How Do You Know How Much ABV Is In Beer, After It's Bottled??

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

Hey guys on my first ever brew day everything didn't go according to plan but even though it looks good and has carbed well, I don't know about the alcohol level, the reason being I was given advice on the volume when I filled the fermenter and it cam to 18L not 23L to add 5 litres of water (filtered) and the hydrometer reading I took that day was far too hot and didn't record it!!! so now faced with the question is it alcohol at all? I have had three 500ml bottles and didn't notice anything so how can I find out now??

Help Daza.

cheers.

[Harry]

There is another method where you distill a sample and then top it up with distilled water and take a reading with a special hydrometer, but obviously uses special equipment so isnt really practical.

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

Well, I can now safely say for sure that my first brew does in fact have alcohol.....for sure! found out the old fashioned way haha. lets just say me and a mate put a few 500ml bottles away namely 10. I did a hydrometer test but using up the bottom of each bottle and till I had enough to drop it in, my reading was 1.011??? does that help gauge what the ABV is now? my OG was suppose to be 1.052 and my FG was suppose to be 1.012 giving me a 5.4%ABV I did add 5 litres of filtered water after I had cooled it down and transferred it to fementer to give me 23L.

cheers now to get ready to watch the quarter-final.....

[Reuben Rowntree]

This is interesting: 

http://www.siliconchip.com.au/Issue/2013/November/Alscolyser%3A+For...

Uses a cheap breath tester, perhaps you could drink a bunch then blow into a breath tester :)