cmbrougham
Grandmaster Brewer
I downloaded and purchased BeerSmith last night. I like it much better than the other programs I've tried. For me, it's organized in a much more useful way than any of the other programs. I'm definitely looking forward to delving into it even more.
That said, I do have a couple small issues with the program. Nothing big; most of them just might be perceived inconveniences.
Again, the program is great... I really do like it. Just a couple of things, though, to enrich the experience.
Thanks!
That said, I do have a couple small issues with the program. Nothing big; most of them just might be perceived inconveniences.
- When you create a new recipe, the date defaults to the beginning of the month. While it's not often that I'll be brewing a recipe on the day I create it, it seems to me that it would make more sense if the default date was the date that the recipe was created on. Not a huge issue, but just "one of those things" ;D
- It would be nice to be able to move ingredients in a recipe up or down in the recipe list, regardless of their boil times or amounts. Again, this might just be a personal preference thing, but I like having a recipe (or any set of instructions, for that matter) organized in a step-wise fashion. For instance, I created a partial mash recipe last night that insisted on putting the 1# of malted wheat ahead of the 1# of pale malt. I want pale malt first... it's a base grain. I know it ultimately doesn't make a difference where it would fall in the hierarchy of grains in a recipe, but from a mental organization standpoint, this bugs me.
- This is similar to the previous comment. Hops seem to be organized by decreasing amounts, instead of by boil time. I wanted .5 oz at 60 minutes, and 1 oz at 30 minutes, and the 30-minute addition kept moving before the 60-minute addition. This one seems a little more important than the last, to me.
- Finally, the most important one I've discovered. I'm a mini-mash brewer, and one of my techniques when it comes to using extract is to add it late in the boil. BeerSmith automatically assumes that you're going to boil the extract for the full amount of time. It wouldn't be a big deal, but this GREATLY affects hop utilization. The recipe I created last night, while calculating IBUs from a 60 minute boil of the extract, was 12.7 IBU. By clicking the "Add After Boil" checkbox in the ingredient pop-up, the utilization become 17.9 IBU. A pretty big difference, and this would indicate to me that a recipe wouldn't be that accurate if a brewer uses a late extract addition. Basically what I'm asking for here is a way to set the time of the extract addition, and hopefully have a way for the program to calculate hop extraction from that time change.
Again, the program is great... I really do like it. Just a couple of things, though, to enrich the experience.
Thanks!