HOMEBREW Digest #5324 Wed 23 April 2008


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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Estimating Original Gravity ("A.J deLange")
  Re: Forgot to record the starting SG (stencil)
  Forgot to record S.G. (Scott Birdwell)
  Attention Arkansas Brewers ("Ken Haycook")
  re: Forgot to record the starting SG ("jeff_ri")

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:58:50 -0400 From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net> Subject: Estimating Original Gravity There are several ways to estimate the original gravity. The easiest would be to estimate the moisture content of the honey (or measure it if you still have some). It's been a while since I've worked with bees but I think the maximum allowable moisture content fom commercial honey is 14% (?). Thus your 29 lbs of honey contains 0.86*29 = 24.94 lbs sugar in 15 gallons of solution. Let's guess that you used 14 gallons of water. This weighs 8.3*14 = 116.2 lbs which, with 24.9 lbs of sugar gives you a total of 141.14 lbs. Thus the strength of the solution is 24.94/141.14 = 17.67 Plato. Consultation of the tables shows that a 17.67 P solution has a specific gravity of 1.073 (or just multiplying the "points" by 4 gives 1.071) which means that the weight of the solution is 8.3*1.073*V = 141.4 pounds where V is the volume in gallons. Thus V = 141.4/8.3/1.073 = 15.87 gal which means that the 14 gal guess was too much. So repeat with 13 gal which leads to 24.94/(13*8.3 + 24.94) = 18.77 P and a specific gravity of 1.078 for a mixed volume of 132.84/8.3/1.078 = 14.85 gallons which is less than 15 gallons so a guess of 13 gallons starting water is too small. At this point you can do a linear interpolation (the underlying math is not linear but close enough over this small range). The rate of change of final volume with repect to initial volume is (15.87 - 14.85)/(14 - 13) = 1.02 gal/gal and as you finished with 15 gallons which is 0.15 gal more than 14.85 you probably started with 13 + 0.15/1.02 = 13.147 gal. Using this as above the weight of water plus sugar is 13.147*8.3 + 24.9 = 134.02 pounds for a strength of 24.9/134.02 = 18.58 P. A solution of this strength has SG = 1.0767 for a final volume of 134.02/8.3/1.0767 = 14.9967 gal which is certainly close enough to 15. Thus your initial gravity was about 18.58 P or 1.077 SG. A practical one might be found by taking .29 pounds (4.64 Oz) of the honey and making 0.15 gal (38.4 fl oz) of must and then measuring the specific gravity of that. Yet another method is to measure the alcohol content and true extract of the finished mead and back calculate the original gravity from that. As few have access to direct measurement of alcohol (not that hard with an ebulliometer) I won't go into how that's done but if you do measure alcohol or can get it done post again and I'll discuss how back calculation is done. A.J. Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:37:52 -0400 From: stencil <etcs.ret at verizon.net> Subject: Re: Forgot to record the starting SG On Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:34:07 -0400, in Homebrew Digest #5323 (April 22, 2008) Gary Smith wrote: >------------------------------ > I used 29 pounds of honey in >15 gallons and introduced this to the yeast bed of the batch I just >transferred. The usual rule of thumb is 42 point-gallons per pound of honey, which works out to 1081. Or put four ounces weight of honey in a jar, add a pint of water (OR add water to make a pint - your post is ambiguous on this point) and record the SG of this model. This mini-must can be added to the exsisting ferment without harm. gds, stencil Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:00:04 -0500 From: Scott Birdwell <defalcos at sbcglobal.net> Subject: Forgot to record S.G. Gary Smith wrote: "Though this has to do with Mead & not Beer perhaps someone here has the solution I need. I was in a hurry as I had to leave for New Hampshire and was finishing a batch of Mead before I left. I used 29 pounds of honey in 15 gallons and introduced this to the yeast bed of the batch I just transferred. The original yeast was Wyeast sweet mead and a Champagne yeast. I forgot to record the starting SG..." I was guess-timate your SG with the following formula: honey generally has about the same density as malt extract, so: 1 lb. honey/water to 1 gallon = 1.036 29 lbs. X 36 = 1044 point divided by 15 gallons comes up just shy of 1.070 . That would be my best guess for your OG. Hope this helps! Scott Birdwell DeFalco's Home Wine & Beer Supplies Houston TX www.defalcos.com Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:05:58 -0500 From: "Ken Haycook" <k.haycook at sbcglobal.net> Subject: Attention Arkansas Brewers Announcing the first Homebrew competition for the Arkansas State Fair. More information can be found on the web site www.centralarkansasfermenters.com. Let me know if I can answer any questions. Ken Haycook, PMP Kendel Group (501) 351-3942 Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:24:06 -0400 From: "jeff_ri" <jeff_ri at cox.net> Subject: re: Forgot to record the starting SG Hi All, In HBD #5323 Gary Smith asked about calculating the SG for a batch of mead. This is easy to do with the info you gave in your post. The SG points are equal to the lbs of honey times the "points per lb per gallon", all divided by the volume of the batch. The "points per lb per gallon" is the number of SG points you would get by dissolving 1 lb of honey into a 1 gallon batch size. For honey, this number is approximately 35 (numbers for malt extracts and other fermentables are available too). For your example, the SG would be ( 29 * 35 ) / 15 = 67.7 (so the SG would be about 1.068). Jeff McNally Tiverton, RI (652.2 miles, 90.0 deg) A.R. www.southshorebrewclub.org Return to table of contents
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