Want to brew Wherry to the commercial ABV

[morethanworts]

[EDIT For later readers of this post, I since discovered that the commercial draught Wherry is only 3.8%ABV! The 4.5% quoted below is what is displayed on the commercial pump picture on the front of the homebrew box. Confusing. Anyway, I topped mine up only to 21.5L, which gave an OG of 1.044, which should get me quite close to 4.5% with the priming sugars as well. It's bubbling away as I type.]

Hi there

Reading through the reviews of Woodforde's Wherry 3Kg kit, fellow brewers have encountered different OGs and FGs and ABVs. Please share your OGs and FGs here too - it will help me calculate! If you're interested further in my planned calculations, then read on. If not, then please just share any OGs or FGs (and size of brew) for Wherry :

I'd like to achieve a final ABV of 4.5%, like the commercial Wherry (on the front of the kit's box).

After much reading, it looks like I can add as near as dammit 0.2% final ABV for 80g granulated priming sugar in 23L, based on 18g sugar per litre producing 1%ABV.

So I want my OG-FG to yield 4.3%ABV before priming. If there's some commonality in what people report for FGs, I'll reduce/increase the water in the wort to give a difference of 0.032 (which is 4.3 x 0.0074) on the hydrometer between my OG and the most common FG people get.


Any help, figures or thoughts much appreciated! :hat:

 

[rpt]

IIRC, my OG was 1042 and FG 1014. But I don't really understand why you care. Just brew it and it's yummy. So what if the ABV doesn't match the original?

 

[morethanworts]

IIRC, my OG was 1042 and FG 1014. But I don't really understand why you care. Just brew it and it's yummy. So what if the ABV doesn't match the original?

Thanks for the figures :hat:

Briefly, I care because I like the science as well as the art of brewing, up to a point, and also because I think the alcohol strength has a real impact on the tasting and drinking experience in its broadest sense.

 

[graysalchemy]

IIRC, my OG was 1042 and FG 1014. But I don't really understand why you care. Just brew it and it's yummy. So what if the ABV doesn't match the original?

Thanks for the figures :hat:

Briefly, I care because I like the science as well as the art of brewing, up to a point, and also because I think the alcohol strength has a real impact on the tasting and drinking experience in its broadest sense.

There are many other factors which will come into play to the final flavour of the beer ie bitternes, the ratio of bitterness to gravity etc etc. It may well be that the wort brewed for the kits is not the same as that of the commercial beer so by changing the gravity will upset the BU/GU ratio thus changing the taste of the beer. Also mouth feel etc will alter. Then you have variations in brewing practice, yeast etc not mentioning water chemistry.

In a word to many variables are at play to be able to measure if 0.2% of alcohol will change the taste between two batches.

 

[morethanworts]

There are certainly many variables, and the ABV is just one that I want to control this time.

 

[BicesterTerrier]

Just my 2p from a newbie (home brewing) standpoint, but, unless you can acurately recreate the water from the original then there is really no point (imho) in trying to brew to the same strength to get close to the real thing, the alcohol is just a by product of the other very strictly controlled ingredients.

You are trying to join 2 points on a map without any idea of which way to go, every route is valid, but only 1 is correct.

EDIT: Not to mention the difference in yeast.

 

[bottler]

If you short brew to 21 litres, you should hit around the 4.5 abv :thumb:

 

[morethanworts]

Thanks bottler - I probably will. [EDIT - So why do they force us to brew short to meet the advertised ABV?]

I appreciate all your thoughts. It still feels like we should at least aspire to produce a beer of a known ABV from a kit designed to do it!

I have produced pub-like beer from the same untreated tap water and from the same dried yeast from which I've also had poor, very homebrewy, beers. I personally don't feel (through my earlier experience) that untreated average tap water would spoil a really well made extract brew, though I understand this is probably not the case when you're doing a full mash, when ph value and maybe other things play a bigger part. I think the standard of your extract brewing would have to be very high and consistent before you considered the water analysis to be a real spoiler.

I realise that my mixed results serve just as much to prove that I should probably just be happy with any really good beer, regardless of ABV - and I am - but is it really beyond our wit to make any adjustments in aiming for it?