One of the more technical aspects of brewing your own beer at home is with using a hydrometer. One of these little devices is important because it serves two functions during any brewing cycle. Not only is a hydrometer important to know when the fermentation process is over, but it can also assist you in calculating the alcohol potential of your beer. This can be important with letting you figure out how strong a beer will be when you serve it to your friends or guests. The stronger the beer, the less you may want to hand out.

 

When you use a hydrometer, you will need to take a portion of your mixture and place it into a long tube. From there, you will place your hydrometer into the mix. The hydrometer itself is a cylindrical device which is weighted at the bottom. While in the mixture, the hydrometer projects the liquid at a height which is measured against the density of the liquid. This density is read on the hydrometer at the surface of the liquid and will help to determine a number of factors about the batch of beer.

Taking a reading before the batch has been fermented will let you measure the alcohol potential of the brew. This, naturally, is a potential because it allows you to see just how much sugar is already located in the batch. The sugar is what will turn into alcohol and knowing how much is there in the beginning is what will help you to determine how strong the alcohol content of your beer is. It will also tell you what the original gravity of your brew is before fermentation.

After this fermentation process is over, during whatever length of time that it takes to complete, another hydrometer reading needs to be taken. This will give you the final gravity of the beer and will also, in turn, allow you to determine the approximate alcohol content of your beer. When you take the original gravity or the original alcohol potential and subtract from that the final gravity or alcohol potential, you will get a number. The difference between these numbers will indicate how much of the sugar in the mixture was eaten by the yeast and turned into alcohol. The number that you get is the alcohol content of the brew. The lower the final gravity is, the higher the alcohol content of the beer.

Two important things to keep in mind, however, are that when getting a reading from your hydrometer, your liquid must always be around 60 degrees Fahrenheit. This is what the water readings are based on with a hydrometer. Additionally, if your final gravity reading is not at least a 65% loss, your brew has not fermented long enough and must be left alone for a longer amount of time. This is what will provide the best brew possible.