British app for home brewing

[Seghes]

Being new to the homebrew scene and with my first brew fermenting, I thought I would start to log the process and find an app that held recipes, converters, tips etc. Went into Apple store and found most apps that fit my requirements are American, or aimed at that market. I like some American beer but knew I would struggle with recipe ingredients, measurements etc. (Converting from US gallons gives odd amounts of litres with fractions!).
Can anyone recommend a more British-based app?

 

[Brew_DD2]

Being new to the homebrew scene and with my first brew fermenting, I thought I would start to log the process and find an app that held recipes, converters, tips etc. Went into Apple store and found most apps that fit my requirements are American, or aimed at that market. I like some American beer but knew I would struggle with recipe ingredients, measurements etc. (Converting from US gallons gives odd amounts of litres with fractions!).
Can anyone recommend a more British-based app?

More will allow you to change from Imperial to metric units. My app of choice is the Brewfather app. Loads of great features, responsive developer and intuitive GUI.

Most of these apps do have quite a steep learning curve, but you will find them invaluable.

 

[Gerryjo]

I use Brewers friend app which was beta and is hard to find to download now but gives you the ability to add your own grains, ingredients, yeast etc as well as metric units and pricing for cost. This is also available in the Web version and the Windows app for pc.

 

[RGeats]

Second vote for brew father. Everything in metric or imperial so can't complain

 

[Galena]

Brewfather

 

[RichardM]

Beer Smith is probably American but you can set it to use metric units and British ingredients and styles are catered for.

 

[marshbrewer]

Another one here for brewfather; set the units to whatever you want and you're off. It can't handle CRS / AMS yet in its water treatment section (may be coming soon) but other than that, it's absolutely spot on.

 

[GerritT]

Biermacht is good enough, Wort is one, I second BeerSmith 3, en if I am not mistaken BJCP 2015 Beer Styles is nice to have as well. Oh and you might try DIY Dawg too, full of BrewDog recipes.

 

[Rodcx500z]

i use brew mate its free and does a good job, i also paid for brewers friend but cant cant get on with it

 

[Brewnaldo]

I use various, but mainly birrapps for quick and easy calcs like IBU, strike temp, hydrometer adjustment etc as it is quick and easy to use, and brewtracker which is good for keeping tabs on all my dates etc and logging some info about each brew.

Intend to start using brewfather for getting into more detail than the above 2 but they are definitely handy for me

 

[An Ankoù]

Never used one and never will. No disrespect intended to those who do, but newcomers should be aware that recipe building software is not a prerequisite to formulating good beers.
Some online calculators for, eg, hydrometer corrections for temperature, abv, etc conveniently allow you to avoid opening a book and looking at a table or consulting a graph, but they haven't always been available and the oldies among us appreciate they add little other than convenience.

 

[JohnB]

This is interesting, 'cos when I first started brewing I was in the same pickle. Too much American and not enough English. So I set about the problem in a slightly different way. I got a good brewing book (John Palmer); who gives all the calculations you will require for brewing - and a heck of a lot more. Conversions factors are simple - the Internet is full of them. I then set about designing a spreadsheet using English measures. Each time I brew, I use the spreadsheet to do 'most' of the calcs, leaving enough room for 'Artistic Impression' and each time I brew I make copious notes and save the sheet under a brew number. So six months or years later I can refer back and see exactly what I did, where things went right - or wrong - and brew the same thing again. My spreadsheets are my brewing bible as far as records and consistency go.

However, I am very much in the @An Ankoù school on this one. We can end up relying far to much on computers to do things for us, things for which we should be using our brains and intuition. Some of the best ales I have ever made have been "Throw it all together" ales!

 

[WrexTheDragon]

Beer Smith gets my vote.

 

[the_quick]

Moved from brewer friend to BrewFather as it is more oriented to European use, mainly units. One for me was grain colour, Lovibond to EBC.
And it let you keep good track of your inventory. I think it is really good for novice brewer, but after sometime you can stop relying on it

 

[Spanners]

Brewfather for me, it’s a yearly subscription ($19.99 per year or $1.99 per month) but you can try it for free for a month to check it out, after which the feature is restricted slightly. It’s very accurate and pretty easy to use, in the set up you can change to the units you want to use, Imperial or metric. You can use it on any device that has a web browser (web app) and also there is an app for Android and Apple. All your recipes are synchronised to all your devices that your running the software on.

 

[Brew_DD2]

I don't think anybody is relying on these apps to create recipes for them. They are a good way of keeping track of your recipes and great for all the essential brewday calculations. Recipe design and mucking about with the software is a big part of the fun for me.

 

[Galena]

Brewfather for me, it’s a yearly subscription ($19.99 per year or $1.99 per month) but you can try it for free for a month to check it out, after which the feature is restricted slightly. It’s very accurate and pretty easy to use, in the set up you can change to the units you want to use, Imperial or metric. You can use it on any device that has a web browser (web app) and also there is an app for Android and Apple. All your recipes are synchronised to all your devices that your running the software on.

Incidentally with 10 free recipes you can delete them to stay under 10, unlike Brewers Friend which only allows 5 and you cannot delete any.
However I will be happy to pay the subscription when the time is right.

 

[GerritT]

Never used one and never will. No disrespect intended to those who do, but newcomers should be aware that recipe building software is not a prerequisite to formulating good beers.
Some online calculators for, eg, hydrometer corrections for temperature, abv, etc conveniently allow you to avoid opening a book and looking at a table or consulting a graph, but they haven't always been available and the oldies among us appreciate they add little other than convenience.

Most apps also allow storage of recipes, in fact my main use.

 

[BrewsWayne]

I started using BeerSmith in 2009. It has changed and improved over the years but it still has a steep learning curve for beginners.

I switched to BrewFather late last year. I find the interface easier to work in. It is cloud based, so you can access your data anywhere and on any device. I created over 500 recipes with BeerSmith and it was fairly easy to import them to BrewFather.

I really like the brew day timer inBrewFather. It will remind you of all steps and will not proceed until you have told it you have completed them. I also like that it easily integrates with the iSpindel. I can now see exactly what my fermenting beer is doing by just looking at my phone.

I am 66 years old and have been brewing since 1983. I absolutely LOVE all the newer technology that makes brewing easier.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

I use a standalone Brewers Friend app which costs me nothing and I've got 97 recipes loaded.