ABV question

MtnHiBrewin · Mar 17, 2013

I bottled an Imperial Black Ale yesterday. When I strained the hops and transferred to the bottling bucket, I only had 4.25 gallons at 9.7% ABV. I wanted more beer than that, so I added 1 gallon of distilled water with the priming sugar. How do I figure the ABV after dilution?

ajdelange · Mar 17, 2013

Precise calculation gets a little hairy. As your ABV number is doubtless based on hydrometer readings it's plenty accurate to just use 9.7*4.25/5.25 plus whatever you think the priming sugar might add.

Yooper · Mar 17, 2013

MtnHiBrewin said:
I bottled an Imperial Black Ale yesterday. When I strained the hops and transferred to the bottling bucket, I only had 4.25 gallons at 9.7% ABV. I wanted more beer than that, so I added 1 gallon of distilled water with the priming sugar. How do I figure the ABV after dilution?

7.8% ABV, if you had 4.25 gallons of 9.7% ABV beer + 1 gallon of water.

Few beers taste better watered down. You added about 20% water. Next time before diluting the beer, I'd suggest taking a sample and seeing if watering it down by 20% makes it tastes better. Sometimes a too-strong beer might need it I'd think, but most beers will not. A "big" beer like that might be ok.

MtnHiBrewin · Mar 17, 2013

Thanks. It was pretty strong tasting, so I don't think the dilution will hurt it at all. So the formula would be ABV X volume / new volume (in gallons).

ABV question

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ABV question

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