Query - ABV

[skitter]

Hello!

So I have been brewing for 2+ years now, and never owned a hydrometer until yesterday...

That being said I decided to make a simple cider using the following:

2 x 1 Gallon Jugs of Musslemans Cider (apple juice and ascorbic acid only listed ingredients)
2x 12oz Cans Old Orchard Apple Juice Concentrate
24oz added water (rinsing the cans)
2c Brown Sugar
2 tbsp. Cinnimon Extract (home-made, Everclear + cinnamon sticks soaking for a year)

Pitched on top of about 1/2c US-05 yeast cake, fermented at 66 degrees for 2 weeks.

I measured my FG just for a test more than anything, and was sitting at .997 so I'm pretty sure fermentation was done.

Question being, is there any way to use the information above to determine what OG should have been?

 

[poptarts]

calculate total points of sugar and devide by volume. the juice and concentrate should be labeled how many grams per serving so you should get a good number there. weigh out 2 cups of sugar, look up point values, I think sugar is 40 per lb give or take. so if you ended up with 120 points say, and 2 gallons of cider it would be 120 / 2 so 1.060. as a side note you should always weigh dry ingredients to keep accuracy btw.

 

[Dan1]

Just over a week ago, I started two batches from store-bought apple juice and cider. Here's what I found that might (or might not) be helpful to you, plus my estimate for yours:

The juice from concentrate measured at about 1.045 before I added anything else. The unfiltered fresh-pressed style cider of the same brand (about twice as expensive) measured between 1.055 and 1.06 -- I estimated 1.058.

To the juice from concentrate, I added 3/4 cup of brown sugar to one gallon, and it brought the gravity up about .015 to 1.06. That converts to .005 per 1/4 cup per gallon of brown sugar, or .02 per cup per gallon.

If you got not-from-concentrate cider like this: http://musselmans.com/media/1185/10838_mm_nutritionalinfo_freshpressedcider_128oz.pdf -- then probably your initial gravity was close to not-from-concentrate cider I got. Let's say 1.055.

If you added two cups of brown sugar to two gallons, it probably brought it up to 1.075 (one cup per gallon).

My guess is that the cinnamon extract did not make a huge difference in the gravity, but I've never used anything like it before, so I'm not sure.

The big question then is how much the concentrate affected the OG. I've never used cans of concentrate before. It's pretty easy to estimate it, as it dilutes at 4:1. If you use the store-bought juice from concentrate as the example, which was 1.045, then (if I'm calculating this right), the gravity of undiluted concentrate is 1.18.

Combining 1.075 across 256 oz to 24 oz of 1.18, I come up with an estimated original gravity of about 1.085.

If it fermented to .997, that means the ABV estimate is 11.5% -- strong stuff.

My estimates could be way off (someone with more experience should probably chime in), but that's what I come up with, and it passes the eyeball test to me -- you added a LOT of extra sugar for just 2 gallons.

 

[skitter]

I did 2g of musslemans + the concentrate, i only dilluted with an additional 24oz water (filled each can once) so if thats correct holy geez...

 

[skitter]

I actually tried this at bottling time, drank the remainder of the priming bucket that wouldn't fit in the bottle. It tasted very tart, even with the 6TBSP of Xylitol I added to the priming mixture. We shall see how this ends up in the long run. I hope the cinnamon flavor makes itself more pronounced.

If I make this again I may end up cutting the sugar down to 1c, and changing 1/2g of the Musslemans to a 1/2g bottle of Trader Joes Spiced Apple Cider, it makes a killer moonshine.

I was NOT expecting the US-05 to take it down that far, as it usually leaves a pretty malty profile in my beers.