How To Determine Starting Specific Gravity
Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 7:29 pm
Assuming all environmental variables remain favorable (e.g. PH, temperature, nutrient levels, etc), after the fermentation is bubbling fiercely and the yeast are thriving, the fermentation eventually stops (or dramatically slows) for one of two reasons right?
1) the ABV gets too high for the specific tolerance of the yeast, thereby killing the yeast (some yeast die at a lower ABV than others)
2) there's simply no more fermentable sugar in the mix so the fermentation slows down dramatically due to no more fermentable sugars in the mix (the yeast continue to live a little while beyond this point due to other reasons)
Assuming all environmental variables remain favorable (e.g. PH, temperature, nutrient levels, etc), we seem to have a choice as to what stops our fermentation:
This means that we can control and decide which of the above two reasons will be the cause that stops our fermentation. We can control this by setting the starting specific gravity at a specific level. That all said, which of the two above causes should be the one we choose in order to produce the best quality product. We can't simply say that all yeasts should start at a specific gravity of 1.070....I'm not going to buy that answer after all I've read.
thanks,
ptech
1) the ABV gets too high for the specific tolerance of the yeast, thereby killing the yeast (some yeast die at a lower ABV than others)
2) there's simply no more fermentable sugar in the mix so the fermentation slows down dramatically due to no more fermentable sugars in the mix (the yeast continue to live a little while beyond this point due to other reasons)
Assuming all environmental variables remain favorable (e.g. PH, temperature, nutrient levels, etc), we seem to have a choice as to what stops our fermentation:
This means that we can control and decide which of the above two reasons will be the cause that stops our fermentation. We can control this by setting the starting specific gravity at a specific level. That all said, which of the two above causes should be the one we choose in order to produce the best quality product. We can't simply say that all yeasts should start at a specific gravity of 1.070....I'm not going to buy that answer after all I've read.
thanks,
ptech