Alcohol content

[joel0395]

Hello, just wondering how everyone actually works out the alcohol content, i have an alcoholmeter but i think this is the wrong thing to be using for beer and cider? Thanks

 

[wbosher]

Using the original and final gravity readings, there's a calculation somewhere on the interwebs...or just use brewing software.

 

[Not For Horses]

Do you have a hydrometer?
If so, take a reading before fermentation. Make sure to correct for the temperature of your wort.
I use this http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator/hydrometer.html
After fermentation take another reading.
Then plug those numbers into something like this http://abvcalculator.com/

 

[mr_wibble]

You must measure the Specific Gravity of the wort before fermentation, and again after fermentation.
The difference is the sugars converted to alcohol, which is used in a calculation to get alcohol / volume.

There's a bunch of calculators where you can plug in your values, e.g.: http://pint.com.au/calculators/alcohol/

But wikipedia says the formula is:


Where 1.05 is the number of grams of ethanol produced for every gram of CO2 produced, and .79 is the density of ethanol,

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However, many brewers use the following formula:

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[nu_brew]

I believe there is a way by taking the FG with a hydro and a refracto to work out OG and then calculate ABV using above methods.

 

[joel0395]

Thanks guys, so what is an alcoholmeter used for?

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

More for spirits...but we wont go there

 

[punkin]

Thanks guys, so what is an alcoholmeter used for?

An alcometer is used to measure a mixture of ethanol and water. It won't work in anything else.

 

[joel0395]

Thanks guys