How to Measure Alcohol Content

[@ClawhammerSupply]

NOTE: The discount code "CLAWHAMMER10" for 10% off is only valid 4 weeks from the publish date of the video!

[@fourmula4812]

when some one wants to think normal thought in life > call them spirits the thoughts of it

[@jonparry6462]

The MBAA podcast had a recent episode comparing 4 different density measurement methods. They found the "homebrew" hydrometer to be the least accurate and least precise, but also the cheapest. The refractometer performed much better, although they were using a pro model (not the cheap plastic ones homebrewers use), and clearly knew how to correctly convert the refractive index to density.

[@keithjohnson713]

Hey, thanks so much for your video. I currently have been brewing my own homemade hard kombucha for a few months but struggling to know when to best take the OG hydrometer reading and Final reading. Phase 1 of my brew is first fermentation with the SCOBY and sugar black tea for 8 days. Phase 2 is my second fermentation moving my kombucha to two 1-gallon glass jars with the airlock and adding in champagne yeast mixed into two cups of sugar water to "wake up" the yeast. This phase is also 8 days. Phase 3 is when I move my kombucha to two different 1-gallon glass jars where I add my dried fruit and keep airtight for 5 days before putting into the fridge. Based on the above process, when do you think is best to take my initial hydrometer reading and final hydrometer reading? I'm trying to figure out the ABV% of my batches now that I have a set and written process. Any help or recommendations would be much appreciated.

[@fox189]

I use both (hydro and refrac), but after pitching the yeast it is all hydrometer. The other thing I do is calibrate the refractometer to the water I use. Not distilled water. If you are brewing with distilled water only then that is fine but I don't believe most people are. I filter my brewing water and sparge water and that is my starting point. Not distilled because I'm to cheap to buy 10 gallons of it. Like Kyle says I have done many brews and there is a difference from the two readings, but after time they have came out close to one point away. I won't give you any hate for the vid. We are all on a journey together to try and make the best beer we can with what we are given! Knowledge is always evolving and for someone not willing to try is where we fail in the hobby. I have brewed so many good beers and also bad ones but that is how we become better, because of the community and videos like this where what works for you may not work for the other person or be in their budget. Keep brewing everyone!

[@Leo99929]

I'd like to see you do a side by side to compare these methods accuracy, cost, and faff: Use 100% fermentable sugar. An accurate 10.00g in 1000ml of water, for example. Record temperature. Check and adjust calibration of any devices that require (refractometer). Take your OG measurements. Record temperature. Let it ferment out. Get it to the same temperature as it was. Take your final measurements. (including mass and volume) Refractometer reading needs to be "corrected" because sugar has been converted to alcohol with a different refractive index. Quantify how much they disagree. You can then throw in some noise factors to see how big a difference they make. Variables like: Add food colouring (often alcohol based, so check this. A small difference in density is expected) Add an unfermentable soluble element. To raise FG without affecting colour or alcohol content. High water salts or unfermentable sugar like Lactose? Temperature. Noting the reported SG, and the corrected SG. How expensive was your device? An expensive refractometer might be more accurate than a cheap hydrometer?

[@Leo99929]

IMO it's horses for courses: I'm not doing a hydrometer trial before I chill the wort, but it's useful to know how extraction and sparging are going, along with if you need to adjust the boil to hit target OG. A refractometer is more useful for that because it's thermal mass corrects the temperature faster than a hydrometer can get results and with less faff and I only need approximate figures. Then I use my iSpindel for OG and fermentation, with refractometer to sanity check. FG I'll use the refractometer with a correction factor. Hydrometer if the alcohol measurement actually matters, in which case I'll have taken an OG with it as well.

[@LuisRodriguez-h3n]

Will the hydrometer also work for hard kombucha and mead? Or is it only for beer? Same question for the Easy Dens, can it be used for measuring ABV with hard kombucha and beer?

[@edwardsellers5741]

So what is “the end of brew”? Is that right before I the yeast?

[@1kreature]

By the way: ABV label on beer does not have to be accurate to 0.1% the requirement is that they need to list it to within 0.1% with tolerance of +/- 0.3 so in your test the accuracy of the meters +/- 0.3 and with a 0.05 rounding shows they are both in same tolerance range.

[@hl7529]

Holy. This answered one of my biggest headaches about brewing beer. I just couldn't wrap my head around it. Ver VERY well explained. Now I understand. Thank you!

[@marcoz2470]

Different than this but I was looking up seltzer stuff on google and I guess one of the frequent questions they have was how to make seltzers at home and another one was how do I start making seltzers and google was providing a link to your seltzer video. Thought that was pretty neat.

