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If your refractometer reads in Brix but your recipe talks in gravity, this bridges the two. Enter either one and it gives you the other, plus the potential alcohol.
Potential ABV assumes the must ferments out dry to about 1.000. Wines and meads often finish a touch below that, so the real figure can come out slightly higher.
Both Brix and specific gravity measure the sugar dissolved in your must, just on different scales. Twenty Brix and 1.083 gravity are the same must described two ways. From either one you can estimate the potential alcohol, the strength you would reach if it all fermented out.
The catch with a refractometer is that alcohol throws the Brix reading off, so it only reads true before fermentation. For a reading taken during or after the ferment, use the refractometer correction tool, and to turn a start and finish gravity into an exact ABV, use the ABV calculator.
Brix and specific gravity are two ways of describing the same thing, how much sugar is dissolved in your must. A reading of 20 Brix is about 1.083 specific gravity. This tool uses the standard conversion so you can move between the two either way.
Potential alcohol is the strength you would get if all that sugar fermented out. It is an estimate, worked out assuming the must ferments dry to about 1.000. Wine and mead often finish a touch below that, so the real figure can come out a little higher.
A refractometer reads in Brix and only needs a drop or two, which is handy before fermentation. Once alcohol is present it reads high and needs correcting, so for a reading part way through or at the end, use the refractometer correction tool instead.
Close enough for brewing. One degree Brix is one gram of sucrose per hundred grams of solution, so it is essentially the percentage of dissolved sugar by weight.
Demijohn Journal turns your readings into ABV automatically and keeps your recipes and fermentation history in one place. Free.
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