Is My Hydrometer Off?

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jguy898

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I dropped my old hydrometer and it disintegrated, so I bought another. I went to check it in my cities tap water, at 75 degrees, and it is reading 0.998 - 0.997. That is way off from the 1.000 standard it's supposed to sit at.:(

Is this Normal? It maybe the water, it is EXTREMELY hard and almost undrinkable. I'm going to the grocer's in a few minutes and I'm going to buy some water that I would normally use in my mead to cross check the readings, but it still seems real fishy.

Any similar experiences? Thoughts?
Jonas
 
Brewing hydros are normally calibrated to read 1.000 at 60 F. Brewsmith's temp correction for your numbers says 0.999/1.000 @ 60 F

I bought some distilled water, and even with temp correction, it is at 0.998:(

But it's not that bad, I'll just compensate two points up for the readings I take with it.

Jonas
 
Yours is not too bad, actually. Mine is about 4 points off! 2 points is within what I think the the typical reading error without a magnifying glass would be. Also make sure you are reading from the negative meniscus.
 
Pfff...I am lucky if I could even see that!!! I am also beginning to think that my dad even reads to the closest .05 (bear in mind that he isn't in this to be fancy). He'd probably think you were kidding if you told him that your hydrometer was off by .002.
 
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