Cider ABV Calculator
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Next step: Now work out priming sugar for naturally carbonating your bottled cider.
Cider Priming Sugar Calculator →Measuring Cider: What Each Mode Assumes
Fresh juice is a clean sugar solution and a refractometer reads it well, with one caveat: apple juice carries malic acid and pectin that add a little to the Brix reading without adding fermentable sugar, so a refractometer OG on juice tends to run a few tenths of a Brix high compared with a hydrometer. After fermentation the alcohol effect dominates and a dry cider reads high, exactly as beer does. The refractometer mode corrects the final reading using the original one. If you sulphited and let the juice settle before pitching, read the OG after settling, not at the press.
Cider is often fermented cool, and a hydrometer reading taken from a 10°C fermenter reads about 0.001 high rather than low. Temperature correction works in both directions, so enter the sample temperature for each reading.
The full Terrill correction and the hydrometer temperature polynomial, with their references, are on the general fermentation ABV calculator. For the reasoning behind temperature correction see hydrometer temperature correction.
Typical Cider Gravities and a Worked Example
| Style | Typical OG | Typical FG | Apparent attenuation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supermarket juice cider | 1.040 to 1.050 | 0.996 to 1.000 | 100 to 108% |
| Fresh-pressed dessert apples | 1.045 to 1.055 | 0.996 to 1.000 | 100 to 108% |
| Bittersweet cider apples | 1.050 to 1.065 | 0.998 to 1.002 | 98 to 104% |
| Keeved cider (arrested) | 1.050 to 1.060 | 1.010 to 1.020 | 70 to 80% |
| Ice cider, chaptalised | 1.100 to 1.150 | 1.020 to 1.060 | 50 to 75% |
Worked example. Fresh juice reads 1.050 and the dry cider finishes at 0.998, both at 20°C. Balling gives 76.08 × 0.052 ÷ 0.725 = 5.46 percent by weight, then 5.46 × 0.998 ÷ 0.794 = 6.9 percent ABV. The 131.25 shortcut gives 6.8 percent, near enough at cider strength. Apparent attenuation is 0.052 ÷ 0.050 = 104 percent, the signature of a fully dry cider.
Why Cider Ferments Bone Dry
The sugar in apple juice is almost entirely fructose, glucose and sucrose, all of which cider yeast ferments completely. There is no mash step and no dextrin, so unless you deliberately halt it, a cider ferments to dryness.
That means a finished dry cider usually lands between 0.996 and 1.002, and readings below 1.000 are routine rather than a sign of trouble. If you want residual sweetness you have to stabilise and back sweeten after fermentation, not rely on the yeast stopping on its own.
Typical range: original gravity 1.045 to 1.060 for straight pressed juice, giving roughly 6 to 8% ABV. Juice from dessert apples sits at the lower end, while cider-specific varieties and concentrate can push higher.
Apple juice also carries less nitrogen than grape must, so a slow or stalled cider fermentation is frequently a nutrient problem rather than a yeast-strain problem.
Understanding Attenuation
Apparent attenuation for cider behaves like wine, not beer. Apple sugars are almost entirely fructose, glucose and sucrose, all fully fermentable, so a healthy cider yeast takes the gravity below 1.000 and attenuation reads over 100 percent by the (OG minus FG) divided by (OG minus 1.000) definition.
A dry cider at 0.996 to 1.000 is normal and expected. If your cider stops at 1.005 or higher, the usual causes are a wild or low-tolerance yeast, a nutrient-poor juice (apple juice is low in yeast-available nitrogen), or a deliberate keeving that starved the ferment. A cider that reads 1.010 and tastes sweet is not finished, and bottling it without stabilising is how bottle bombs happen. Confirm two identical readings three days apart before you carbonate.
SG, Brix and Plato explained, how to take accurate gravity readings at any temperature.
Cider & Beer Tasting Journal: Track your fermentation data alongside a full tasting note for every batch. 100 structured entries, score /100, buy-again rating. 6 x 9 in, 116 pages, cream paper.