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Author Topic: Blonde Belgian kegged, force carbonated and it is too sweet  (Read 5762 times)

Offline euge

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Re: Blonde Belgian kegged, force carbonated and it is too sweet
« Reply #15 on: March 06, 2011, 01:47:07 pm »
An FG of 1.000 means the yeast have converted about 82% of the sugars to ethanol. There's still a ton of sugar left in a beer that big.

Real Attenuation is 81.1% if the OG was 1.071 which will get you 1.000 and 9.7% ABV. The 1.000 reading is skewed by the presence of the alcohol- which skews the hydrometer reading if that makes sense... ???
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Offline tschmidlin

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Re: Blonde Belgian kegged, force carbonated and it is too sweet
« Reply #16 on: March 06, 2011, 02:07:33 pm »
Right, straight ethanol will read around 0.79, water reads 1.000.  A beer mixture of just water and ethanol can't read 1.000, you've got to have something left.
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Offline malzig

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Re: Blonde Belgian kegged, force carbonated and it is too sweet
« Reply #17 on: March 06, 2011, 04:00:38 pm »
Alcohol is loaded with calories.  Fermenting a beer to 1.000 (or lower) makes very little difference in it's caloric content.

Offline a10t2

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Re: Blonde Belgian kegged, force carbonated and it is too sweet
« Reply #18 on: March 06, 2011, 04:26:57 pm »
Alcohol is loaded with calories.  Fermenting a beer to 1.000 (or lower) makes very little difference in it's caloric content.

For a given OG, true. But if you're targeting an ABV level, a small difference in gravity can have a substantial effect on the total caloric content. For example, a beer that starts at 1.050 and finishes at 1.012 and one that goes from 1.040 to 1.002 have about the same alcohol content, but the lower-gravity beer has around 25% fewer calories.
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Offline ajk

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Re: Blonde Belgian kegged, force carbonated and it is too sweet
« Reply #19 on: March 07, 2011, 06:40:19 am »
I am amazed that there does seem to be sweetnes still in the brew since the hydrometer indicated 1.000 FG.

As others have pointed out, there's still plenty of sugar in this beer.  Belgians are dry not just due to high attenuation but also due to bittering hops.  Up them a bit next time, not enough to be noticed as bittering hops but enough to dry out the beer.

Also, alcohol can give an impression of sweetness, so the bittering hops have to balance that as well.

Offline Hydro

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Re: Blonde Belgian kegged, force carbonated and it is too sweet
« Reply #20 on: March 07, 2011, 08:41:33 pm »
Your right, this Really Skews with my head.  Ha Ha

This weekend I will take two cups of beer and boil it to remove the ethanol and once it has cooled.  I will add enough water to bring back up to two cups and recheck the hydrometer reading.  This should give me an accurate reading of the Real Extract value and then be able to calculate what the actual residual sugar is still in the beer.  Thanks for your ideas.  Will update.


An FG of 1.000 means the yeast have converted about 82% of the sugars to ethanol. There's still a ton of sugar left in a beer that big.

Real Attenuation is 81.1% if the OG was 1.071 which will get you 1.000 and 9.7% ABV. The 1.000 reading is skewed by the presence of the alcohol- which skews the hydrometer reading if that makes sense... ???
« Last Edit: March 07, 2011, 08:48:37 pm by Hydro »
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Offline a10t2

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Re: Blonde Belgian kegged, force carbonated and it is too sweet
« Reply #21 on: March 07, 2011, 08:51:18 pm »
This weekend I will take two cups of beer and boil it to remove the ethanol and once it has cooled.  I will add enough water to bring back up to two cups and recheck the hydrometer reading.  This should give me an accurate reading of the Real Extract value and then be able to calculate what the actual residual sugar is still in the beer.  Thanks for your ideas.  Will update.

That will work, but why bother? If you have the OG and FG readings you can calculate the real extract:

RE = .1808*OG + .8192*FG
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Offline Hydro

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Re: Blonde Belgian kegged, force carbonated and it is too sweet
« Reply #22 on: March 07, 2011, 09:05:51 pm »
Ok, so we are looking at a Real Extract value of:

RE = 1.0133792
or
1.014

So sugar is 1.036 per pound in 1 gallon of water and this is showing that there is a residual of .37 percent of a pound of sugar per gallon.  Still left in the brew.  That is what I am tasting.

Is my math correct?



This weekend I will take two cups of beer and boil it to remove the ethanol and once it has cooled.  I will add enough water to bring back up to two cups and recheck the hydrometer reading.  This should give me an accurate reading of the Real Extract value and then be able to calculate what the actual residual sugar is still in the beer.  Thanks for your ideas.  Will update.

That will work, but why bother? If you have the OG and FG readings you can calculate the real extract:

RE = .1808*OG + .8192*FG
« Last Edit: March 07, 2011, 09:10:46 pm by Hydro »
For the Love of Beer,
Hydro

On Tap Now:
1. Irish Red Ale
2. American Amber Ale
3. Kolsch
4. Scotch Ale
5. Strong Scotch Ale
6. Key Lime Pie (11%) Chilled to 29 deg. F. you can not even taste the alcohol.

It is time to start brewing again.