Question regarding adjuncts & final gravity / sugar content.

Due to my inexperience in highly detailed homebrewing, I figure someone here may be able to answer my question & scratch my curiosity itch.


Take, for example, Russian River Supplication. A barrel aged beer, aged with cherries. Now it is my assumption that final gravity readings (for the purpose of calculating ABV) are taken after all adjunct addition, barrel aging, secondary fermentation, etc., basically - FG is taken immediately before bottling. Is that correct?

So Supplication lists OG 1.06, with 7% ABV. (The bottle I have is 7.75% ABV, but lets not go there right now). So according to http://www.mrgoodbeer.com/carb-cal.shtml this puts the FG somewhere around 1.0075 which is fairly dry. That calculator also calculates (approximate) carb levels in the beer. In this case, around 195 calories and 14.8g per 12 oz of Supplication.

Now on the other hand, take a beer like "Key Lime Pie" from Shorts Brewing. As the labels states "brewed with marshmallow & lactose with graham cracker & lime added". I do not have the OG/FG numbers, but the ABV is 5.5%, & the sales rep was luckily able to get me approximate calorie/carb data from the brewers. Per 12 oz, it's about 275 calories, 36g of carbs.

Now, what makes the Shorts beer, despite being lower in ABV, so much more calorie & carbohydrate dense? Here are some things I've speculated, but don't actually know:

1. Perhaps the sugars in cherries are "more completely fermentable", in which most of them are converted to alcohol, leaving behind less sugar, as opposed to the sugars in marshmallow, lactose, graham cracker, lime, etc. Could this be a possibility?

2. Judging by the way the Short's beer description is worded, it sounds like marshmallow & lactose were added during the "brewing" phase, where as the lime & graham were added afterwards. Is it possible (in this case, or ANY case, really) that adjuncts containing sugar are added WITHOUT the opportunity to have their sugars converted to alcohol by the yeast? Can this ever happen? I mean, there's never a point when the sugars "outlast" the yeast, right??

Any other thoughts on this would be appreciated from people with more experience. If any of my assumptions are wrong, also, please let me know! As pedantic as it may sound, I try to keep a (somewhat) accurate measurement of my sugar/carbohydrate intake day-to-day, which is obviously made more painful when beer is considered. It's exacerbated even more with the addition of adjuncts like this, as I'm not sure how they affect OG/FG all the time, unless I actually have the info with me. I mean, is it really safe to assume that Supplication, despite having a shitload of cherries added, is only 195 calories & 15g of carbohydrate per 12 oz serving? Seems low, but maybe that's the magic of sugars & yeast?

Thanks,
Anthony

 

I see. Explains why many/most "wild" (American or otherwise) beers are very dry, even with fruit additions. Thanks for the info!

Wouldn't those dextrins essentially be accounted for by/with a higher FG, though? (Perhaps not, I'm asking... that would be my original assumption).

 

Okay, so then let me ask this... Is there ever a case when you would not be able to calculate true FG if you know OG & ABV? For example, the Supp OG is 1.06 & ABV is 7%. Using that calculator, that ABV with that OG would require an FG of 1.0075.

But is it possible that the FG is higher due to something unfermentable that would not increase ABV?

Hopefully that makes sense

Basically, I know OG & ABV of a beer. Can I assume that the calculation of FG using those two numbers is accurate or no?

 

Right, understood. But here's a scenario I have in my head. Perhaps this is stupid, & forgive me if it is, as I have little brewing experience.

- Beer OG is measured
- Normal fermentation process happens
- Beer FG is measured
- ABV calculated
- Some additive (say, cherries in Supplication's case) adds sugar to the beer, raising the FG
- These sugars are, for whatever reason, unfermentable
- ABV is the same as original calculated but FG is higher

Or would ABV, essentially, always be calculated at the very, very end (meaning even AFTER any extra adjuncts are put into the beer)? I guess that's why they call it "FINAL" gravity right? This sounds like even more stupid of a question after typing it out, lol, but I just want to make sure I'm thinking about this the right way.

 

thanks for the info everyone!