Official Broken Hydrometer Count

+2, 778: The first one seamed like the internal time bomb went off. Then upgraded to glass tube, let hydrometer drop from about halfway down tube. Tube broke, then hydrometer broke when it hit sink. I mean, really. Some brew days are jinxed.

+1 bringing the total to 779. personal count of 3 broken now, one of which was my friends.

+1 it was going on 6 years old too.
780 total

781.

Broke my first one tonight. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The bottling + double-racking day was going so well, and almost wrapped up when I knocked over the sample..... Argh!

782....it was 5 years old too

786. I've broken 4 in the past 3 years or so. I am going to invent a square hydrometer so that they don't roll off surfaces.

787. Just broke another. Was sitting on the counter and magically rolled off

788

R.I.P.

Broke one when looking through the equipment on the shelf. This was my first, purchased in 1998.

789
My SWMBO didn't know what it was, but she did know she broke it.

790

I blame this one on myself. It was still inside the square storage tube.

790

In my weekend marathon of painting (painted office, hallways, and living room)while my fermenting chamber (Fish Tank stand) was in the middle of the room, covered in a sheet, my effing cat got a little curious and knocked over the hydrometer in its test tube with a StarSan solution.

Luckily I have another one.

792, have broken 2 already this year!

793. Brew buddy broke it our first one. He did break the before

3. Then went Hollywood and got me one of them fancy smancy refractometers.

johnnyrhine said:

3. Then went hollywood and got me one of them fancy smancy refractometers.

Click to expand...

794*

795 Dropped it on the floor...

795. I just dropped it

796.

I broke one a few years ago. It didn't roll off, nor did I drop it. I babied it for several years. One time I was done using it, washed and dried it, grabbed the tube it came in, slid it in, and out the bottom it came. Now I always cradle the bottom whenever I put it back in the sleeve.

797. Opened one that I got for Christmas and saw that it was already broken

+1 = 798. Now I own a refractometer.

800! Yikes. I've broken two - and now I too own a refractometer. . .

+2 = 802, after buying a couple to have "just in case", I've not broken another....... go figure.

+1 = 803.

A few years ago I broke one while draining the wine thief containing the hydrometer.

It really doesn't take much effort to shatter the very thin glass with all the mass of steel shot behind it. Been much more careful now and I've sworn to never "drop" it in any vessel whatsoever. I use the hydrometer test jar and hold on to the hydrometer until it floats.

A floating thermometer suffered a similar fate.

Last night, just finished running hot wort through the plate chiller. Went to grab a sample in the hydrometer storage tube (never again).

Made a neat thump as it crashed through the plug at the bottom, and broke into a million little pieces.

+1 = 804.

Didn't break it, retired it, after receiving my Williams narrow range hydrometers in the mail yesterday.

Purchased in Feb, 1986 and it is the only one I have ever owned. Cheapest piece of brewing equipment I have ever bought, may the new set last as long, I would be 74 years old if it does and I will still be brewing. Cheeers!

+1 Mine was 3 years old. It survived three apartments and lots of abuse. I just went to brew my biggest RIS of my hobby career and pulled the storage tube out and saw it in 52,534 pieces. I felt like my first pet just died. Except I didn't flush this one down the toilet...

805

806

Didn't realize it was on my drying towel and placed my brew pot in top of it.

+5 = 811

I went through a bad streak of breaking them. I even went so far as to buy two at a time and broke them on successive brew days. Frustrated, I switched to a refractometer and swore I'd never buy another one.

Eventually I lost confidence in the refractometer's calibration and went back to the hydrometer. I've been using the same one for about a year now.

Funny story though. I had all my equipment set up on a picnic table in my driveway and was setting up my propane burner when the hydrometer began to roll. It went off the edge, hit the concrete, and didn't even chip.

+1

812

Broke my first hydrometer before I ever got to use it.

Why do they make the glass so goddamn thin!

813
broke mine while pulling the chiller in and out of brew pot! Forgot it was in there?!

+1 = 814

Girlfriend thought she would be sweet and help me clean up....didn't realize that was on my drying rack she said

+1 = 815

Dropped one bottling an IPA a few days ago.

Broke my first one yesterday...

816

Gorilla fisted mine last night while measuring the OG of my wort. Got shards of glass in my hand that the wife kindly dug out whilst laughing at me.

817

818--first one after almost two years! Maybe a refractometer...

My hydrometer read it's final gravity today. 9.8m/s^2 to 0 as it rolled off my counter.

819

Great thread and I do not want to hijack but why not use plastic ones?

i broke 2 so far. one when I first started brewing. i was so consumed with craft brew that i hit it with my spoon broke the hydrometer and the glass vial. the other was not to long ago. I sat my glass of brew on the very end of the hydrometer and it broke.

+2=821

Luckily I managed to get a FG reading before it snapped. Lesson learned, bought two replacements.

822

Another one cracked...don't know when or how.

822 + 1 = 823