what's more accurate: Refractometer or hydrometer reading

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

olotti

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 16, 2013
Messages
2,804
Reaction score
226
Location
Lansing
Brewed last night and did a hop stand for 30min. After that time was up I took a refractometer reading, was about right on 14.5 or 1.060 right where I needed to be. Chilled the wort to 66 deg and racked to bucket, pulled off another sample to double check the gravity and the hydrometer sample read 1.058. Im sure I'm splitting hairs here but most of the time when I do this the readings are pretty spot on on both devices.
 
Depends on the calibration of your hydrometer. Temperature corrected your reading would have been 1.0587 if your hydrometer is calibrated to read 1.000 in distilled water at 59°F. Pretty much just a hair different than the refractometer.
 
^^+1

With my refractometer, I have to divide my % Brix reading by 1.04 before translating it to gravity units to get an accurate reading.
 
Temperature-corrected Hydrometer is more accurate, every time.

And I'm a person that uses a refractometer almost exclusively.
 
Yeah, hydrometer measures density directly, so it's more accurate (assuming it's read correctly and your eyes are good). There's a correction factor for a refractometer when measuring beer wort, as a previous poster pointed out. Usu. 1.02 to 1.04
 
Back
Top