Home brewing?!
its a muntons santa's winter warmer
Answers: i've just started a new brew ready for xmas, when i measured it for the alcohol it showed 7.5-8%, but on the box it states around 5.7%, have i done something wrong?
its a muntons santa's winter warmer
How could you have just started it and know the alcohol content? You have to take your OG (original gravity) before pitching the yeast, then you take the FG (final gravity) when the fermentation is complete. I don't understand how you would know this if you just started.
Nothing hope it is ready in time.
Looks like Santas going to be nicely warmed ,
You have overdone the sugar content maybe. Remember also there are variable factors in homebrewing, eg temperature and cleanliness.
To increase alcohol yield, add sugar, but this results in a thinner beer. You have to increase the malt too.
You can brew the kit without sugar, and completely rely on the maltose, and the alcohol yield will be fairly equal to any pub beer.
Sounds like too much sugar. This is great if you want a really strong beer, but make it too alcoholic and it becomes unpalatable (unpleasant to drink).
If your hydrometer showed a potential of 7.5-8%, did you calculate for your final gravity? Most beers will not ferment all the way to 1.000...
Also, your test sample could have been slightly heavy if the wort wasn't well mixed...
Or, as the other answers suggest, you could have gone a little overboard with the sugar...
You say you just started it? Were you checking the O.G. Original gravity? If this is the case you need to wait for fermentation to complete then check the specific gravity again. The difference between the O.G. and F.G. (final gravity) will help you determine the beers alcohol content.
It depends on which scale you used on the hydrometer. I'm assuming you read the percentage off the "potential alcohol" scale. You will probably wind up with close to what the box said because you can't ferment all the sugars in the beer. When fermentation is finished, you may have a "potential alcohol" on the order of two percent.
Other possibilities are not completely stirring the wort and getting a thick sample to test or taking the PA at too cold a temperature and not adjusting for it. Chances are, your wort is fine. Hoist one for me.