Instruction manual beer spindle

1 Alcohol content and original wort
The original wort content is the proportion of unfermentable and fermentable components (sugars) in the beer wort. The unfermentable portion of the original wort gives the beer its "body", while the fermentable portion gives it its "alcohol". The original wort that "remains" after complete fermentation gives the beer its body and full-bodiedness. In heavy "winter beers", festival beers and especially in dark strong beers, the unfermentable portion, the so-called residual wort, is approx. 2 to 4%. With light "summer beers" you will measure a residual wort of 0.5 to 2%. you can use the fermentable portion of the original wort to approximate the alcohol content of the beer (see Section 5).

2 Determining the completion of fermentation
The progress of fermentation can be monitored by the original wort content. You can thus determine the end point of fermentation and thus the time of bottling. If you measure the same original wort content on 2 - 3 consecutive days for "normal beers", fermentation is almost certainly finished. In the case of strong beers, you should
observe the decrease in original gravity over a longer period of time! Fermentation is almost certainly finished when the original wort content no longer changes within 2 days!
Be sure to follow the instructions for bottling the beer, otherwise the bottles may explode!

3 Beer types and original wort
A certain original wort is characteristic for each beer type, although individual tastes should not be shackled. The following information therefore only provides reference values; the values refer to measurements before the addition of yeast, i.e. before fermentation:

2 - 5 Alcohol-reduced light beers
9 - 12 Full beers (Pils, Weizen, Alt, Kölsch)
14 - 22 and above Strong beers (Bock, Klosterbiere)

4 Performing the measurement
Be sure to clean the spindle and cylinder thoroughly before measurement. Perform the measurement at approx. 20 °C; the spindle is "calibrated" to this temperature. Even a deviation of more than 2 °C will falsify the measured value considerably! If your wort spindle has a built-in thermometer, you can simply correct the original wort content to the relevant temperature using the scale provided. Add or subtract the percentage value indicated next to the temperature scale, depending on the temperature you are measuring. A brew that is already fermenting must be shaken before measurement to expel the carbon dioxide. Otherwise, the measured value would be inadmissibly falsified. Therefore, you will only get an approximate value for the original wort if you simply place the spindle in the fermenter and then read off the value directly.
Turn the spindle in the standing cylinder to determine whether it can move completely freely in the standing cylinder. To do this, it is important, among other things, that the standing cylinder is vertical so that the spindle does not rub against the walls of the cylinder. If you do not use our standing cylinder, make absolutely sure that the spindle floats freely and does not touch the bottom of the vessel, for example!
The value is read at the meniscus (liquid arch) at the bottom (!):

5 Estimation of the alcohol content
The approximate alcohol content can be calculated or measured with the beer wort spindle.

Measuring the alcohol content

Subtract the residual wort content (see section 1) after fermentation from the original wort content before fermentation and divide the result by 2. This will give you the approximate alcohol content of the beer. Example:

(12% - 2%) / 2 = 5% Calculating the alcohol content
If you use the formula: Sugar Alcohol Carbonic Acid C6H12O6 2 C2H5OH + 2 CO2 180 g 93 g 88 g accordingly, you get about 50 g of alcohol from 100 g of sugar.

When using beer wort light, dark, wheat and the mixtures for the production of Altbier and Weizenbier, you get approx. 35 g of alcohol from 100 g of beer wort concentrate, since the concentrate is adjusted to 80% to keep it flowable. Virtually 100% of the sugar is fermented to alcohol, whereas only about 85% of the beer wort concentrate is. The remaining 15%
give the beer its body and full-bodiedness! Otherwise, you could just ferment sugar if the beer wort concentrates were also converted to 100% alcohol like sugar!
100 g of sugar to a 10 liter brew thus yield approx. 0.5%, 100 g of beer wort concentrate approx. 0.35% alcohol!

Example: You brew as a 10 liter batch a beer from 650 g beer wort concentrate and 400 g sugar; the approximate alcohol content is therefore:

6.5 x 0.35 + 4 x 0.5 = 2.3 + 2 = 4.3 % Consistency: Measuring and calculating the alcohol content

You get an original wort content of about 1.0 % per 100 g of sugar and of 0.8 % per 100 g of beer wort concentrate.

You brew a beer from 650 g beer wort concentrate and 400 g sugar as a 10 liter batch and get an original wort content of approx:
6.5 x 0.8 + 4 x 1 = 5.2 + 4 = 9.2 %

The residual wort is approximately 1%; thus, the alcohol content is approximately:
(9,2 % - 1 % ) / 2 = 8,2 % / 2 = 4,1 %

The calculation and the measurement thus result in almost identical values! Please note! The above examples refer to an alcohol specification in mass percentages! On the beer bottles, however, the alcohol content is usually indicated in volume percentages. To get the volume percentages from the mass percentages, please divide by 0.8. You will then get the
approximate alcohol content in percent by volume:
Example: 4.1 mass % = 4.1 / 0.8 = 5.1 volume %

Hint
Please keep in mind that the sugar added for the secondary fermentation is also fermented and contributes to the increase of the alcohol content! This sugar is of course not recorded in the measurement of the original wort content after completion of the brew when measuring with the spindle!!!
However, it should be included in the calculation of the alcohol content, since it increases the alcohol content by about 0.6%!

Original wort and density
The original gravity and density correspond to: 2.7:1.011 / 3.0:1.012 / 3.3:1.013 / 3.5:1.014 / 10:1.040 / 11:1.044 / 12:1.048 / 13:1.052