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How Many Carbs

G

Garrete

Ok. Maybe I'm dumb, VERY possible, or my brain is mush, ALSO possilbe, I am trying to find a way to figure out how many carbs are in my home brew, roughly. A gram of alcohol = 7 calories and a gram of carbs = 4 calories. So it would seem to me that if you had a beer with 153 calories and 4.9% alcohol and 16 grams of carbs, one should be able to figure this out. Well, http://www.beer100.com/beercalories.htm, and my numbers were NOTHING like they were getting. More than likely, my calculations were off somewhere.

Here is what I am thinking:
Let's pretend we don't know we have 16 grams of carbs. So our beer has 153 cal with 4.9% alcohol.

.049(ABV) x 153= 7.497
7.497 x 7 = 52.47
153-52.47=100.521
100.521 / 4 = 25
25 does not equal 16

Can someone help rub my nose in the right answer?
Thanks.
 
I think you need the starting and final gravity.  The amount non-fermentable sugars determine the carbs.  The formulas are a guideline. 

My calculator 1.045 -> 1.008 = 148 calories in 12oz and 13 carbs at 4.93% ABV.
 
Maybe it's just me, but if you're worrying about carbs to the point where you're running formulae to figure it out- maybe this ain't the right hobby for you. Just sayin'.  ;D
 
I just want to figure it out "because I can". (well... ok, i don't have it figured out, YET  ;) )
 
Like Jomebrew says, you need the OG and FG.  Here's the calculation from BeerSmith, posted on the Beersmith blog:

Calorie_from_alcohol = 1881.22 * FG * (OG-FG)/(1.775-OG)
Calories_from_carbs = 3550.0 * FG * ((0.1808 * OG) + (0.8192 * FG) – 1.0004)
Total calories – just add the Calories_from_alcohol to Calories_from_carbs

Or,just use the calculator in Beersmith ;)
 
I am a low carb dieter. I follow the Atkins philosophy. How can I brew beer and get away with that? I just tell myself "There are no carbs in beer", "There are no carbs in beer", "There are no carbs in beer", "There are no carbs in beer".  If I hear it enough it will come true! Last year I lost 65 lbs. and brewed beer twice a month. Don't worry about it! There are no carbs in beer!!!!!
 
If convincing yourself works, then great!  A couple new referenceable studies show sugar placebos work even after people know they are placebo.  A diet balanced with exercise, including beer of course, is key to maintaing or losing.  Just put down the handful of crap bar food.

Using enzymes such as beano will further reduce the unfermentable carbohydrates which will reduce or eliminate residual carbs leaving your beer a bit dryer and carbless.
 
Gegardless of the math it's quite a lot, I think a can of coke has about 48 calories (Pepsi even more at 130 or so).
 
jomebrew said:
Using enzymes such as beano will further reduce the unfermentable carbohydrates which will reduce or eliminate residual carbs leaving your beer a bit dryer and carbless.
Are you saying putting the Beano in the BEER?  Wouldn't it be better to just pop a Beano with each mug of beer you drink?  Not sure of the science here, but I am intriged.  My wife would probably want me to take the Beano when drinking for ... ahem... other reasons.

Also, isn't alcohol a carb?  Then wouldn't all the calories & alcohol be counted as carbs?
 
There are only three kinds of calories - fat, protein and carbohydrates.  Beer contains no fat and maybe trace amounts of protien, so all the calories are carbs.  Divide the calories by 4 (there are 4 calories in a gram of carbohydrates).  A typical 4.7% abv beer is 150 calories so if you divide by 4 you 37.5 grams of carbs. 

Carbs are typically sliced one step further in to soluble (sugar) and insoluble (fiber).  I have never heard of a beer that contained fiber and since we are dealing with fermented sugar (alcohol) and unfermented sugars, I think it is safe to assume that they are all sugars. 
 
Beer_Tigger said:
jomebrew said:
Using enzymes such as beano will further reduce the unfermentable carbohydrates which will reduce or eliminate residual carbs leaving your beer a bit dryer and carbless.
Are you saying putting the Beano in the BEER?  Wouldn't it be better to just pop a Beano with each mug of beer you drink?  Not sure of the science here, but I am intriged.  My wife would probably want me to take the Beano when drinking for ... ahem... other reasons.

Also, isn't alcohol a carb?  Then wouldn't all the calories & alcohol be counted as carbs?

Sorry.  I missed this replay so many months ago.  It is true.  Overly simplified because I make bear not study gastrointestinal stuff, beano is is comprised of enzymes that break down carbohydrates before they reach some friendly bacteria who also break it down but produce stinky gas while doing it.  These same enzymes can cleave up the stuff brewers yeast can't.  Of course you can add brettanomyces which will also break it down.  The beano enzymes do it faster without the funky fun stuff brett adds.
 
In answer to Beer-Tigger, I was surprised to find that alcohol isn't a carb. Spirits are carb-free.

You definitely need to know the original and final gravity to do the calculation, which doesn't help if you're buying a pint.

If you've brewed it yourself, there's a very useful calculator here: http://www.mrgoodbeer.com/carb-cal.shtml



 
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