I’ve always loved brewing for the delicate balance between the art–creating recipes, balancing malts and hops, flavours–and the science–target numbers, chemistry, temperatures–and now… Power tools!!!
Brewing and power tools
Today I was working with the science end of things. I needed to get a sample of finished beer to take readings and work backwards to get a starting gravity on the beer. With this information I could then calculate the %abv of the beer. One of the minor problems is that the finished beer is carbonated which can lead to inaccurate readings on the hydrometer with bubbles clinging to the outside of the hydrometer.
Now, I could have taken the sample and walked away for the day, let the sample warm up and de-gas on its own but I have a small whisk and a drill. It seemed obvious to me at the time to just put the two together and de-gas the beer sample. Worked like a charm! Got my reading, did my calculations and ended up with what apparently is a 13.3%abv beer. Ouch.
It’s what’s not on tap anymore…
It's what's on tap... 
April 8th, 2012 at 11:35 pm
What kind of beer did you get a 13.3% a.b.v reading ? What was your starting gravity ? After carbonation taking the gravity will give you a false reading due to the added sugar to carbonate the beer even after decarbonating. That is a great invention to decarbonate the beer.
April 9th, 2012 at 7:37 am
It was an IIPA. We didn’t have a starting gravity due to various computer crashes and forgetfulness. 🙂
The beer was force carbonated in keg so there was no added sugar to the finished beer. This may not be wholly accurate but given the tools that I have it was the only way to go about finding any kind of SG and %abv.
Thanks for the kind words about the whisk/drill combo. It’s hardly an “invention” but it is certainly good clean fun!