Cap and Cork

If you’re a homebrewer of either beer or wine, you’ve easily read hundreds of recipes.  It’s what we do; find even more, even better recipes than we currently have!  To that end, everyone writes their recipes differently.   Some call for a cup of ingredient #1, while others call for a pound of that same ingredient.  Some use liquid malt extract, some use dry malt extract.  To the even moderately experienced homebrewer this usually doesn’t pose any problem at all.  It’s the newer guys (and gals) that are often left wondering and searching for answers.  As I myself am barely creeping into the moderately experienced category, the following is my own little Beer & Wine Cheat Sheet, if you will (in no particular order):

• Granulated table sugar weighs 0.45 pounds per cup of measure; one pound of sugar is 2.22 cups
• Honey, on average, is 0.75 pounds per cup; one pound of honey is 1.33 cups
• One pound of liquid malt extract is equivalent to 0.8 pounds of dry malt extract (i.e. DME is “stronger”)
• One pound of granulated sugar is equivalent to 1.25 pounds of honey in terms of beer and mead making
• For stabilizing ONE GALLON of wine prior to bottling (a lengthy post about this will follow) use no more than 1/2 teaspoon of Potassium Sorbate (I use just over 1/4 teaspoon) and 1 campden tablet (or 1/5 of 1/4 teaspoon of Potassium Metabisulfate).  I also follow Jack Keller’s advice where I do not bottle immediately after adding these items.  I allow an additional time period of 10 days to allow any final yeast I kill off to settle out.  I then bottle normally.
• Corn sugar is best for priming at a rate of 1 ounce per gallon for typical carbonation.

These are but a few of the things I have jotted down here and there in my brew journal (which is a must for all of us).  I am going to create a page here at CapandCork.com with a listing of these notes that I can update regularly.  We’ll call this BrewBits V1.0.  Please let me know if you disagree (or agree) with any of my notes or conversions.  Also, if you have some of your own that you think would be a good addition to the list, please let know and I’ll get them added.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 16th, 2007 at 1:45 pm and is filed under Beer, Wine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.