Gravity of sugars?

[matrim]

I was wondering if there was a good table or something illustrating gravity raising potential of different sugars?

I've searched these forums and found varying info but would like something that would show me how many gravity points a specific weight of sugar would add to a specific volume of juice, at room temp.

By sugars, I guess I mean fermentables: table sugar, brown sugar, honey, dextrose, DME, candi syrup, caramel, cane sugar, raisins maybe, etc.

Thanks more experienced ones

 

[GinKings]

Nothing beats taking a gravity reading, but you can estimate gravities for recipe formulation and such. I would take gravity readings to three decimal places to avoid errors. Shortening 1.050 to 1.05 can get confusing.

One lb of sugar or DME in a gallon will raise gravity by 45 points. Let's say you have a cider with a gravity of 1.048 and you add one lb sugar per gallon. 48 + 45 = 93 or you can expect a gravity around 1.093.

Honey can vary, but a good average is 80% sugar. LME is also 80% sugar. Pure sugar is 45 points, so 80% of that is 36 points (45 * .80 = 36) So, one lb of honey or LME in a gallon raises gravity by 36 points.

I use the mead calculator at www.gotmead.com to get approximate sugar content of various fruits. Raisins are approx. 65% sugar. Raspberries around 5%, etc, etc. Do the math like I did for honey and LME.

These numbers are for one pound in a gallon. Not for one pound added to a gallon. This doesn't matter too much for sugar because volume doesn't increase by much, but it does for honey, fruit, etc. There are twelve lbs of honey in a gallon. Adding twelve lbs honey to 5 gallons water makes your batch size 6 gallons, not 5.

Let's say you want to make a cyser with 5 gallons cider at 1.048 and 6 lbs honey. 6 lbs honey has a volume of 1/2 gallon, so batch size is 5.5 gallons. 5 gallons cider at 1.048 (or 48) gives you 5*48 = 240 points. 6 lbs honey gives you 6 * 36 = 216 points. Your batch has 240 + 216 = 456 total points of gravity. Divide by batch size. 456 / 5.5 = 83. So, you can expect an OG of 1.083.

Make sense?

 

[Rbeckett]

Thank you GinKing!!!! I never quite understood how to do those calculations, but it is clear and understandable now. Thanks for a great post.
Bob

 

[matrim]

+1 Rbeckett.

Thanks for the great response. Makes sense!