Alcohol (abv) Calculations In Beersmith

Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum

Help Support Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

T.D.

Hop Whore
Joined
28/4/05
Messages
2,214
Reaction score
1
I have wondered about this for a while, just never got around to asking anybody. Before using the Beersmith software, I used to use the following formula to calculate the alcohol by volume:

(OG - FG)/7.36


Using a recent pils as an example,

OG: 1.046 ; FG: 1.010

Beersmith alcohol (abv) calculation: 4.7%

Using above formula: 4.9%

Which one is correct? I just finished labeling some beers to give some friends and relatives and I put the Beersmith abv's on the label, and figured they should probably know the "real" abv.

Also means an IPA I made a while back, that I thought was 7.1%, is actually more like 7.8% (including a provision for priming sugar). That's getting up there I reckon.
 
Would imagine the algorythm would be more complex than - quote((OG - FG)/7.36). Does temp and OG range affect formula. Does anyone have info?
 
T.D. said:
I have wondered about this for a while, just never got around to asking anybody. Before using the Beersmith software, I used to use the following formula to calculate the alcohol by volume:

(OG - FG)/7.36


Using a recent pils as an example,

OG: 1.046 ; FG: 1.010

Beersmith alcohol (abv) calculation: 4.7%

Using above formula: 4.9%

Which one is correct? I just finished labeling some beers to give some friends and relatives and I put the Beersmith abv's on the label, and figured they should probably know the "real" abv.

Also means an IPA I made a while back, that I thought was 7.1%, is actually more like 7.8% (including a provision for priming sugar). That's getting up there I reckon.
[post="92212"][/post]​

I've always just used (OG-FG)*.13.

With that it gives 4.68% or close enough to what Beersmith is giving. I read it in one of the previous topics on the board here, do a search.

Cheers.
 
Duff said:
I've always just used (OG-FG)*.13.

With that it gives 4.68% or close enough to what Beersmith is giving. I read it in one of the previous topics on the board here, do a search.

Cheers.
[post="92271"][/post]​

That's equivalent to (OG-FG)/7.69, so a little different to the "7.36" that I used.

Thanks guys, its nice to know I can trust the Beersmith calculation.

:beer:
 
Back
Top