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What exactly did I buy?

BrokenDick

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Hey folks.  I'm relatively new to brewing, very new to all-grain brewing and also quite new to BeerSmith.  I'm going to go ahead and risk ridicule and ask for feedback on BeerSmith itself.  I dropped the $28 to join (a minor amount of money in the homebrew scheme of things).  So far, I've been unable to notice any increased access to the website than I had for free.  I've discovered that in order to actually save more than 15 recipes, I'll need to part with still more money.  The only webpage I've been able to get on is littered with links to purchase even more BeerSmith products (videos, books etc).  My questions to BeerSmith have gone unanswered.  While I'm an admitted rookie to brewing, I'm not a total imbecile when it comes to the internet.  Any suggestions or direction would be appreciated.
 
I'm assuming that you purchased the software as opposed to paying for membership. Did you already have the software on your Pc?
 
It appears that I bought the software.  When I open it, there is pretty much nothing there.  I have a template which allows me to search the 15 recipes which were there in the free version.  Time to call the credit card number and get a refund?
 
That is pretty much it until you start to design and fill it with your own recipes or others that you download from the BeerSmith recipe database.
 
I have a feeling that you thought that you were purchasing a recipe database, filled with ready to brew recipes.  While there are some recipes already installed, and access to more of them on the cloud (with the additional purchase) these recipes are just a bonus.

BeerSmith is a "recipe design" program, that allows you to create your own recipes.  You start with a default recipe of some type and pick and choose the ingredients that you want to use.  You can design it "to a style", by choosing the style of beer that you want to make.  It is a very powerful recipe design program, that allows you to control your recipe, instead of just using somebody else's recipe from a book.

Before brewing programs like BeerSmith came out, you had to calculate Gravity, IBU's, Mash and brewhouse efficiencies, etc. by hand on paper or on an excel spreadsheet.

You still need to understand recipe design, but now you don't have to do all of the math, as BeerSmith does all of this for you. 

You will not regret purchasing BeerSmith.

I suggest that you go through all of the tutorials, both on the program and here in the forums, to help you learn the software.  Once you have an understanding of it, you will definitely see it's value to a brewer.

Good luck with your brewing and recipe design.
 
It's also a brewer's aid.  By that I mean, after creating enough recipes, I now know how much XX amount of water will move the strike temp, how much DME will adjust the OG, and how much I can adjust OG by boiling vigor and length.  Capturing real outcomes, entering them in BS, and seeing the effects with accurate math I'd never do myself, has made me a much better "on the fly" homebrewer. 
 
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