Generally, how much alcohol is produced during bottle conditioning?

[JimG]

I am trying to better characterize my finished beers and was wondering how the community estimates/calculates or measures the alcohol generated after bottle conditioning to get the final ABV. One thought I had was to let the beer flatten and then perform the measurement using a hydrometer. Maybe the amount generated isn't significant. I realize there are several variables at play. Any thoughts? Thanks for the input in advance! JimG

[beerking]

I just ran an IPA recipe in ProMash, and added 0.25# of corn sugar to the recipe. OG went from 1.066 to 1.069. Running a 0.003 increase in starting gravity through the % alc calculator included in ProMash, the alc goes up by 0.4% by volume.

My top-of-the-head answer would have been "a little less than 0.5%," which I think these calcs bear out as a good overall answer.

[JimG]

Beerking, OK, I understand. It makes good sense to do it that way. May have to get the software someday. Thanks for the help! JimG

[Mill Rat]

May have to get the software someday. Once you get the S/W, you'll regret not having it sooner. When I started brewing, I put together my own spreadsheet file with a tab for each brew, and did a pile of my own hand calcs for each recipe that was not a kit. Then about a year later I popped $25 for Promash. Before Promash, I either wasted time doing all those calcs that Promash does in an instant, or made semi-educated guesses when I put recipes together and often found out that calling those guesses semi-educated was probably being nice about it. It also allows me to check recipes against my own system performance, especially extraction efficiency. One schwarzbier recipe I got of the www gave me an award winning schwarzdoppelbock once it had a year of aging under its bottlecap, but I'd have been better off knowing that the poster's efficiency sucked compared to mine before I brewed it.

Unless popping $25 buck for Promash or something similar is going to create some hardship for you, do it sooner (as in now) rather than later.

[JimG]

Thanks Mill Rat, I do enjoy doing the calculations by hand but now that I have been through it I would like to have the software. Hopefully it is Mac compatible If not, is there another similar software you would recommend that is?
JimG

[cul8rv8]

I am not 100% certain as I use Beersmith, but I believe people run ProMash on MAC using VirtualPC. I know Beersmith does not support Mac, but I don't remember ever reading if people have used it with VirtualPC. I do know people have had success using Beersmith on Linux boxes using Wine.

[emmjr]

Strangebrew 2.0 runs in a java VM so it will run on anything with a web browser. I personally use beersmith and couldn't live without it. I think you can find the beta download for strangbrew on sourceforge.net. It was free the last time I checked.

[JimG]

Thanks folks, I will let you know what I get. This hobby is an addiction and I don't mean the alcohol:D

[Mad Scientist]

Strangebrew 2.0 runs in a java VM so it will run on anything with a web browser. I personally use beersmith and couldn't live without it. I think you can find the beta download for strangbrew on sourceforge.net. It was free the last time I checked.

I beileve there is some software that runs on Mac, so just look around...I just do not remeber the name. In the epic Beersmith vs ProMash discussion, I and many other say try them both (and see if you can get beersmith to run on Mac), and go with what you like. The two titles seem to appeal differently to people.

And FWIW, I understand priming sugar to affect a 0.25% to 0.5% increase in alcohol.

[JimG]

Well Strangebrew 2.0 was the easy/free grab for the Mac based on a very short search. They have a new version coming out in Sept., according to their website. I also found "The Beer Recipator 2.2., a website that seems to have a good many functions. The entry windows for grain and hops are rather small on Strangebrew, making data entry more difficult than it should be. Hopefully, the windows are larger in the new version. Thanks again to everyone for the help. JimG