check that one out as well

 

[Gout]

Thanks guys i will look at the ones above. I had beersmith for the trial and it was ok, I'll try promash and the others and decide. I guess it will be my x-mas gift

Now with all grain brewing coming on the data base i setup (plain excel) is getting to big and hard to keep track of.

the ol kit + malt and one or 2 hop additions was ok, with boils, grains yeasts multi hops etc its getting to hard to read.

Let me know what you other guys end up buying. looks like to 2 main players is promash and beersmith. Do you get free updates (when they happen?) or do you need to pay again to upgrade...

thanks

 

[Doc]

Not sure about Beersmith, but Promash is free upgrades.

Even read a story of a guy the other day who had bought Promash years ago then got out of brewing and he even sold the computer that he had Promash installed on.

Then a couple of years later he got back into brewing and went to buy Promash again but Jeff (the guy that writes Promash) said you've already bought it, you don't have to pay again, here is your PIN number, download it and off you go.
That is customer service.

The last upgrade among other features also allows you to save in HTML format which I use quite a lot.

Beers,
Doc

 

[Gout]

I am struggling to get this "code" working

(maybe to many beers) or the fact that some ofit wont download

any help on how to make it work and what i need to down load

I have a C compiler but it it C code?

 

[jayse]

i don't actually know what your talking about ben.
CODE?
the trials should download easily.
i haven't brought one yet. are you talking about activating the PIN number too get the full version?

 

[Gout]

Qbrew

there is a update file - they say you need to compile it

and the older version on the site wont download

 

[xaeros]

It looks like you may have downloaded the source code - if you are running Linux you can build the source using gcc - there should be a file that explains how to do it, but generally you'll need to run 'configure' and 'make'. If you can program, the makefile will tell you what you need to do.

Otherwise, if you are running Windoze, you will need to download the Win32 binary. Or you can use Visual C++ to build the source if you have it. As you can see, far easier to download the binaries.

Cheers

 

[Gout]

i'm on windows and have borland C++ somewhere at home although old version.

also have DelvC