loosing ABV?

[D-U-K-E]

so i put 5gl of apple juice 2lbs of sugar, and yeast in my carboy, and three weeks later things were going well. abv of 4.5, grav of 1.011. I decided to wait another week to make sure the grav didn't keep faling. well its now a week later, and i just opened it to take a grav reading.

Thats when the crap hit the fan. The Abv was barely .5 and the grav was barely 1. i took multiple readings, a couple of hours apart, and even one from the bottom of the carboy...

WHATS GOING ON??

oh and its warm in my house so there isnt a big temp conversion problem....

HELP!

 

[dannypo]

The ABV reading on hydrometers are worthless. The only way to calculate ABV is by comparing the starting SG and the final SG. There is an equation for this but I am to lazy to look. Go to www.howtobrew.com. I know its on there somewhere.

 

[david_42]

The ABV reads are potential, not actual. By the time cider ferments out the potential for more alcohol is zero. Your original reading would have been the maximum potential.

 

[D-U-K-E]

oh, wow, ok....so a very low fg is expected then....right now its at about 1.000?

 

[Yooper]

And you could get as low as .994 or so before it's done. Don't worry about it!

 

[MikeFlynn74]

ahahahahaha DUKE ahahahahaha


Dork

 

[Jaybird]

ahahahahaha DUKE ahahahahaha


Dork

i thought this was funny

 

[BigKahuna]

Formula is Origional Gravity Minus Final Gravity Times 1.3

So if you started at....1.065 (Where My Apfelwein started) and now you are at 1.00:
1.065-1.000 = .065
.065 x 1.3 = .0845

To convert to % Move decimal 2 places to the right..so:
.0845 means you have 8.45% ABV.
Ed Wort says to leave it for 4 weeks MINIMUM, and 8 is better.

RELAX...It's gonna be good. If you don't believe us...look at the 2900 others that love it...or the fact that today there has been: 4916 Gallons made...One Post I read..the guy didn't like it.