What Attenuation Is In Brewing

When you’re looking at yeast when it comes to home brewing, normally you see a few things about the yeast: 1) Attenuation 2) Flocculation 3) Alcohol Tolerance 4) Flavor Profile.

Alcohol tolerance and flavor profile are easily understood.  We have a post all about flocculation as well.  But what is Attenuation?

Attenuation is normally expressed as a percentage.  It refers to is the amount of fermentable sugars which are converted into alcohol as well as carbon dioxide from yeast.

You can normally make a few assumptions off of the attenuation %.  As a homebrewer you can make a basic assumption, the higher the attenuation the higher the potential alcohol percentage will be, the less sweet the beer will be.

There are more interesting facts about attenuation (that was sarcasm) which you can read but honestly, they are just formulas.  I did however feel the need to put up this post about attenuation because many home brewers are curious about what the word implies.   I hope it clarifies!