Weight Instead Of Volume For Proofing

Homebrew

@Drywall_Dan said: What kind of volume are you guys proofing at a time? 20 gallons? 55? More?

And How precise does a floor scale need to be to give you accurate results? Dan

I'm using 205 litre drums for final proofing.

Floor scales with a resolution of 20g. Drums are on pallets, and I use a stacker truck to lift the drums on/off the scales.

How accurate? Well for tax reasons, VERY.

I check mine regularly with calibration weights.

laconnings

Thanks @Homebrew, have both of those from Stevenson reeves cheers bud, will go for the alcodens lq. I think so I’m able to incorporate the honey and sugars also.

When you add sugars to proofed spirits how do you do it?

Homebrew

When I infuse fruit (which contains fructose) in my spirit, I distil a sample with a glassware still.

I then take an ABV on the distilled sample.

laconnings

Ah very good, I do the same at the end of my blend, .5l off and run through the still to check the abv Thanks again for all the help, will stop bothering you now

Homebrew

When you can justify it, look at buying the Anton Paar handheld stuff.

DMA 35.

Or Snap 41 / 51.

Well worth it.

laconnings

cheer bud, been salivating over the snap models, I've applied for a local grant and if all goes well that will be the first purchase

grim

Cut your teeth on glass and math before you spend the money on the meter. The practical experience is important.

jbierling

@grim said: Never used Whiskey Systems calculator.

Its always been spot on for me unlike a lot of the other calculators that don't take contraction into account.

@grim said: I trust alcodens because he knows what he's doing, and knows his math. I've validated the calculations in alcodens on paper to confirm accuracy.

Yes, Alcodens (LQ) is top shelf. Its pretty obtuse for a beginner though and I'd kill for a MacOS/iOS version.

grim

That's what I mean about getting the practical experience with hydrometers, thermometers, calibration sheets and a calculator first. Once you can do that in your sleep, using something like Alcodens (or the other reliable calculators) becomes far easier. In terms of LQ - it makes things far easier, but it's not easy by far. That said, if the software isn't asking you about temperatures, mass, correction factors, it's missing something, having to understand all of those data points is difficult for sure.

In the grand scheme of things, two hundred bucks is dirt cheap to support meerkat (Harvey I believe). He's been a fixture of the community for at least a decade. Even if there are free alternatives, the fact that Alcodens has been battle tested for reliability is worth the extra money. Hell, I don't even get paid a commission.

I'll second the Mac desktop or iPad version. We keep a windows PC on the lab desk just for Alcodens.

I fear the day someone like Whiskey Systems buys alcodens and decides to charge $100 a month for it.

laconnings

I'm away at sea at the mo but when home will be dusting off the old windows laptop and getting alcodens for sure. I understand about learning through writing calculations thanks grim and that's what I have been doing so far, I would like to get to grips with one thing and so far alcodens has been recommended often. thanks again gents for all the help, your posts have been invaluable.

Homebrew

@grim agreed with AlcoDens.

@laconnings you can download it and try it for free.

At $195 it's around £145 at the moment. And the license allows you to run it on more than 1 PC.

I'm not aware of any other software that accurately implements the Practical Alcohol Tables, with temperature adjusted conversions between volume %, mass % and density.

grim

They do run two sets of tables, one that aligns with TTB and another for Europe (OIML). There correspond with in-air and in-vacuum measurements respectively.