Glossary · Chemistry
Brix
Also written degrees Brix, °Bx. Each is a name for the same thing, which is why none of them has an entry of its own.
Definition
A scale expressing dissolved solids as grams of sucrose per hundred grams of solution. One degree Brix is approximately one per cent sugar by weight in juice.
- Subject
- Chemistry
- Also written
- degrees Brix, °Bx
In more detail
Brix is convenient because it maps directly onto sugar, and it is what a refractometer reads. It is not exact for apple juice, because the dissolved solids include acids, pectin and other material as well as sugar, and it becomes actively misleading once ethanol is present.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Chemistry
Specific gravity
The density of a liquid relative to water at the same temperature. In cider it is the routine measure of dissolved sugar before fermentation and of progress during it.
Chemistry
Oechsle
A German must-weight scale: the number of grams by which a litre of juice exceeds the weight of a litre of water. A juice at 1.050 specific gravity reads 50 degrees Oechsle.
Equipment
Refractometer
An optical instrument that measures the refractive index of a drop of juice and reads it out as degrees Brix. Accurate on unfermented juice and unreliable once alcohol is present.
Chemistry
Potential alcohol
The alcoholic strength a juice would reach if all its fermentable sugar were converted, estimated from the starting gravity.
Cider
Concentrate
Apple juice from which most of the water has been removed, usually by vacuum evaporation, leaving a syrup of about 70 degrees Brix that is stable, transportable and reconstituted before use.
Where to go next
- Cider glossary — The whole vocabulary, by subject and A–Z.
- Comparisons — Terms that are only really clear when set against the thing they are not.
- Search — Finds terms by their aliases and by their spellings in other languages.
Sources
What this page rests on. Where a source is marked as registered rather than read, CiderHQ is recording that the body is authoritative on the subject without claiming to have worked through the document itself. See our evidence policy for what each state means.
Cornell Cider Research and Extension programme
Cornell University, School of Integrative Plant Science · university · passage verified 2026-08-24
Runs cultivar trials in New York State and publishes juice chemistry for European cider varieties grown in a North American climate — the single most useful counterweight to treating English figures as universal.
Hochschule Geisenheim University — beverage technology
Hochschule Geisenheim · university · retrieved 2026-08-24
German beverage-technology research covering apple wine and fruit juice processing, including the enzymology of clarification.