Fortification Calculator

The formula for calculating how much alcohol to add when fortifying a beverage depends on the desired alcohol content of the final product and the current alcohol content of the base beverage. For example, when fortifying wine with brandy to make port wine, the desired alcohol content is typically between 18% and 20%.

To calculate how much brandy to add to the wine to achieve the desired alcohol content, you can use the following formula:

Volume of brandy = (Final volume of fortified wine x Desired alcohol content) – (Volume of base wine x Current alcohol content of wine)

In this formula, the final volume of fortified wine is the total volume of the fortified wine you want to produce, including both the base wine and the added brandy. The desired alcohol content is the target percentage of alcohol in the final product. The volume of base wine is the amount of wine you have on hand that you will be fortifying, and the current alcohol content of the wine is the percentage of alcohol already present in the base wine.

For example, let’s say you have 1 liter of red wine with an alcohol content of 12% and you want to fortify it to make a port wine with an alcohol content of 20%. You want to end up with a total volume of 1.25 liters of fortified wine. Using the formula above, we can calculate the volume of brandy needed:

Volume of brandy = (1.25 liters x 20%) – (1 liter x 12%) = 0.25 liters of brandy

Therefore, you would need to add 0.25 liters (or 250 milliliters) of brandy to the 1 liter of red wine to produce 1.25 liters of fortified wine with an alcohol content of 20%. Keep in mind that this is just a general formula, and the actual amount of alcohol to add may vary based on the specific characteristics of the beverages being used.