chrisedjohn
Active Member
I've been dreaming up a way to determine the gravity of my beer throughout fermentation witout sampling 8 oz at time and exposing it to oxygen and potentially infections. I'm thinking the ways I can do this would be to either accurately measure the weight of the carboy and beer and monitor it's change (i.e. the weight loss of carbon dioxide could tell me how much ethynol is present) or accurately monitor the volume if I could expect a reliable amount to be lost through fermentation.
Oh, and did I mention I'm cheap, so I'd rather make something than spend $100+ on an expensive scale? Between monitoring weight or volume, volume would be WAY easier for me to do cheaply and accurately, but I'm concerned about two things right now. First, after running some calculations of an average beer fermentation (i.e. 5 gal of OG = 1.040, FG = 1.005), I estimate a beer weight loss of about 1.44 lbs (of CO2). I can calulate the volume of the CO2 gas after it's left given the amount I expect to remain saturated in the liquid, but where I'm stumped is that after trying a few different approaches to calculating the expected volume left behind - I'm not seeing any measurable difference (actually even a slight increase).
So... I'm wondering if any of you, by practice or calculation, can attest to a measurable difference in volume during fermentation (given none was taken out and adjusting for volume changes due to temperature changes).
Thoughts?
Oh, and did I mention I'm cheap, so I'd rather make something than spend $100+ on an expensive scale? Between monitoring weight or volume, volume would be WAY easier for me to do cheaply and accurately, but I'm concerned about two things right now. First, after running some calculations of an average beer fermentation (i.e. 5 gal of OG = 1.040, FG = 1.005), I estimate a beer weight loss of about 1.44 lbs (of CO2). I can calulate the volume of the CO2 gas after it's left given the amount I expect to remain saturated in the liquid, but where I'm stumped is that after trying a few different approaches to calculating the expected volume left behind - I'm not seeing any measurable difference (actually even a slight increase).
So... I'm wondering if any of you, by practice or calculation, can attest to a measurable difference in volume during fermentation (given none was taken out and adjusting for volume changes due to temperature changes).
Thoughts?