What Does Beer Weigh?

Steve SPF

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We're just experimenting with bag in box dispense and I'm thinking that, in order to get the volume in the BIB right, I want to weigh them so does anybody know what litre of beer weighs?

Edit: Looks like it wighs 1kg, same as water. Didn't see that coming :)
 
Alcohol makes it slightly lighter, various things added via the malts and adjuncts make it slightly heavier. I'm guessing an imperial pilsner may be slightly lighter than water and a big imperial stout may be slightly heavier. But that's just my pedantic side enjoying the question, wouldn't make a practical difference to how you want to use it.
 
@Mark Farrall Pedants rule! Or should that be pedants' rule??

It looks like the bladders are over sized so I just want a guide in order to get it roughly right rather than way over. 1kg / litre looks close enough.
 
We're just experimenting with bag in box dispense and I'm thinking that, in order to get the volume in the BIB right, I want to weigh them so does anybody know what litre of beer weighs?

Edit: Looks like it wighs 1kg, same as water. Didn't see that coming :)
Take the final gravity, say 1.010. That's the ratio of weight of your solution to a weight of an equal volume of water so in Squirrel Units, it's really easy: A liter of beer at 4 degrees C should weigh 1000X its specific gravity in grams. Our 1.010 beer should mass 1,010 grams.

An American and an engineer, I have no idea how to do that calculation in our units without consulting Wikipedia.
 
@Nosybear

Brilliant. So my 10lt BIB should be 10.1kg plus the box. Excellent.
 
You'll want to use the OG for this one but yes, multiply SG by 1000 to determine how many grams a liter should weigh.
The beauty of Plato and a "standard" spindle...g/g
If you weigh 20 Liters of H2O, and they weight 20.2KGs...then there is something dissolved in there. ;)
I only reference this, because I am thinking of maybe distilling my own "meths" (no, definitely not "meth"!!! ...."meths"!). After corona hit it was tricky to get alcohol as a disinfectant, so I thought..."I have yeast, I can buy as much sugar as I need, and I have a pot big enough to heat wort, so..." Not sure it will turn into anything, but fwiw I have 20 Liters of literally sugar-water fermenting on my porch right now. :D
PS, I assume the 20 Liters of liquid weigh 25 Kilos, 'cause there is 5kg sugar in it...
 
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The beauty of Plato and a "standard" spindle...g/g
If you weigh 20 Liters of H2O, and they weight 20.2KGs...then there is something dissolved in there. ;)
I only reference this, because I am thinking of maybe distilling my own "meths" (no, definitely not "meth"!!! ...."meths"!). After corona hit it was tricky to get alcohol as a disinfectant, so I thought..."I have yeast, I can buy as much sugar as I need, and I have a pot big enough to heat wort, so..." Not sure it will turn into anything, but fwiw I have 20 Liters of literally sugar-water fermenting on my porch right now. :D
PS, I assume the 20 Liters of liquid weigh 25 Kilos, 'cause there is 5kg sugar in it...
And so began the hard seltzer revolution.... :p A little yeast nutrient would help. While I was living in Germany we made schnapps. Had a bunch of apples and plums we didn't know what to do with so we mashed them up in separate tuns, let them ferment, then distilled them. Made some really good plum schnapps, would make some really good hand sanitizer.
 
An American and an engineer, I have no idea how to do that calculation in our units without consulting Wikipedia.
For every .01 above water you would gain 1%. So water weighs 8.34 pounds per gallon, then a a beer with a final gravity of 1.010 weighs 8.4234. Or just say it weighs the same as water and call it good.
 
would make some really good hand sanitizer.
That is all I am hoping for!
I just used left over W34/70 slurry and it is sitting on my porch (<10°C at night >20°C during the day) so it will be far from drinkable, regardless of how well any sort of attempts at distillation work.My wife is already complaining about the smell...I have been telling her it just the sulphur produced by bottom fermenting yeast. :p
 
That is all I am hoping for!
I just used left over W34/70 slurry and it is sitting on my porch (<10°C at night >20°C during the day) so it will be far from drinkable, regardless of how well any sort of attempts at distillation work.My wife is already complaining about the smell...I have been telling her it just the sulphur produced by bottom fermenting yeast. :p
Do you have a still (or a village Schnappsbrenner) to distill it?
 
Do you have a still (or a village Schnappsbrenner) to distill it?
nah...that's why I'm not hoping for much. I was just going to jury-rig a still using my boil pot. If it works, I might post photos.:rolleyes:
 

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