High alcohol contents

[Rossco]

I have been brewing the Coopers can kits for about 6 months mostly coopers lager, coopers draught, coopers Canadian blonde and early on I was getting good results with these kits and using both my hydrometers (I have two Coopers Beer kit carboys) I was getting beers around the 4.5% to 5.6% alcohol content when brewing at room temperatures of around 26C for about 6 days. This was determined using the formula of subtracting the OG - FG / 7.46 + 0.5 as recommended by the coopers brewing booklet. All was fine and life was bliss.

 

 

 

But after a short break from brewing (was busy drinking it all) over Christmas I once again needed to replenish my stocks. I had acquired a good second hand 530 litre westing house fridge to brew my Lagers in and at a constant 15C. the fermentation stage took longer as expected at these temperatures about 15 to 16 days. Now however I am consistently getting reading of 6.9%, 7.2% and even 8.0% Alc/Vol using the same calculation method. and I thought OK this is probably due to the lagers brewing more completely at the lower temps thus converting more of the sugars into our friend Mr. alcohol. However I decided I needed to boost my stocks a bit quicker while these lagers were maturing so I put down one coopers lager and one coopers draught at room temperature (unfortunately it was warm that week 28C to 30C) and both brews were finished in 5 days and came up with 7.2 and 8.0% Alc/Vol. While I am not complaining about the high alcohol content, I have brewed as instructed by the kits, I have not added more sugars etc to the Carboy's but cannot figure out why I am getting these high alcohol returns. I have sampled these brews ( at 3 weeks) just to see how they turned out and can indeed confirm that, while not fully mature, they do indeed have a kick like a small feisty brumby so there is definitely more alcohol in them and not just a false readings on the hydrometer.

 

 

 

Can anyone suggest what may be behind this phenomenon

 

 

 

Rossco

 

Sydney NSW

[Luke]

Hi Rossco,

 

Your hydrometer is calibrated at 20 deg.

 

If the finished beer is 28 to 30 degrees, you should be adding around 2 to 3 points to your final reading to compensate for this, so you should get lower alcohol readings.

 

Just google hydrometer temperature corrections and you should find a scale to use.

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

Luke.