Hydrometer help!

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PNP

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Hello, I am very new to home brewing and I'm having difficulty with my hydrometer readings. I tried to do an initial reading prior to fermentation and my hydrometer only sunk to the bottom of the tube. I tried again with just water and same result. I contacted my vendor and they gave me a new hydrometer... Same result. What am I doing wrong!?!?!
Any help is appreciated. Thanks!
 
Hard to tell without a picture or a more in-depth explanation of what you are doing. At first guess, are you filling the sample tube with enough wort/beer to float the entire hydrometer?
 
Is your tube longer than the hydrometer? What's the temp that you're taking your reading? Is this the initial reading or the final reading (after fermentation )?
 
image-3264394524.jpg

Here the tube is filled enough that it pushes to overflow.
 
Ok. I'll try something at least as tall. Will I be discarding too much liquid though?

Oops.... Didn't read clearly. I'll sanitize the hydrometer and try the bucket.
Thanks everyone. I'll update after I try tomorrow.
 
I highly recommend picking up a "thief". Its great to take readings and there's no loss of brew!! Ask about it at your LHBS.
 
That looks like the protective case the hydrometer came in. I have read about people using those but it needs to be taller. You need to get a test jar(tall clear plastic tube), like in the link and use a beer thief (the white plastic thing that looks like a turkey baster- or just use a turkey baster) to fill up the test jar.
 
PNP said:
Oops.... Didn't read clearly. I'll sanitize the hydrometer and try the bucket.
Thanks everyone. I'll update after I try tomorrow.
Click to expand...

Floating a hydrometer is fine, as long as it is sanitized. I don't do this because I don't want to take the chance of the hydrometer breaking and me having to dump a batch because of it.
 
And, while you can get a good idea about OG, it's a lot harder to get a good angle on the reading when it's in the bucket vs. a graduated cylinder, et at.
 
Thanks for the help everyone. Bought a thief and test jar and everything works great!
 
PNP said:
Thanks for the help everyone. Bought a thief and test jar and everything works great!
Click to expand...

If you can use the thief as your test jar, you can return your actual test jar. My thief is the perfect vessel for taking hydrometer readings.
 
^how do you do that without loosing all the sample out the bottom of it?
 
Mine has a valve at the bottom. When I dip it on the beer, the valve opens (plastic floats), and allows beer in. When I pull it out of the beer, what is already in the tube presses down to close the valve.

If yours doesn't work like that, I can take a picture to explain it better. Sometimes my explanations don't make sense to anyone but me.
 

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