% Alcohol from Sugar?

[easymode]

I was wondering, does anyone know how much alcohol would be produced in a 1 gallon batch from 1lb light DME and 6oz sugar?

 

[Yooper]

I was wondering, does anyone know how much alcohol would be produced in a 1 gallon batch from 1lb light DME and 6oz sugar?

All of it, as alcohol is created by the yeast "eating" the sugar and producing c02 and alcohol as byproducts.

But, if you are asking what the ABV of such a concoction may be (assuming the DME and sugar are dissolved in water and then ale yeast added), it would be in the area of 6-6.4% or so. Since that's a lot of sugar, relatively speaking, at 27%, it may not be a very tasty drink but it should pack a punch.

 

[easymode]

You lost me when you said 27%...

 

[sfgoat]

She means 27% of total grain weight. It will not taste very good. If you are using a (roasty/caramel) type dme it might hide the taste a bit but it wouldn't make a very good beer.

 

[easymode]

It's a light DME. I add flavoring after. It's a hard root beer recipe.

 

[sfgoat]

Gotcha. That's an important detail. But yooper hit it with about 6% abv.

 

[easymode]

Awesome! Thanks for the input.

If I wanted to get 8%+, how much more sugar would need to be added?

 

[frazier]

I did some meth, and came up with about 11 oz instead of 6. But don't ask me to show my work, I filled up a chalkboard already.

Ha, funny typo, I think I'll leave it.

 

[Brauer]

I did some meth, and came up with about 11 oz instead of 6. But don't ask me to show my work, I filled up a chalkboard already.

Ha, funny typo, I think I'll leave it.

Yea leave it, I got a good laugh out of reading "I did some meth"!

 

[easymode]

11oz? Did you mean percent?

 

[frazier]

No I meant ounces. Just DME will get you about 4.5%. Add 6 oz sugar, it bumps up to 6.5%. So 11 oz gets you close to 8 - 8.5%.

Do the meth yourself if you need to.

Cheers!

 

[easymode]

Lol meth

Sorry, I don't know the math. If you're providing a link could you provide a link for me to do the conversions of sugar to alcohol? If it's not a link could you provide the formula?

 

[Qhrumphf]

Figuring 45 ppg each from the DME and the sugar (rough approximation), one pound of sugar or DME per gallon yields a gravity of 1.045. My fast dime store math, 45 ppg by 1.375 total pounds for 61.9 gravity points per gallon, or a gravity of 1.062 in one gallon. Assuming that the sugar attenuates fully, and the DME attenuates 75% (call that average attenuation), that's an FG of +/- 1.011 (zero gravity left from sugar, and 25% of the points from the DME), and then (OG-FG)*131.25 yields approximately 6.5% ABV. If the DME stays the same and attenuates the same, and the sugar still attenuates fully, FG might stay fairly similar, at approx 1.011. For 8%, work it backwards. 8 = [((45+45x/16)/1000)+1)-1.011]*131.25, where x is your oz of sugar. I get about 9.5 oz sugar on top of your 1 lb DME for 8% ABV.

Of course, this is basic dime store math, with a lot of assumptions made, and if these other folks are using software that more accurately quantifies the things I'm simplifying, then I would go with their figures.