How do I calculate OG when adding sugar mid ferment?

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MtnHiBrewin

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I brewed an Imperial Stout with some friends. The OG came out at 1.096, lower than we wanted, so after it was nearly finished fermenting, we decided to add 1.25 pounds of sugar to raise the alcohol some.
It's a 10 gallon batch.
How do I figure what the OG would be with the extra sugar?
Thanks for any help.
 
Sugar adds .046 points per gallon per pound. So in your 10 gallon batch, you'd get up to around 1.100 with a lb, or around 1.101 with a lb and a quarter.
 
The total amount of fermentables would be the same as if you added it at the beginning so you could plug the ingredient list, including additional sugar, into BeerSmith or a similar program and see what it spits out.
 
Sugar adds .046 points per gallon per pound. So in your 10 gallon batch, you'd get up to around 1.100 with a lb, or around 1.101 with a lb and a quarter.

Thanks, ong. I thought dry sugars added about .045 points per pound, but I wasn't sure to what volume of wort/beer.
 
The total amount of fermentables would be the same as if you added it at the beginning so you could plug the ingredient list, including additional sugar, into BeerSmith or a similar program and see what it spits out.

I don't have BeerSmith or a great calculator yet. I usually use TastyBrew's calculator to figure out recipes. It's a pain to retype everything in and my OG rarely comes out dead on with their calculator, anyway, so adding stuff later that way doesn't give real results.
Thanks, anyway.
 
In that case the answer is "There is no way to tell."

You made 10 gal of wort with specific gravity of 1.096. Divide the 96 by 4.2 to get 23.3 °P. That's the percentage of sugar in your wort by weight. Now get the weight of the wort by multiplying its volume (10 gal) times the weight of a gallon, 8.35 times the specific gravity: 10*8.35*1.096 = 91.5 lbs. 23.3% of that is 0.233*10*8.35*1.096 = 21.32 pounds of extract. Divide that by the weight of the grain you mashed to get your efficiency. Now add the 1.25 lbs of sugar (sugar is 100% extract) to the 21.32 you got from the mash: 21.32 + 1.25 = 22.57. This is the effective extract in the fortified beer. The effective total weight of the wort also went up by 1.25 pounds so the effective original w/w percentage extract (OE) is
100*22.57/(91.5 + 1.25) = 24.32 °P. Multiply 24.32 by 4.2 to get 1.102 as the effective original gravity (OG). The only part that is at all tricky here is knowing the factor (4.2) which converts between SG and Plato. It is
fs = 3.8729 + 0.003276*points or, going in the other direction, fp = 3.8701 + 0.013796*°P. You can also do the conversion using the Lincoln equaitions, the ASBC polynomial, the ASBC or EBC tables.....

The fact that you added this at the end of fermentation and that it was, presumably, sucrose and must be inverted before fermentation implies that perhaps it will not be as completely fermented as the sugars from the mash so while the impact on OG is fairly easy to calculate the effect on alcohol content may not be.
 
In that case the answer is "There is no way to tell."

You made 10 gal of wort with specific gravity of 1.096. Divide the 96 by 4.2 to get 23.3 °P. That's the percentage of sugar in your wort by weight. Now get the weight of the wort by multiplying its volume (10 gal) times the weight of a gallon, 8.35 times the specific gravity: 10*8.35*1.096 = 91.5 lbs. 23.3% of that is 0.233*10*8.35*1.096 = 21.32 pounds of extract. Divide that by the weight of the grain you mashed to get your efficiency. Now add the 1.25 lbs of sugar (sugar is 100% extract) to the 21.32 you got from the mash: 21.32 + 1.25 = 22.57. This is the effective extract in the fortified beer. The effective total weight of the wort also went up by 1.25 pounds so the effective original w/w percentage extract (OE) is
100*22.57/(91.5 + 1.25) = 24.32 °P. Multiply 24.32 by 4.2 to get 1.102 as the effective original gravity (OG). The only part that is at all tricky here is knowing the factor (4.2) which converts between SG and Plato. It is
fs = 3.8729 + 0.003276*points or, going in the other direction, fp = 3.8701 + 0.013796*°P. You can also do the conversion using the Lincoln equaitions, the ASBC polynomial, the ASBC or EBC tables.....

The fact that you added this at the end of fermentation and that it was, presumably, sucrose and must be inverted before fermentation implies that perhaps it will not be as completely fermented as the sugars from the mash so while the impact on OG is fairly easy to calculate the effect on alcohol content may not be.

Wow. That's way too much math for me, LOL.
I'm not sure what you mean by sugar needing to be inverted, it has always fermented completely for me regardless of when it was added. Anyway, it was 1 pound of piloncillo and 1/4 pound of dextrose.
I prefer the simpler math, like AnOldUR and ong said (sort of):
(.046x1.25)/10=.00575
1.096+.00575=1.10175 (1.102 corrected OG)
As long as we have a corrected OG and a FG, we can figure out the alcohol amount.
Thanks for the input. I haven't used Plato for anything yet, but I was curious how to convert from specific gravity.
 
Wow. That's way too much math for me, LOL.

I sometimes forget when I am not in the Brew Science forum that I am not in the Brew Science forum. Actually it isn't a lot of math at all. This is the way pros do extract calculations.


I'm not sure what you mean by sugar needing to be inverted, it has always fermented completely for me regardless of when it was added.
Yeast can only ferment monosaccharides. If offered a dissacharide they must invert it (i.e. split it) into glucose and fructose (in the case of sucrose). The cell must expend energy to do the inversion (produce the invertase) and as cells at the end of fermentation are not as healthy/active as in the early phases I guessed that they might not ferment 100%.

Anyway, it was 1 pound of piloncillo and 1/4 pound of dextrose.
I don't know what piloncillo is so I can't comment on that but dextrose is glucose, a monosaccharide which does not need to be inverted.

I prefer the simpler math, like AnOldUR and ong said (sort of):
(.046x1.25)/10=.00575
1.096+.00575=1.10175 (1.102 corrected OG)

Most do and for practical purposes the relationship between extract and points can be considered linear. I posted this because I think brewers should know about the relationship between specific gravity and extract w/w.


As long as we have a corrected OG and a FG, we can figure out the alcohol amount.
Actually we can't. Professionals obtain their OG by measuring the alcohol and back calculating the OG from it. But that's another story.

Thanks for the input. I haven't used Plato for anything yet, but I was curious how to convert from specific gravity.
You convert using the factor which I explained in the earlier post, or, as I mentioned there as well, by using the ASBC polynomial, the ASBC or EBC tables or the Lincoln equations all of which are found in the literature. Roughly
°P = 1000*(SG -1)/4 so that 1.040 --> 10 °P.
 
Thank you, ajdelange. You obviously have lots of knowledge in brew science. Someday when I have more free time, I'll probably study it more.
 

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