docmckee
Apprentice
I'm playing around with BeerSmith for designing a mead, and am planning to use Alexender's grape juice concentrates as part of the recipe. I want to use BeerSmith to compute an estimate of my gravity to hit a target ABV. This had led me to a couple of things to ponder.
First, under the ingredients screen, there are boxes for 'potential' and 'yield." My thinking was i could put in the information for the concentrate and add it as a new ingredient. Alexander's tells via the can label that the concentrate is at 70 Brix, which converts to a SG of 1.355. I'm not sure about the math here if i dilute that down to a five gallon batch. Given that i have a 4 pound can, can i just (assuming 5 gallons weighs around 40 lbs) get a divisor by dividing 4/40 to get 10 percent of weight, then divide my gravity points by 10 to get a potential of 1.034?
Yeild is my other concern. I am assuming that yield is brewhouse yield, which would be what percentage of total possible dissolved solids would end up in the wort/must. When I see that sucrose has a 100% yield, I think I am correct. 75% is a thus a good guestimate for most LMEs because we can assume that the maltster has a brewhouse efficiency close to that. When I see that Honey has a 75% yield, I am confused. I always thought the fermentability of honey was VERY high, as it is almost pure sugar. Are there really 25% of the weight of honey tied up in unfermentable solids? Or am I missing something (most likely option!)?
First, under the ingredients screen, there are boxes for 'potential' and 'yield." My thinking was i could put in the information for the concentrate and add it as a new ingredient. Alexander's tells via the can label that the concentrate is at 70 Brix, which converts to a SG of 1.355. I'm not sure about the math here if i dilute that down to a five gallon batch. Given that i have a 4 pound can, can i just (assuming 5 gallons weighs around 40 lbs) get a divisor by dividing 4/40 to get 10 percent of weight, then divide my gravity points by 10 to get a potential of 1.034?
Yeild is my other concern. I am assuming that yield is brewhouse yield, which would be what percentage of total possible dissolved solids would end up in the wort/must. When I see that sucrose has a 100% yield, I think I am correct. 75% is a thus a good guestimate for most LMEs because we can assume that the maltster has a brewhouse efficiency close to that. When I see that Honey has a 75% yield, I am confused. I always thought the fermentability of honey was VERY high, as it is almost pure sugar. Are there really 25% of the weight of honey tied up in unfermentable solids? Or am I missing something (most likely option!)?