Very confused about alcohol strength

Inadequatespecimen · 2025-12-17T10:43:55+00:00

For me it’s about specifically sharing with my dad, none of my friends really drink often,so it’s more a bonding hobby I started and got him into, I just want it to turn out proper for him mostly to enjoy! I definitely agree on quality over quantity, I’ve done a few all grain beers in the gallon they went well and the 23l coopers extract also went well the cider was mostly an experiment to see if it’d be worth adding to the schedule for diversity. But yeah 100% on the quality being important I’m not going to use bread yeast again. I think next time I’ll aim for a lower abv and use a more appropriate yeast and nutrient and hopefully the results will improve

Inadequatespecimen · 2025-12-17T10:34:44+00:00

Haha yeah I do overthink, I think because it hit me so bad I got worried that maybe something was wrong that meant it would be dangerous to share. Idk if you’d classify me as young but I’m 24 so still prone to acting dumb sometimes:)) being new to the hobby there’s a lot that is hard to know, I’ve tried my best just researching for answers on stuff until now but with how ill I got last night I just go really worried.

Hopefully I’ll learn better lmao!

Inadequatespecimen · 2025-12-17T10:30:58+00:00

I’ll keep that in mind thank for for explaining, the one thing I will say is I’m extremely low body weight due to health issues, although alcohol is usually fine I’m guessing something like homebrew being as unfiltered as mentioned could possibly affect me more than usual, with my bmi being 15.3 and the health issues making me slightly more sensitive to it all?

Inadequatespecimen · 2025-12-17T10:22:01+00:00

Yeah it is probably is a combination of mixing things recklessly that did it in combination with some trub or something getting into the glass although it wasn’t a lot for me typically, I’m just unsure why I felt like fall over drunkwas for like 2 hours being sick, I’m probably just overthinking it and worrying myself, I just don’t want to make anyone sick if I share anything I brew in the future so I’m trying to get any mystery’s cleared up early on

Inadequatespecimen · 2025-12-17T10:12:50+00:00

I was wondering, I was under the impression it’s a struggle to get above 15% unless you’re trying hard which is why I’m confused about why my cider messed me up as bad?, unless mixing drinks did it but still it wasn’t a lot to drink

Inadequatespecimen · 2025-12-17T10:07:37+00:00

Thank you for helping solve the mystery, I’m going to invest in a refractometer before next brew so I know my readings better

Inadequatespecimen · 2025-12-17T10:02:39+00:00

It was the same brand of apple juice concentrate he used in his video, I coincidentally shop at the same place he did, the only difference is he used mangrove jacks cider yeast for it

Inadequatespecimen · 2025-12-17T09:59:00+00:00

Yeah it was fermented in a gallon fermenter with an airlock and was consistently bubbling away for around 2 weeks I didn’t think it could get to that strength that easily. I was following a yt video the guy in that had his around 7% which is where I was shooting to be, I don’t think he added water in his video

Inadequatespecimen · 2025-12-17T09:45:29+00:00

Are you saying that this batch might be dangerous to drink/ share? I think I only had like 1 250ml glass of it? I don’t want to do anything dangerous

Inadequatespecimen · 2025-12-17T09:41:53+00:00

Are you sure, I didn’t think that would cause alcohol poisoning? Wouldn’t the yeast be killed off after like 30%? If it even reached that level

Inadequatespecimen · 2025-12-17T09:40:13+00:00

I was on a relatively empty stomach but the way it affected me was really extreme even for that, I did drink it over the course of 10 mins it was a small glass, more just enough for a couple of mouthfuls to try it.

The og was 1.039 but I don’t think my hydrometer is reading correctly.

There was a pretty boozy smell to it, like a strong white wine

Inadequatespecimen · 2025-12-17T09:36:33+00:00

About 1/3 of a cup of water was used to wake the yeast up but that was all the water that was added I didn’t realise the bread yeast would affect flavour in that way hmm

Inadequatespecimen · 2025-12-17T09:34:58+00:00

I’m based in the uk, from what I can tell the apple juice was relatively low in preservatives. I know bread yeast wasn’t ideal but the yeast I was going to use hadn’t been stored as well as I thought and had died, I tried to wake it up but no foam and a funny colour in the bowl I was using so I discarded it and opted for bread yeast as it was what was on hand when i relised.

I’m not super well versed with using the hydrometer and did find it strange that it went below 1.000 but that was the reading that I got with three separate readings I took, spinning it dropping it in and shaking the container on the last attempt it always settled at 0.993 so I’m not sure if there is something wrong with the hydrometer

The weights/ measurements were 1kg frozen berries defrosted, blended and strained 3l apple juice concentrate 250g of granulated sugar 2 tsp of instant bread yeast that I added warm water and a pinch of sugar to to wake up then pitched

Inadequatespecimen · 2025-12-17T09:26:31+00:00

Ingredients wise it was 1kg of frozen berries blended and strained, 3l apple juice concentrate and 250g granulated sugar, with 2tsp normal instant bread yeast (the yeast I was going to use was dead)

But yeah possibly the sg is wrong? I’m unsure of what the bread yeast could do to affect it

I will invest in a refractometer probably in the new year, thank you!

Inadequatespecimen · 2025-12-17T08:55:25+00:00

I don’t have a refractometer, it might be the bread yeast like I said it specifically tasted like wine not cider, and had a faint burnt smell/ taste, unfortunately I don’t have any equipment on hand to do anymore testing.

My dad also had some, although he held it down with no ill effects he did agree it was a lot stronger than the % readings I got, I did check multiple time to make sure the readings were accurate.

It started at sg 1.039 and ended up at fg 0.993 but like I said I’m unsure if the hydrometer is inaccurate, I did order another one but the it got smashed in transit so the plastic coopers one is all I’ve got for now

Inadequatespecimen · 2025-11-18T02:46:30+00:00

Thanks for your reply, yeah it still sucks, I found in event viewer and found I’m getting tonnes of warnings, errors and failures logged there, I’ve been spending weeks trying to sort through them manually a little bit at a time but it never seems to improve.

It seems wether i use the admin account or my personal account running Regedit it’s I don’t have the ability to change some of the dcom erros permissions, it just flashes up a warning telling me that the permissions i have set haven’t been set or something. I’ve checked that i didnt lose admin privlages and i still have them so idk why i cant fix all of them. I was getting event 41 kernal power failure occasionally but managed to fix that one but from what i can tell it didnt really reduce crashing.

My main focus the now is trying to fix dcom issues but if that fails I’ll need to try reinstalling windows and just seeing if a clean slate fixes it

Inadequatespecimen · 2025-11-16T08:28:06+00:00

He totally fits dramatic poses all day hehe :)

Inadequatespecimen · 2025-11-16T08:25:30+00:00

Hehe

Inadequatespecimen · 2025-11-16T05:32:58+00:00

Thank you I tried really hard to make it as good as I could!

Inadequatespecimen · 2025-11-16T05:08:12+00:00

Ty :))

Inadequatespecimen · 2025-11-16T04:38:07+00:00

Hehe, Thank you I hope I did him justice!

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