Floating Hydrometer...

Just curious if anyone had thought of just floating their hydrometer in the secondary fermenter and leaving it there...I use all glass and hate to open it up at all...and I know that there are thermometers meant to be left floating in the fermenter, so was wondering if it would be okay, if anybody has done it, or if anyone knows of a good reason why I shouldn't do it.....

1) I'll get gunked up making it difficult to read and inaccurate.
2) It may break when removing it from the empty carboy when done if not careful.
3) It would be better to utilize a sampling strategy that minimizes contamination and get practiced at it.

I agree once you got krausen the readings and the ability to read once it gets crusted up would be gone.

I've floated it in the secondary before. Wait until everything on the surface of the beer settles down before you put it in. A small amount of foam will form around the hydrometer, so it can be tough when you need to check the single-digits.

If you can do without the hydrometer until your beer is done, it might work after the Krausen drops.

If it's sterilized and dropped in, it would less likely to introduce contamination than multiple attempts to siphon samples out.

Like the others said, any goo sticking to it would make it hard to read and the goo might affect your readings if it were to make the hydrometer heavier or more bouyant.

olllllo said:

1) I'll get gunked up making it difficult to read and inaccurate.
2) It may break when removing it from the empty carboy when done if not careful.
3) It would be better to utilize a sampling strategy that minimizes contamination and get practiced at it.

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+1 and all that stuff.

Ain't worth it.

I do it all the time. Works like a charm.

I even leave them in the primary, that makes them hard to read when you have a lot of activity, but not impossible.

Why would you want to leave it in the secondary? Fermentation should be complete before beer goes into the clearing tank , right? Your gravity should not drop much more during the secondary process. I agree that it is not worth it. - Dirk

derogg said:

Why would you want to leave it in the secondary? Fermentation should be complete before beer goes into the clearing tank , right? Your gravity should not drop much more during the secondary process. I agree that it is not worth it. - Dirk

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Damn you beat me to it. I too was going to ask why you'd need a hydrometer in secondary. the beer should be done, or within .002 points of being done...so it shouldn't even be necessary.

Well.....Beermaking brought me to ask the question but I was actually considering it more for a mead project than anything else...I don't ever really test my beer except when I'm making it and when I'm bottling it. But for a mead I think it would be very useful as the yeasties can often work on a batch of mead for quite a long time I am told...

Get a wine thief and a hydrometer sample cylinder for testing meads/wines in a carboy.

I bought an inexpensive refractometer on ebay and am trying this method from B3 for the first time:
http://morebeer.com/learn_vids/vids_refract?PHPSESSID=0a0622c701ae11824255cc5db16bfe52
I'll cross check with the hydrometer when the primary and secondary finish. If this works well, it greatly simplifies things.

Plus you need to taste the sample.

My mead batches have been strictly limited to a one gallon quick mead that is ready to drink in 3 weeks, but I was thinking that if I was to make a 5G long fermenting mead, it would be a P.I.T.A. to keep taking samples, and I could relieve that need by simply floating a hydrometer once the busy primary had subsided. Perhaps this belongs in the Wine Forum, but I don't know any better...