Fruit in beer! How do I get and accurate ABV%?

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jackson_d

jackson_d

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Hello

Brewed the Wheat beer two weekends ago. OG 1.064. Yesterday the G was 1.014. Not Bad. So then we added the Oregon Raspberry fruit puree. Its bubbling again, as expected. But how how do I get and accurate ABV%? Should I have taken another hydrometer reading right after I put the fruit in? The sugar in the fruit will produce some more alcohol right? How do I figure out what the final ABV will be?
 
I would guess you will wind up with about a 7% ABV.

Last fruit wheat I brewed, I picked up about a half a point when I added the fruit.
 
I had this dilemma with adding wild cranberries to Apfelwien as I was curious what the final ABV% would be. I mashed the cranberries and then took 2-3 drops on a refractometer to measure the sugar contect (BRIX). You can covert this to gravity (roughly times 4) and get an idea of how much sugar you are adding to your wort.
 
Just guessing - if you take a gravity reading just before adding the fruit and then after the addition (allowing some time to mix) you could add the difference to your SG. I suspect that you might still come out a little low, as there will be a some sugar in the fruit that won't make it into the wort for a while.
 
Taking a reading after racking will get you nowhere. You are not going to mix the fruit into the beer. If it were me, I wouldn't worry about it and just drink it. If it really bothers you, MNBugeater's way will get you close.
 
Thanks gentlemen. Not really concerned, just curious if it will add two points or not. Its bubbling real hard right now and it was in primary for 2 weeks before we racked.. Excited to drink that stuff..
 
ToledoDave said:
Just guessing - if you take a gravity reading just before adding the fruit and then after the addition (allowing some time to mix) you could add the difference to your SG. I suspect that you might still come out a little low, as there will be a some sugar in the fruit that won't make it into the wort for a while.
Click to expand...

I think that's the problem with anything other than purees. I racked a wit onto green apple chunks and have no idea the amount of sugar that will have been introduced overall.
 

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