stupid hydrometer question

ok..this may be a dumb question but this is my 1st brew attemt i tranfered my batch to a carboy ....how do i get the hydrometer out after checking the gravity? im guessing a stick with bubble gum on the end would be the wrong way

I think I'd suggest leaving it there until it's time to bottle, then try and gently dump it out after you've siphoned all the beer. If you try and get it out now you're going to have to sanitize anything you put in there, and you run a risk of breaking it and ending up with glass in your beer.

In the future, take a sample to test while you're siphoning...or use a thief.

I would suggest NOT trying to dump the meter out after racking to the secondary. Much safer to just slowly fill the primary back up to the tippy top with water and pull the hydrometer out with your fingers.

those little suckers are pretty fragile, and must be handled gently.

If you only break one thing during your brewing career, it will be a hydrometer.

-walker

Walker said:

If you only break one thing during your brewing career, it will be a hydrometer.

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If you only break one thing during your brewing career...it was a pretty short career!

Good tip on filling it up with water by the way.

El Pistolero said:

If you only break one thing during your brewing career...it was a pretty short career!

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Depends on how careful you are. I'm averaging one broken hydrometer every 3 years... then again, I don't use my hydrometer very often. I don't see much point in it since I could care less how much alcohol is in my stuff.

El Pistolero said:

Good tip on filling it up with water by the way.

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You know, I've made this suggestion on several message boards and get the same response. It just seemed obvious to me, but I have a significant amount of laboratory experience in my background.

-walker

While I'm thinking about it, here's another tip for those of you who like to use the hydrometer to check gravity to know when things are done fermenting:

when you rack to the secondary, put your meter in the carboy and simply leave it in there for good. You can now take readings with out having to open the fermenter.

To remove the meter from the carboy after bottling, fill it up with water as described above.

-walker

My best hydrometer advice: Put it away and never use the accursed thing again. Mine, at least, relies on an visual interpretation that is probably highly inaccurate, not to mention that you have no real assurance that even if you get an accurately recorded reading, you really don't know if it is accurate anyway.

I agree with Walker - if it doesn't affect taste, who cares? If I just want to get a load on, I will drink Scotch.

Walker said:

when you rack to the secondary, put your meter in the carboy and simply leave it in there for good. You can now take readings with out having to open the fermenter.

Click to expand...

Kind of difficult to do if you only own 1 hydrometer and have 3 brews going.

I take a sample with a Thief and fill up the plastic sample tube to check temps first then gravity on the same sample.

Another "Bucket Advantage". Sanitize a ladel and pour the sample into the tube you store the Hydro in.

Tip 2: Don't run that thin, plastic tube it came in through the dishwasher.

Tip 3: Why put yourself through the risk of contaminating your brew with incompletely sanitized equipment? Seems to me that if you extract brew and use at least 6 pounds in 5 gallons of water, you're going to end up between 1.065 and 1.045. So you know you're going to end up with a decent alcohol content, if that's the quality on which you gauge of your beer.