Bang on the money Nurmey. It's an important part of brewing tasting the sample, think of it like wine tasting from the conditioning keg. You can tasted the difference between day 1 and day 10. You guys need to switch to plastic fermenters, they have a tap in the bottom so no need to baste your turkeys

.... just open the tap, pour into a vial and drop the hydrometer in, measure and taste (of course we are all spitters not swallowers right).