Taking the initial gravity marks the end of the process. The wort has been mixed, the yeast has been pitched, and we’ve poured off half a cup to measure the specific gravity. This batch reads at about 1.033 without temperature compensation. I never really compensate for temperature (you can get a dramatic demonstration of how the density of a liquid changes with temperature just using hot and cold tap water), and I’m never that confident that I get a sufficiently homogeneous mixture at this point, but this reading looks pretty good.

Percentage alcohol by volume is a function of initial and final specific gravity, so this is a good metric to have.

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• Posted by Tim on Thursday, February 5, 2004 at 8:50:49 pm PST
• Category: Zymurgy
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