Any way to "accurately" estimate end alcohol levels without hydrometer?

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TheBlindHarper

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Hey guys. So, I've just pitched a 1-gallon batch of apple cider which will, in secondary, have 1kg of peach puree added. I've used:
1 cup Dextrose Monohydrate
1/2 cup caster sugar
1.5g Nottingham ale yeast
4.5 litre cloudy pressed (Not from concentrate) apple juice

Is there any way to somewhat-accurately estimate the end result in regards to ABV?
 
For beer you can plug what you have into a brewing calculator which will give you the ABV% but this dependant on the yeast behaving and giving you the correct attenuation (and for AG brewers getting the efficiency you expect). I dont know about cider. I sure one of the winos will be along soon to say if it's the same for cider
 
The general rule in winemaking is 1100g of sugar in 4.5litre DJ (i gallon DJ) is roughly 13% ABV.
 
If you can tell us the sugar level on the juice label then we could get pretty close. Is the peach puree from a tin or something so you could list that, too? If not we'd have to go on a base peachy sugaryness lookup.
 
If you can tell us the sugar level on the juice label then we could get pretty close. Is the peach puree from a tin or something so you could list that, too? If not we'd have to go on a base peachy sugaryness lookup.

Evening Drunkula.
100g sugar per 1 litre juice - Used approx 4.5L
190g sugar per 1kg peach puree - Will be using 1kg (In secondary)
1 cup Dextrose Monohydrate
Half-cup caster sugar

Used Nottinghsm ale yeast

Thank you
 
I would love to have something like a pH strip that you could dip in a tipple and find its ABV. Unfortunately, any brew will contain some sugars and some alcohol. Both affect the gravity so you need a starting point. Unless it's a spirit and you have some gunpowder.
 
Evening Drunkula.
100g sugar per 1 litre juice - Used approx 4.5L
190g sugar per 1kg peach puree - Will be using 1kg (In secondary)
1 cup Dextrose Monohydrate
Half-cup caster sugar

Used Nottinghsm ale yeast

Thank you

Looks like about 940g of sugar. Using the Brewhaus calculator, this comes out at 12.3%. This assumes you ferment all the sugar, and is based on a total volume of 4.5l
 
Good work @Darenn. I was going to plug the figures in yesterday then saw cups and though, yeah I'll do it later.

@TheBlindHarper you're going to need yeast nutrient. It's easy enough to get. Wilko sell it. You can bodge up your own if you want to but let's not go there yet.
 
Would the alcohol content react with another substance? If it did to yield a precipitate that could be filtered then you could determine it bu how much precipitate you get. Or if it yielded a colour change again you could use a comparison for depth of colour.

I think that you could fractionally distil all the liquid over to leave any sugars in a sample, and just have a pure water and ethanol mixture, and then determine % ABV by freezing it and measuring the freezing point. You can't do it with the sugars in there because they will change the freezing point also.
 
Looks like about 940g of sugar. Using the Brewhaus calculator, this comes out at 12.3%. This assumes you ferment all the sugar, and is based on a total volume of 4.5l

Tha is very much Darren. I will get and have a look at this Brewhaus calculator.

Cheers to all for the help
 

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