I crush my fruit, add pectic enzymes and wait 24h, add the syrup and stir it up, then take the original gravity reading, add yeast and macerate, press it out and move on to secondary fermentation, then at the end of secondary take the final gravity reading and calculate the ABV.
But then I won't have factored in the pulp leeching out juices during maceration with the help of the pectic enzymes and the fermentation breaking down the fruit, neither will I have factored in the extra juices from when I press and move to secondary - all of which have a different density than the sugar water mixture (with minimal fruit juice from the crushing) that I used to calculate my original gravity from in the beginning. As more juice gets into the must the amount of liquid will increase as the amount of pulp decrease, and the lower density in the fruit juice in comparison to the must it's leeching out into will pull down the density, distorting any gravity reading. Because if this, unless I have a good strategy to factor in all of this, my calculated ABV won't be the actual ABV, but probably lower (10% instead of 13% for instance).
What is a good strategy to factor in all of this to get an accurate ABV in the end? I have made my own strategy where I keep track of the amount of actual liquid as well as the specific gravity and do a lot of calculations for each major step so that I can factor in the dilution and more (very long story made short) - however this can feel a bit math-tedious and I suspect that I might still be missing something and still getting an inaccurate ABV.
But then I won't have factored in the pulp leeching out juices during maceration with the help of the pectic enzymes and the fermentation breaking down the fruit, neither will I have factored in the extra juices from when I press and move to secondary - all of which have a different density than the sugar water mixture (with minimal fruit juice from the crushing) that I used to calculate my original gravity from in the beginning. As more juice gets into the must the amount of liquid will increase as the amount of pulp decrease, and the lower density in the fruit juice in comparison to the must it's leeching out into will pull down the density, distorting any gravity reading. Because if this, unless I have a good strategy to factor in all of this, my calculated ABV won't be the actual ABV, but probably lower (10% instead of 13% for instance).
What is a good strategy to factor in all of this to get an accurate ABV in the end? I have made my own strategy where I keep track of the amount of actual liquid as well as the specific gravity and do a lot of calculations for each major step so that I can factor in the dilution and more (very long story made short) - however this can feel a bit math-tedious and I suspect that I might still be missing something and still getting an inaccurate ABV.