Alcohol Content of Beer

Purpose: To find the alcohol content of beer and/or wine by using the density of the distillate by using statistical measures from a common sample.
Procedure: Use distillation setup found in Figure 1. Properly connect and calibrate with the old polyjug. Calibrate the water and measure with meniscus and take temperature. Add two and three boiling chips, collect the distillate after 35 m L. Measure the density of distillate. Fill the pycnometer and weigh it. There is possible interpolation.
Caution: Slow heating may be needed to avoid foam. Alternatively the sample may be heated from the side of the flask. The method given above will not work on anything but beer or wine.
Analysis: Density is mass divided by volume. If you need to interpolate, use a method from Appendix C. Other calculations deal with total mass i.e. dry mass vs. pycnometer with water. One subtracts the dry mass from the wet pycnometer.