Carbonation calculator - ABV increase by priming sugar?

I noticed that Brewsmith doesn't seem to change the final ABV after using the carbonation calculator. I think carbonating to only 2 volumes will add about 0.25% to the final ABV, 3 volumes adds about 0.5% to the ABV (using corn sugar to calculate).

Maybe it would be nice to have another spot on the Design page under "Profiles for Mash, Carbonation, and Aging" that said "Est Final ABV after carbonation."

Or am I wrong about the amount the ABV changes after bottle conditioning?

If your numbers are correct, a 6% ABV beer would be 6.03% ABV after carbonating to 3 volumes with corn sugar. Both the 6% and 3 volumes are above average, so the increase is smaller in most beer styles. Most brewers likely see variations greater than that from one batch to another post fermentation. I really don't think many people care about something that insignificant. Just my opinion.

I agree with Bob.  The added ABV from the priming sugar is negligible - doesn?t really add much in the form of alcohol.

BOB357 said:

If your numbers are correct, a 6% ABV beer would be 6.03% ABV after carbonating to 3 volumes with corn sugar. Both the 6% and 3 volumes are above average, so the increase is smaller in most beer styles. Most brewers likely see variations greater than that from one batch to another post fermentation. I really don't think many people care about something that insignificant. Just my opinion.

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If my numbers are correct (probably not) a beer that's 6% going into the bottle will be 6.5% coming out at 3 volumes.

I'm just taking the amount of priming sugar used to carbonate and plugging it into a recipe and getting the ABV at the bottom.

So for a 5 gal batch, carbonating to 3 volumes (according to the BS calc) would take 5.8 oz of corn sugar. Plugging that into a BS recipe, it adds 0.5% to the total ABV %, ie 6.0% becomes 6.5%. For 2.5 volumes, it adds 0.4%. For 2.0 volumes, it adds 0.3%.

Perhaps it's a good idea to take the amount of priming sugar you plan to use and put that into the overall recipe.

I just made a Belgian that's bottle conditioning and I added enough sugar to carbonate to somewhere between 3.5 and 4 volumes (crazy I know). If I add the amount of sugar required for 4 volumes to the recipe it changes the ABV from 9.0% to 9.7%. That's a bit of a difference. I plan to make another Belgian soon and I just want to get this whole thing straight so I can tell people with some degree of accuracy how much alcohol is in there. Honestly though, whether it's 9 or 9.5 isn't going to make much difference. I just want to be accurate.

Sorry. Guess I didn't have enough coffee before doing the math. I actually multiplied the 6% ABV by .5%. After reading many posts over the years dismissing alcohol increase from priming sugar as being insignificant, I thought 6.03% sounded reasonable. I stand corrected. You are indeed correct.