Home Distiller

I just rad the hydrometer before pitching year and had a 1.500 reading what would the potential alcohol be ???

1.050 sorry

here are some charts
http://www.home-winemaking.com/winemaking-2b.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

i just take the SG 1.050 - 1 then multiplie by 131

so 1.050 - 1 = .05 then .05 X 131 = 6.5% (+-)

and that assumes you fully ferment as the 6.5% is the potential ALC not the actual ALC

Once everything has stopes bubbling it should read .999 correct ? How do I figure the abv

ironhead wrote:I just rad the hydrometer before pitching year and had a 1.500 reading what would the potential alcohol be ???

The formulas are the hard way.

Get yourself a triple scale hydrometer and it will have the % on it.

kenfyoozed wrote:

ironhead wrote:I just rad the hydrometer before pitching year and had a 1.500 reading what would the potential alcohol be ???

The formulas are the hard way.

Get yourself a triple scale hydrometer and it will have the % on it.

Hell I thought they all were triple scale?

Broke so damn many Hydrometers that I ended up buying an ATC refractometer... Reckon I'll save myself a fortune... Display Brix Scale... I just mutilply by 4 to give me the OG...

When I make my beer/wine I use a more precise formula...

Samohon wrote:Broke so damn many Hydrometers that I ended up buying an ATC refractometer...

Reckon I'll save myself a fortune... Display Brix Scale... I just mutilply by 4 to give me the OG...

When I make my beer/wine I use a more precise formula...

I love those things. And I'm sure you already know this, but just be aware that they are not accurate when reading a liquid with any alcohol in it.

Yeah, I've got that one sussed brewit2it... I still use a hydrometer, but on familiar washes where quantities of ingredients are known, I don't even take an SG...
When I make my beers/lagers/wines, I have to be more precise with gravities and temps, so prefer to use good hydrometers and thermometers...

ironhead wrote:Once everything has stopes bubbling it should read .999 correct ? How do I figure the abv

It really depends on what you were fermenting out. Sugar should ferment out completely, but if your using grains then there will most likely be some left over long-chain(unfermentable) sugars and proteins that will push that reading up.

One thing that I love about the refractometer is that it only needs a tiny sample compared to the hydrometer. Really nice in brewing when you want to know your first/last worts and pre/post boil gravities. Plus you don't have to worry about temps when taking those samples.

I make a sugar wash

8kg sugar to 25 litres with water

add 1/2 pack of still spirits classic yeast

can measure the SG and FG with a beer hydrometer , this gives a potential alcohol

I have been measuring the % alcohol with an alcohol hydrometer

however the hydrometer is a single scale and measuring at less that 20% is very difficult

how do I know the % alcohol of the finished wash

reading the post on turbo wash yeast suggests I will get a cleaner spirit with less sugar , say 7.5kg and even a higher % alcohol due to less stress on the yeast this I am going to try with my next two batches

one 8 kg and one 7.5kg

the end yield of spirit may may not be much

but I would like to know the % alcohol of my wash to remove a few variables

OG-FG+___ X 132.25=ABV

Dnderhead wrote:OG-FG+___ X 132.25=ABV

I know this gives the theoretical %

but would like to measure it

may have to buy a refractometer

did a google on refractometers , price etc

on the roundabout found out you can use a vinometer to measure alcohol content of wine

you tube demonstration http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utI4EoOenyo" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

where to buy http://ebrew.com/test_equipment/vinometers.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

maybe worth a look at

cheap

even if you got a hydrometer that read in % alcohol it whould not be accurate
in wash. a hydrometer is only accurate in pure water and alcohol.anything other
in wash/drink will throw off reading.
(if you google hydrometers many scientific sites have a vast variety to choose from)
I thanking alcohol SG is .785? so one on here whould work...

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15 V 0884 Specific Gravity Hydrometer, 0.70–1.00, 0.005 divisions $12.75



http://wardsci.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_I ... Hydrometer" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

OK, lets go back for a minute...

As Dnderhead says, and quite rightly, the specific gravity of water is 1.000, for any amount of H2O...
If I were to add enough liquidised cane sugar to make the hydrometer read 1.080, the water would still have a gravity of 1.000 and the additive to the water (liquidised sugar) 0.080. If I were then to add some corn to my water/sugar solution, the solids contained throughout the liquid would again cause the hydrometer to to rise as this is another variable within our mixture. There would be no conversion of starches from the corn addition due to the lack of malt(enzymes). If we were then to take a brix/plato reading using a refractometer, the solids would again cause the reading to be approximated from a misty meniscus line through the lens...
So, how do we get a gravity reading that we know is within the tolerances of our instrument + or - a degree?

The answer is simple.

When calculating gravity using a hydrometer or refractometer, make sure that your water/sugar solution contains no solids at the recipe development stage. If you are making an un-malted whiskey clone wash, then the sugar additions should be worked out on a 1:1 basis and an SG, that is not approximated at the correct temps, taken. The water sugar solution can then be added to your un-malted grains with a surety of the expected %abv. If the recipe is from the Tried and True section of the site, then this has been worked out for you by the member who put the recipe together and sticking to the quantities and procedures should give you a beverage on par with the authors, although you may need to tweak the recipe slightly to match your equipment and quantities. Sugars differ in sweetness all over the world, but its really not all that important to either a degree + or -.

