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Silly readings

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Olddrunk

NewBee
Registered Member
Dec 14, 2015
2
0
0
Hi and thanks for the add.

I've been making kit beers for many years and recently built a still to play with. This works fine with spare beer with the hydrometers and alcohol meters reading correctly.

I ordered some Alcotec 48 and put it in a five gallon bucket to brew along with 8 kg of white sugar and 2 kg of Malt.

The fermentation seemed to go well and is now under an airlock passing a bubble every 20 seconds or so.

However I am now at day 5-6 and can't get a sensible reading from any meter. The alcohol meter reads 10 and the hydrometer reads 1.99

The brew tastes of strong alcohol so I think it is ok but why the silly readings?

Thanks for any help.
 
Last edited:
something is not right. 8 kg of sugar is about 18 lbs or about 3.6 lbs per gallon. By calculation the SG should read about 1.144. One pound of malt in a gallon of liquid provides about 35 points of gravity and you say you have have 2 Kg in 5 gallons or about .88 lbs /gallon of malt which should raise the gravity another 30 points per gallon. So I would think that an hydrometer ought to read about 1.174 (1.144 plus .030) or about 23% ABV. I have no idea what the 10 means or where 1.99 is coming from.. The specific gravity of honey is about 1.445 - so 1.99 must be as dense as ... wood or brick
 
I'm guessing your ferment blazed by like lightning, and you're sitting at 0.99, not 1.99. Also, when speaking in gravity, it is customary to express to the thousandth, that is three digits to the right of the decimal.

Anyway, it looks like the above calculations are pretty close to what I'd project. 18 pounds of sugar, at 46 gravity points per pound per gallon (according to my research) would give you an OG of 1.165 assuming a five gallon batch. If you're tasting and smelling alcohol, that's because you've spiked up to 20+%!
 
Just FYI, discussion of distillation is banned on this forum.
As distillation is illegal in the US and this is a US based site, being shut down for educating Americans on an illegal subject is not a risk the site is willing to take.
 
I don't think this thread has actually crossed that threshold yet. Just discussing what has taken place so far, no distillation has been involved. Good to know before the discussion goes any father though.
 
OK thanks anyway, I'll kill the account. I am in the UK and whilst not legal a blind eye is turned to distillers here.
 
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