measure ABV in grape wine,

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yupiteru
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measure ABV in grape wine,

Post by yupiteru »

measure ABV in grape wine,
I wanted to make this measure in my 3 big wine barrels,
a measurement for barrel, to establish the abv,
I want to put a few liters of wine in my boka distiller
example exactly 5 liters, add more water if necessary,
distil to the maximum possible to collect all the possible alcohol,
add distilled water to the collected alcohol until the alcohol is 2 liters,
and measure with the alcoholometer,

what margin of error can I expect?
Pikey
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Re: measure ABV in grape wine,

Post by Pikey »

Perhaps, if you just distil until the output ABV is zero (I would de-tune the boka so as to get as quick an output as possible) - you shoud be able to measre abv with alcoholometer. Then use the ratio of teh volume discharged to the original volume to work out original abv.

In reality I think that's pretty much what you are saying. :)

I think it should work out fine and assuming you are "knocking down" all the vapours it should really be quite accurate. 8)
hefezelle
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Re: measure ABV in grape wine,

Post by hefezelle »

Another, possibly simpler way to measure alcohol content is this, assuming you have a good hydrometer:
  1. Take a fixed volume of of wine, say one liter. Make sure to measure that volume pretty exactly.
  2. Measure the density (specific gravity) of the wine.
  3. Boil the wine down to half its volume in an open pan or pot. This will evaporate virtually all ethanol, and also trace mounts of other compounds, but that won't skew the result much.
  4. Using fresh water, bring the volume to the original amount again (eg 1 liter).
  5. Measure the density (specific gravity) of the alcohol-free wine.
  6. The difference in gravity will tell you how much alc was in there.
Some more info can be found here, that's where i got this from.
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yupiteru
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Re: measure ABV in grape wine,

Post by yupiteru »

hefezelle wrote:Another, possibly simpler way to measure alcohol content is this, assuming you have a good hydrometer:
  1. Take a fixed volume of of wine, say one liter. Make sure to measure that volume pretty exactly.
  2. Measure the density (specific gravity) of the wine.
  3. Boil the wine down to half its volume in an open pan or pot. This will evaporate virtually all ethanol, and also trace mounts of other compounds, but that won't skew the result much.
  4. Using fresh water, bring the volume to the original amount again (eg 1 liter).
  5. Measure the density (specific gravity) of the alcohol-free wine.
  6. The difference in gravity will tell you how much alc was in there.
Some more info can be found here, that's where i got this from.
unfortunately a hydrometer is not there

I only have an alcoholometer and a "meter" to measure sugars in grape juice when I harvest,
however, this system could be interesting because it does not require sophisticated equipment
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yupiteru
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Re: measure ABV in grape wine,

Post by yupiteru »

Pikey wrote:Perhaps, if you just distil until the output ABV is zero (I would de-tune the boka so as to get as quick an output as possible) - you shoud be able to measre abv with alcoholometer. Then use the ratio of teh volume discharged to the original volume to work out original abv.

In reality I think that's pretty much what you are saying. :)

I think it should work out fine and assuming you are "knocking down" all the vapours it should really be quite accurate. 8)
that's exactly what you said I wanted to do
I can put 5 liters of wine in the boiler,
I will make almost 2.5 liters of distillate
this should be enough to recover all the alcohol
I add a little water to the distillate to make up to 2.5 liters,

if I measure 28 ABV it means that the wine has 14 ABV,
I will add the distillate to the next distillation
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