Final gravity affected by sugar water?

[jonathanderick]

Hey y'all! I just cracked open a bottle of my first home-brewed beer! It's surprisingly hoppy and has a bit of a strong alcohol taste. It's a bit flat, considering it's been bottle conditioning for only a week, but it doesn't change the fact that I love the beer and have sparked an addiction for home brewing.

I do have a question about the gravity calculation for those in the know. I measured my Original Gravity which was at 1.060 and the Final Gravity at 1.040. This means the alcohol percentage is 10%, which is fine by me, but I didn't think it was possible with a generic recipe of an American Amber Ale. It sure tastes like 10%, but I want to be positive.

During bottling day, I forgot to take the Final Gravity before adding the corn-sugar-dissolved water. I took the measurement of the wort anyways, but as I said, it was mixed with the sugar water. Would this affect the Final Gravity?

P.S. I raise my first glass of home-brew to all you HBTers!

 

[Walker]

Hey y'all! I just cracked open a bottle of my first home-brewed beer! It's surprisingly hoppy and has a bit of a strong alcohol taste. It's a bit flat, considering it's been bottle conditioning for only a week, but it doesn't change the fact that I love the beer and have sparked an addiction for home brewing.

I do have a question about the gravity calculation for those in the know. I measured my Original Gravity which was at 1.060 and the Final Gravity at 1.040. This means the alcohol percentage is 10%, which is fine by me, but I didn't think it was possible with a generic recipe of an American Amber Ale. It sure tastes like 10%, but I want to be positive.

During bottling day, I forgot to take the Final Gravity before adding the corn-sugar-dissolved water. I took the measurement of the wort anyways, but as I said, it was mixed with the sugar water. Would this affect the Final Gravity?

P.S. I raise my first glass of home-brew to all you HBTers!

some things are not adding up here.

gravity drop from 1.060 to 1.040 would be 2.65% abv.
if you meant 1.060 to 1.004, then that would be 7.38% abv.

The amount of priming solution (sugar water) will have an insignificant impact on the gravity, so you can basically ignore it/

 

[mikebowman]

You must have made a mistake somewhere. That would yield a %ABV of 2.7%. I think you probably read your hydrometer wrong. If you made a kit from extract, the chances are high, unless you added the wrong amount of top-off water, that you hit your target OG, and if you fermented it properly, you probably hit near your FG. how were you reading your hydrometer?

 

[theredben]

That is not a 10% ABV beer. 1.060 should give you around 6% tops, depending on the yeast used.

The addition of the priming sugar really affects the gravity readings. It was probably more like 1.035-37 depending on how much sugar you used.

If you did not take hydrometer reading before bottling, how did you know fermentation was finished?

 

[mhenry41h]

A 1.040 final gravity would be disgustingly sweet and less alcoholic than "dog urine lite." something is amiss...

One brew at a time...

 

[hudsonj6]

In case you're wondering how they're doing the calculation for it, it's [original gravity (OG)-final gravity (FG)]*131=~ABV

 

[mikebowman]

In case you're wondering how they're doing the calculation for it, it's [original gravity (OG)-final gravity (FG)]*131=~ABV

Actually I googled "beer ABV calculator"

 

[jonathanderick]

I've found the error! My final gravity was actually 1.020, contrary to what my inebriated assistant wrote in the beer journal. So, (1.060-1.020)131=5.24. I suppose the lack of carbonation is making the flavors of alcohol more apparent.

I was reading my hydrometer incorrectly on top of that. I was reading the "Balling" measurement (which is for sugar I believe) and combining the reading with the alcohol content measurement. I've learned my lesson to just take gravity measurements and do the math.

@theredben : I decided not to fret too much about fermenting to reach the FG, but to instead just wait the usual fermenting time (it went for about 3 weeks). For my next brew, the focus is definitely going to be precision since I've grasped the general process of brewing from my first trial.