Measuring Alcohol when adding sugars in secondary

[bcbeatty]

When I add sugar or honey how do measure the alcohol? View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1437222284.798392.jpg

OG: 1.044
Secondary Gravity: 1.0

 

[Maylar]

Subtract the finished gravity from the OG and multiply by 131. For your case (1.044 - 1.000) * 131 = 5.7%

If you add sugar to secondary you would add the change to the OG number. Ex if you bring it up to 1.010 and let it ferment back to 1.000 it would be the same as having 1.054 initially.

Umm... I think that's how it works, anyway...

 

[ajdelange]

That's going to be a little tricky. One way would be to take the specific gravity of the starting juice, convert to Plato, use that to determine the total extract in the original juice, add the weight of the honey or sugar added, assume that it is 60% fermented (or pick some other number you like - its a WAG) and use the Balling formula (2.665 grams of extract produce 1 gram of alcohol) to compute the mass of alcohol produced. Convert that to volume and divide by the volume of the finished cider.

If you really mean 'measure the alcohol' (and I'm pretty sure you don't) you do it the same way as ordinarily. Distill the product and measure the density of the distillate.

 

[MindenMan]

I add fermentables in stages, and I calculate the ABV as if I added all the fermentables in the very beginning.