Is the BeerSmith software worth purchasing for extract brewers?
I would say if you are looking for a piece of software Beersmith is a good choice. Lots of features and compatible with Brewr app; which is good for using your phone as a brew timer with alarms. I bought it to replace Promash and have found it a good, more user-friendly place to keep all my brew notes.
Well, I know it is worth it for me as an all-grain brewer for recipe design and tweaking. I’d say that if you are interested in designing your own recipes it would be worth it for an extract brewer as well but if you are using preformulated recipes I don’t know. I guess you could use it as your brewing notebook as well to keep track of beers brewed, gravities, fermentation temps and tasting notes.
I use BeerSmith with every batch to reflect the difference in my extract system versus the approaches in many recipes. It acts as a notebook for the specifics of each batch I brew and helps me keep track of the details. Plus, any changes I make are reflected in the estimates of the outcome so I get a sense of their impact.
I often use it to tweak recipes I find online to convert them to my system.
So I highly recommend it.
If you have a smartphone, iBrewmaster’s great for extract. I’m still on extract myself. Great for notebooking as well.
Beersmith is definitely on the list for upgrading to a grain system when the day (and room) comes.
