Free Beer Recipe Formulation Software. -Jason Johnson

This post would benefit anyone who comes to this page who does not have Beersmith, and perhaps either doesn’t want to pay for brewing software or cannot afford it. I tested and reviewed some brewing software called BrewTarget. It was a very decent program and you can use it on Windows, Mac, or Linux systems. Best of all it is open source and free. In short, the program’s interface is not as nice as Beersmith, but it gets the job done and I got numbers very close in tested recipes compared to beersmith. The ingredient database is up to date and includes the new varieties of hops, grains, and even seasonal yeast strains, like the platinum series strains from White Labs. There is not an inventory feature, that some brewers find handy. It does have brewing timers included, as well the ability to scale recipes and import/export beer xml files. While I personally think Beersmith is the better program, has a much better mash tool and templates, and offers more advanced features; Brewtarget is the best free brewing software I have seen. Dave Taylor may disagree (Seeing as how he is a strangebrew fan), but I stand by my word.  If you want to check out the software for yourself, you can find the download here, as well as some screenshots and a video. If you want to check out my rambling and gushing Blog post, you can do so here.