[@OwlCreekHS]

What's your opinion on the accuracy of using a TILT for OG and FG?

[@bananaegger]

what about using a scale before and after fermentation with the same volume? Because densitiy of alcohol is lower than water. It is the same like using hydrometer.

[@utoobia]

I, too, have an alcoholomometerizorator. Excellent.

[@taboots67]

why does my proffing hydrometer not measure a thicker alcohol in brandy ? it was thicker than the rum that i used

[@littlerockware]

I thought I would upgrade to a refractometer when I broke my hydrometer. Great for your starting sg but found final sg to still be high ( hydrometer showed dry, your miles may very). Great for a backup or salt water tanks.

[@keaneellis4743]

unrelated, but you guys should release a video where you try and clone the Mural Agua Fresca Cerveza made in partnership with New Belgium. Been messing around on my own with no success, so figured you guys are smart enough to come up with something.

[@harrietlukonde3154]

How do buy One

[@MARKJOHNCASTRO-f9k]

how he get the 131.25? what is it?

[@Aleph_Null_Audio]

I use a refractometer in conjunction with a hydrometer. I find it useful for quick and dirty readings at the beginning and end of the boil to make sure I'm in the ball park and don't need to make changes to stay on track. I definitely don't use my refractometer to get "official" measurements.

[@TheHalfDemon]

I'm a fan of using a regular hydrometer for getting SG while brewing. During fermentation, I use a Kegland Rapt Pill Floating hydrometer in conjunction with their temp controller. Ton of control over the whole process and the price for the controller and the floating hydrometer is under 200 bucks. You can also link the temp controller to Brewfather or others and have all the data logged. The Pill floating hydrometer is pretty accurate once calibrated and gives to a ton additional features such as controlling temp of fermentation chamber by SG... Awsome for creating a profile to raise the temp at the end of fermentation biased on SG and then have it cold crash automatedly after a few days.

[@iflanzy]

Moving my comment over to this one because why not So here's why I use a refractometer. I've tested it against my hydrometer and it matched for my first 3 brews with it so I stopped taking hydrometer readings and starting just going with the refractometer. It also matched up with my TILT, which has a 6 points calibration against my hydrometer. Third, I only do 2.5 gallon batches so having to take a hydrometer reading before and after fermentation wastes a lot of potential beer so a few drops on the refractometer is good enough and accurate enough for me.

[@greybeard27]

I like to test it by drinking a pint and seeing how I feel 5 minutes later.

[@ClawhammerSupply]

Hahahah. This may be my new method of choice.

[@Maria-qm9cg]

Lol

[@austinmoreno8486]

This is how I’ve been doing it but sometimes I feel it may just be my blood sugar and excitement of my first time brewing 🤣💀😂

[@logtothebase2]

We used to use a Gas Chromatograph with flame ionisation detector, employing a 1M packed column with a PEG20 M Stationary phase and direct injection.

[@Leo99929]

Segal's Law: “A man with one watch always knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure.” I calibrated my iSpindel using two hydrometers, a refractometer, and I used a 0.01g scale for the sugar, 1g scale for the water. Tested the temperature with two alcohol thermometers, two thermocouples, and an IR thermometer. None of them agreed. I went with the measured density from the scale as I could verify it's accuracy using calibration weights. We're making beer. If you're not selling it then you want to know roughly what the ABV is so people can make informed decisions, and you want to know when it's finished/if you have any problems. My iSpindel is now accurate enough by itself for both those purposes.

[@Leo99929]

So the Anton Paar stuff is good to 0.5% ABV? Say I brew a 5% ABV beer, that's 10% variation, assuming you didn't mean, +/-0.5% ABV which would be 20%... So if that's acceptable accuracy, then how far off is a standard refractometer? I'd be surprised if it were more than 0.5% ABV out.

[@ClawhammerSupply]

Brian at Short Circuited did a video on refractometers and his numbers were much more typical of how off we've seen them (more than 1.5% off). When you're using a refractometer to try and dial in a recipe, it's going to cause a bunch of problems because you'll be making changes to the recipe that don't need to be changed, you'll be question your efficiency and wondering what's wrong with your equipment, etc.

[@Leo99929]

@@ClawhammerSupply All of his readings were +0.009 to +0.010 out, which suggests his refractometer was mis calibrated. Or just take 0.010 off the reported value. Then you're 0.001 off at most, or 0.15%.

[@jasonstone1046]

My Refractometer says 1.049 .. Correct value 1.043 ... I'd say your analysis is correct!

