Official Broken Hydrometer Count

+1
295

I broke one a few months back. Was in the tube, and it bumped against the wall, when I was carrying too much at once.

+1
=296

The only one I ever "broke" was my own ******* fault. I put it in the dishwasher to sanatize and all the stuff inside melted

JoeyChopps said:

The only one I ever "broke" was my own ******* fault. I put it in the dishwasher to sanatize and all the stuff inside melted

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ha ha....thats good stuff

finally..
+1= 297

+1= 298

but it jumped out of my hands=299

+1 = 300

+ 1

301

I've broken 4 in the 8 months we have been brewing. So make that 305.
The most tragic one was when I was cleaning out my brew pot for a double brew day and rolled over the hydrometer on the counter.

JoeyChopps said:

The only one I ever "broke" was my own ******* fault. I put it in the dishwasher to sanatize and all the stuff inside melted

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That reminds me of finding out I could re-use the pop up timers for chicken or turkey.
This thread is good to know for what not to do. Will that prevent me from destroying another hydro in some stupid way? No.

+1 = 306.

I was sure it would never happen to me. Left it on the table, in the container for it, and it rolled off. Lucky it only shattered in the container, easy cleanup. Still, now one of my brews is FG=how should I know. heh...

+1 307

Dropped during prep. Mystery OG for me too.

I just broke my first hydrometer about 2 minutes before I was going to check my O.G. on my first all grain brew.=308

+1= 309

Call me butter fingers... This is the 2nd batch in a row wher I dropped my hydrometer.

+1=310

+1=311

Was cleaning some equipment and had it in some star san and I lightly dropped my baster in the water from maybe half a foot above and split the damn thing in half. Cant believe how easy that 10 dollar piece of glass is...

Note to self. Never clean anything else with my new 10 dollar fragile piece of glass.

+1= 312

It popped out as I was shutting the drawer that it was housed in. Broke it really well.

0 = 312

Are you serious, 312 hydro's have been broken?

Butterfingers, all of you.

+1 = 313. That's 2 for this year. Time to get a refractometer.

+1 = 314 first one for me sure it won't be the last

You guys need to get the $25 refractometer that does both brix and sg reading on eBay!!

Plus 1. 315

scotched said:

Are you serious, 312 hydro's have been broken?

Butterfingers, all of you.

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Your hydros days are numbered...

Just broke 316 about five minutes ago, but I have a spare. If I break that tonight I will report back!

I have a plastic one, very old......... that my grandad used for wine making, scale not great but gives one an indication,

(from the looks of it I must start a hydro supply co.)

Acoma said:

Your hydros days are numbered...

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Probably jinx'd myself there. Unless I get a refracto first.

I got my 2nd the other day. Was holding the very tip of it in my mouth and popping off the lid to my fermenter. Busted in my mouth. May get a Pyrex Baume spindle instead.

+2 to 318

Two. One got hit in a full on bathtub sanitation and shattered.

The second got broken by my very drunk brewing assistant.

I guess we're up to 322 now with my two that I broke inside I week when I first started.

I brewed for years before actually using the hydrometer. Then, as soon as I started using one, i broke it.

324. I broke one last winter.

326. I broke two and switched to a refractometer.

327. Broke it last week. Put it back in it's tube only to realize I didn't put the other cap back on. Something out of a 3 Stooges skit.

328. Got lazy and left it on the table and when I moved my primary on to the table. Crunch. Luckly I have a few spare

None, but then again I have only been brewing since the beginning of July. 4 extract kits so far. Taking into account all expenses it comes to $5.51 per bottle so far. None ready to drink yet.

329. Had a really bad brewday. Not only did I break my hydro (and alas, it was only its' third brew!) but I also broke a bottle, DROPPED a 6gallon glass carboy (but oddly enough, didn't break it) AND shattered one of my 3 (now 2) 2 liter Erlenmeyer flasks that had a finished yeast starter (was bumping my cell numbers in preparation to putting them in glycerin and freezing 'em. I did manage to same some of the yeast, so I'm back to repopulating their numbers -ordinarily I wouldn't sweat it but thanks to my broken flask, they just became the most expen$ive yeast I have
OTOH I DID manage to get 5 gals. of honey-ale into a fermenter and another five gals. of semi-sweet mead. Really bad session though.
I may have to look into one of those refractos. SWMBO is really annoyed at me spending money to replace equipment I already had

A brief search found plenty of refractometers that were reasonably priced, but further reading shows that they lose accuracy as alcohol is introduced into the mix.
Saw way too many posts reporting that even with conversion (and calculating) tables, the accuracy suffered too much to be useful for FG readings.
Seems I'd STILL have to have the glass even if I purchased this technological marvel.
Oh well.

Nightbiker said:

A brief search found plenty of refractometers that were reasonably priced, but further reading shows that they lose accuracy as alcohol is introduced into the mix.
Saw way too many posts reporting that even with conversion (and calculating) tables, the accuracy suffered too much to be useful for FG readings.
Seems I'd STILL have to have the glass even if I purchased this technological marvel.
Oh well.

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If it's calibrated and the proper equations are used, it's pretty much fine. Fine enough, in fact, that if you have both a hydrometer AND refrac, you should be able to work backwards and actually even calculate the OG.

There's plenty of other reasons to get a refrac though. Not to mention, if you're using a hydrometer only to measure FG (like many people do), then, UNLIKE most people (for whatever reason), you can get one of those hydrometers that have a much more narrow range (eg 1.000-1.030), which allows you to make a MUCH more precise FG reading than an all-purpose hydrometer... you can literally measure something every 0.0005 (eg 1.0105) with the same accuracy you'd be able to measure every 0.002 on a normal hydrometer.