Malted grains and their conversion, using no cane sugar, are for another topic and can be seen to be even more in-depth due to extraction efficiencies. When I do an AG, I have an efficiency figure and pre-boil extraction of 78.68%, but how do I arrive at that figure. As said, it is outside the scope of this thread but a simple hydrometer and thermometer is used, tools that you already have atm.

Theres a few ways to calculate abv... SG-FG / (7.4 * 1000) or as Dnderhead and other have said SG-FG * 132.25 which IMO, is more precise...
A vinometer works on the gravity/capillary principle. The wine should be at the correct temps for a vino-meter reading, + or - 0.1 degree will cause the reading to be wrong.
The only way to get a 100% accurate abv IMO is to do a titration test with a burette... But even the commercials don't go that far...

If you have an alcometer (for spirits), take a reading from some shop bought vodka/whiskey at 20°C, it will be correct. Thats how the commercials do it too...

Yep. I add my sugar and water first to get my SG then add the adjuncts.

Rod wrote:

Dnderhead wrote:OG-FG+___ X 132.25=ABV

I know this gives the theoretical %

but would like to measure it

may have to buy a refractometer

Why? If you are going to put it in your still and distill it. Why would you need to know exact % of the wash? When you can measure the distillate pretty accurately with a spirit hydrometer?

Thats what I was thinking initially PP... When I do a wash I take an SG, then when I think the wash is fermented out, I take an FG to ensure the wash has finished. A few points here or there is really irrelevant for us... On the other hand, when I do an AG, be it 100% malt or 25% partial malt, I always use the same extraction method as I do for my beers. This ensures that my efficiencies are correct for the grains used during mashing...

I never let my SG for AG's go above that used from the distillery I'm trying to clone. Scotch/Irish/US whisky's are a prime example when I use this method.
They differ slightly from 6%abv to 7.5%abv, but I do make sure I have 80L washes in my 100L fermenting vessel to get at least a good quantity back...

The hydrometer is an invaluable tool to us, but IMO, it really comes into its own when you are trying to replicate the same efficiencies in mashing that the commercials have...

Prairiepiss wrote:Why? If you are going to put it in your still and distill it. Why would you need to know exact % of the wash? When you can measure the distillate pretty accurately with a spirit hydrometer?

Some people get pretty anal retentive (man, I hate that phrase) when it comes to minor details... I make my washes based on sugar wash calculations and know my range potential %ABV's of my washes... And if I even bother checking them during the fermentation process I just toss in a simple hydrometer made out of a plastic straw, BB's, and hot glue to seal it up... I have them marked where water reads at room temperature... When the wash hits the line I know it's pretty much done... Otherwise I just use taste... And when I distill, I get what I get... All of the extra measuring and calculating just takes up time and introduces the possibility of worry... If I wanted to sweat a bunch of details I'd just work 24/7...

Do distillerys not use the same tools we do. Yes they are calibrated and certified. But can't we get close enough with what is available to us?. Do we really need to know the exact to the point numbers?

Prairiepiss wrote:Do distillerys not use the same tools we do. Yes they are calibrated and certified. But can't we get close enough with what is available to us?. Do we really need to know the exact to the point numbers?

The distilleries don't pay real close attention to numbers either to the best of my knowledge... They aren't going to wait an extra day or two in an effort to get an extra percentage out of their wort because it would throw their production schedule off... They already know what they should get but don't worry if they miss the mark on occasion... Same goes for the money hungry illicit moonshiners out in the woods... Keep things in the ballpark over the long haul and rely on the averages... Sometimes close enough is, well, close enough...

But that doesn't mean that the home distiller can't play bean counter and fixate on all of the numbers if they so desire... And I'm sure I'm not the only member who knows people who invest hundreds if not thousands of dollars in parts and labor to squeeze an extra couple miles per hour out of a motorcycle, boat, or snowmobile... It gets to the point where it's almost OCD... Poor bastards...

This conversation really took a turn....

I'd say the only reason the pros use these instruments is A) Making a consistent product, B) because the govt makes them for TAXES

"Some people get pretty anal retentive (man, I hate that phrase)...."

I guess from a purely *scatological point of view, to experience anal retention would be **fundamentally (there is a pun in that) opposite to experiencing a ***catharsis.

From a psychological point of view, catharsis I can sort of imagine, anally retentive, not really. It just makes me think of the need for an enema or something...
A vivid imagination.......




* according to Wikipedia, In medicine and biology, scatology or coprology is the study of feces.

** the fundament is one word for the arsehole; which is a highly technical word, no doubt from Old English. A people who did not use a long and fancy word when a short and precise one would do.

and ***catharsis is one way of describing a case of extreme diarhhoeia; some of the online dictionaries delicately refer to purgation of the bowels.

Now getting back on topic .Could of read this in New distiller reading Lounge. http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 46&t=14928