[@Jango1989]

Honestly, hydrometer is fine. If you want a chemistry lab then go for it but a hydrometer will give you good readings. It is definitely important to cool your wort down and warm your beer up when using it though to make sure it's at the correct temp. Especially with very hot wort, you will get wildly inaccurate readings. If you just run you flask under a tap whilst being careful not to get any water in the sample, it will cool very quickly.

[@AlbeeSoaring]

Curios why you made the first version of this video unlisted now and reuploaded this version? There are good comments in the comments section of the unlisted video.

[@kashim73]

It was missing the links in the description.

[@AlbeeSoaring]

@@kashim73 Could have just went in and edited the post instead of unlisting the first one and reposting a second one.

[@ClawhammerSupply]

Messed up the formula, which another commenter pointed out.

[@AlbeeSoaring]

@@ClawhammerSupply Gotcha.

[@jeffreycoburn4979]

Dammit. I knew something has been a bit weird cuz I never ever get anywhere close to the same mash efficiency ever since I started using a Refractometer. I thought they were fine for OG readings but after watching this I’ll just stick to my hydrometer for both OG and FG. Thanks for the info! Cheers!

[@jimsonjohnson3761]

Such a pain in the ass. I don't even measure anymore. As long as you mill fine and mash for an hour or an hour and a half then you'll be just fine on the estimation

[@Swede_4_DragonBeliever]

Greetings from Sweden! You, Sir, just got yourself a new subscriber and a like 🎉

[@1kreature]

Not wrong, just misunderstood... The great thing about using a refractometer after ferment is to compare it to the SG from the hydrometer. There is now a way to calculate abv from the discrepancy due to the difference in density vs refraction of alcohol vs sugar in solution. If you want to measure SG to know when to stop fermenting however, just use a hydrometer and stop faffing about.

[@Big_Gregg_B]

I should've paid attention in math & science class...

[@dmangTV]

reupload?

[@ClawhammerSupply]

Yup! Mistake in the original.

[@honeyroux]

very good info!😗

[@nickcentrone1679]

I just brew and drink,😂😂😂😂😂

[@ejmtv3]

Im drunk after this video

[@NWsmallbatchBrewing]

100% on the refalseometers

[@JohnnyReverse]

sooooo this was just a commercial for a $400 hydrometer?

[@AtlasFlynn]

The first time I home brewed I thought my hydrometer said my lager was 46% alcohol. So maybe I need to pay attention to this vid...

[@volkinaxe]

is there one that dose not need a app just looking for something that is ez to use that dose not need any internet coneted to it why as some times the makers just brick the thing you payed for

[@craigkinney853]

Refractometers are rubbish? I did not know this.

[@MicroSessionsBrewing]

I have found them to be highly inaccurate and inconsistent.

[@dudestewbrews]

Yeah, good to get you a general idea rather than concrete numbers. Makes for a great way to estimate pre-boil gravity in my experience.

[@craigkinney853]

I thought I was using mine incorrectly. Turns out, a good old float will do it. Need a glass container as I melted my last one when measuring the post boil gravity.

[@johnnyfixedit6925]

Refracs alcohol testers only any good with spirits. Tested alongside proofing hydrometer and refractometer every time it's been the same. Never liked H.B beer But currently looking at spirits which is eventually mixed with hops to make a "flavoured" beer?haha

[@KtotheC6342]

Why ×131.25

[@Duci1989]

I think your disliking of refractometers is hilareous. I do like 'em though. I don't care that much for the alcohol content, and rarely take a reading of the finished beer anyways. The thing just tells me if I'm in the ball park or not. I do recognize sediment makes the readings vary wildly. Which is annoying.

[@tateastill]

refractometer = so many corrections

[@garrymcgaw4745]

COOL!

[@KapteinFruit]

I was at a bar yesterday, some guy flagged me down and said he'd buy me a beer. Turns out he was a part of a famous robbery where Im from. Anyway, I had a bottle of vodka and the bartender noticed. Long story short he held on to it and today I was worried it had been watered down. Turns out ice cold vodka just doesnt taste the same. It lit on fire and it was 40%, so I guess he didn't.

[@JeffreyIrish-b9f]

Sir I have read 15 times and still have no idea what you're trying to say. I genuinely feel like I might be having a stroke. Like who held on to "it" what is "it" and what didn't he do?

[@leighkthemusicman]

@@JeffreyIrish-b9fliterally me too

[@viscous8909]

😂😂 so funny great story i get the joke!

[@dimewyt7364]

Alcoholomometerizorator

[@crushedrighthand3090]

refractometer is a waste of money... hard to be accurate and still have to do math. Meh

[@hamedthqafi9514]

Drink With Me

[@gunnernic2531]

couldnt agree more about the refractometer, absolute garbage