Itty Bitty Rants

Infrequent posts about stuff.

Alcohol content in soda

This post is actually something that I just sent out to a mailing list (more on that later) that I thought I should probably put here for future reference. If anyone does have solid numbers to share as far as alcohol content in soda, I would love to see them!



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While I don't have any hard numbers to share for an answer, I've<br />always been told that the actual alcohol content from naturally<br />carbonated sodas is very, very small. A fairly simple way to look at<br />it is that when you brew beer, you let the fermentation run for weeks.<br />With soda you let the fermentation run for days and then slow or stop<br />the fermentation to keep your bottles from exploding.



I usually let me batches of soda run for about 3 days (60 hours<br />actually) at between 65F and 70F to get the carbonation level that I<br />like. After refrigeration (I have a separate bar fridge that I use<br />that is set to 45F) fermentation does continue, but at only a small<br />fraction of the pace.



Fairly normal beer brewing instructions say to run your first<br />fermentation cycle for 3 to 7 days and then to do secondary<br />fermentation (for carbonation) for 2-4 weeks, all at 65F to 75F. Even<br />if fermentation is a fairly constant process (which it isn't quite)<br />the comparison between 3 days to 28 days of fermentation should tell<br />you a LOT about the comparative alcohol content of your soda.



A quick google search turned up a really good article on how to<br />calculate the alcohol content yourself:<br />[http://science.howstuffworks<wbr>.com/question532.htm</wbr>](http://science.howstuffworks.com/question532.htm)



The article in particular is talking about beer but the actual<br />measurements are certainly valid for soda. You do have to take some<br />measurements at the beginning of a batch in order to make the<br />calculations work, but that's just a good excuse to get another one<br />going isn't it?



Maybe I'll get around to doing a real test with various sugars to get<br />some real numbers for the next time somebody asks.