jruffatto

Recipes 

My initial reading was around 1.058 and after 4 days I popped the fermenter and it was 1.020. So I'm pretty happy with that. My question is this, since I just took a close look at the other measurements on my hydrometer and noticed one column with percentages from 0 to to 20 and "Potential Alochol By Volume". So what does that mean exactly? There's also a column that's called "Balling" with numbers from 0-35.

Pappers_

Recipes 

The % are exactly what they say they are, some approximation of the wort's potential for alcohol by volume. But for our purposes, its just ignored, alcohol by volume is found by taking the original gravity and the final gravity - pop them into beersmith, others here probably know the formula to use to calculate it by hand.

I have no idea what balling means . . . well, at least in this context

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wyzazz

Recipes 

The potential ABV is based on the beverage going all the way down to 1.000, not really useful for us beer guys.

Balling is a different type of measurement comparable to our Specific Gravity scale or Brix.

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marubozo

Recipes 

A quick and dirty method for calculating your ABV is: (OG - FG) x 131

jruffatto

Recipes 

that's the equation ( x 131.25 to be specific) that was in the Brewers Best ingredient kit instructions. what is the equation most people use around here?