Help the newbie

Northern Brewer General
1

i’m trying to figure out abv on the kits, all I see is og. How do I figure the abv from this?
Thanks in advance.

Cheers,
Patrick

2

Welcome. After six years, you finally posted! :cheers:

ABV is the difference between OG and FG, without knowing your FG, it would be hard to give a definite ABV.

Kits with a high OG will be stronger beers, but there are variables that can raise or lower your FG.

3

Yea, as mom and dad said, if you have nothing good to say… :slight_smile:
I’ve brewed once in this time, a dark mild all grain 3.5 abv, which actually came out good.
I’m looking at og with kits sold on website and am curious to to find out what the abv will be if I follow the the standard directions exactly.

4

[quote=“masshlx1”]Yea, as mom and dad said, if you have nothing good to say… :slight_smile:
I’ve brewed once in this time, a dark mild all grain 3.5 abv, which actually came out good.
I’m looking at og with kits sold on website and am curious to to find out what the abv will be if I follow the the standard directions exactly.[/quote]

I asked this question a few weeks ago. Obviously, NB gives you the target OG (Original Gravity) for a given recipe. But that doesn’t tell you what the Final Gravity (FG) should be. And, as stated, you need to know OG and FG to calculate ABV.

To know what your target FG should be for a given style, refer to the BJCP style guidelines.

http://www.bjcp.org/2008styles/catdex.php
5

You’re going to like the answer to this question because it is so simple to estimate the ABV using OG. All you do is take the last couple digits and put the decimal point in between. For example, an OG of 1.047 will get you about 4.7% ABV. If the OG is 1.069, expect about 6.9%. There are a few other variables but this will get you very close in most cases.

6

A good enough estimator there. Don’t be heart broken if it’s a little off though.

7

I recently read that the estimated FG is approximately 1/4 of the OG. So if a beer starts out at 1.052 it should end around 1.013. Think that came from Palmer.

8

Dave, you’re a genius. I never noticed that…
It’s too darn simple :smiley:
I was all set to spout the formula(OG-FGx105), mention picking up a copy of Palmer’s book, or refering to Woodlandbrew where he’s worked up a formula based on the difference between hydrometer and refractometer readings of FG. I never have to do math again-yay!

9

Yeah… of course, if you want the exact answer, and you know the OG and FG, then you subtract the two and multiply by about 131 for ABV. The 105 mentioned above is for ABW (by WEIGHT, not by volume), if I recall correctly. But just knowing the OG, you can get within a couple decimal points easily, and it works accurately enough about 90% of the time.