Help me figure out the gravity

[bigbeerdsbrewing]

I have made this before and it turns out like 17-18% wine. The 93y/o man who gave me the recipe calls it brandy. I've made it with blueberries raspberries and peaches. I'm going to make a batch this fall and instead of using super high gravity ale yeast I was thinking about trying something else. Any ideas? Also I want to change up the rescipe a little. I want to do 6lbs peaches 5lbs honey 6lbs sugar 2lbs raisins and 3 lemons. I'll post the original recipe below so you guys can compare. How would one go about figuring out the gravity of this? Let me know what you guys think.



10lbs suger
3 gallons water
4lbs raisins
3 lemons
1/2 cake yeast
4lbs fresh fruit
boil 3 gallons water, add fruit that is cut up, sugar lemons, and yeast. let sit for 1 week stirring once a day and cover with cloth. at end of one week add 4 lbs. of raisins and mix well.do not disturb for the next 3 weeks. leave it alone, this is very important. strain and put in to gallons. pour thru cheese cloth. let sit and pour into small bottles. ( do not disturb sediment or it won't be clear).
Make sure you tell your friend how cool the 87 year old that gave you this recipe is and to toast on mr. burkhart when he opens his batch.

 

[normonster]

Cheers to Mr. Burkhart!

If I'm understanding you correctly you are wanting to measure the Specific Gravity of your recipe. The note that it came out 17-18% indicates that you already know how to check gravity and calculate abv from those readings, but if that was maybe must mentioned to you by said 93 year old man, the way you do it is to get a refractometer and take a Gravity reading before boil, one after boil, and one after fermentation (with a hydrometer, not refractometer). From readings two and three you can determine your abv using any online calculator of by using the formula (that I'm not going to look up).

 

[bigbeerdsbrewing]

I was looking for some type of fermentable calculator. Like what gravity a lb of peaches would be in a gal of water. What gravity would honey, raisins and regular table sugar be per lb per gallon. That way I could predict the og kinda like the way beersmith does. Thanks for the help

 

[normonster]

Oah, gotcha. BS has sugar for sure, but raisins and stuff might be harder to find. If you can't find stats for them you might consider just downsizing to a quart, mash them in separate containers, take SG reading, then do the math to scale up to a gallon.