How much sugar is in Alcohol after Fermentation?

[Whimpy64]

Morning All from Tasmania Australia...... Just a quick one..... I have a friend who is Type one Diabetic and he asked me how much sugar was in my Alcohol. Is there anyway to get an approx idea of how much is left after Fermentation and distillation?

Ideally for him to be able to enjoy a drink with us safely it needs to be 8% or less

Would be grateful to anyone with some useful info on this...... He's not a big drinker and drinks Low carb Beer on occasions and would like to try my brew without worrying too much about his sugar levels etc

Thanks in advance

Whimpy

[Anavrin]

Hi Whimpy

I would guess no sugar at all, if you first ferment your wash until it's dry, (less than 1.000SG) then distill, I would say no sugar would survive the process.

[Whimpy64]

Thanks So much for the quick reply..... Usually after fermenting of my usual TPW mash the SG comes in at between 990 and as low as 980 so thats great news for my friend

Thanks again it helps so much when the very learned people on this forum are able to help us with very good and informative responses

[Easydrinker]

Anavrin hit that one on the head.
If it was within my powers,I would award him the Gold star of the day!

Robert.

[RumJohn]

@Whimpy64: If you stick with your distillate (knowing the process) your mate will be safe enough.

The whole purpose of a good ferment is to convert all the sugar to alcohol. I go as high as .25 kg of sugar per liter of water. That is on the high side and I would suggest you keep it lower. If a wash got stuck or stopped fermenting for some reason, you might have sugar left over, but even then it would have to a total cockup for significant amounts of sugar to finish up in the final product.

Where you will find increased sugar levels is in the post distillation processing. Caramel might be added for coloring, simple sugar to sweeten, and so on.

As stated above, you will know your process and have taken readings all the way through.