New tothe brew game, doing small, all grain kit batches from Brooklyn brew shop. The kits are set up with no o.g. Or f.g. So no hydrometer needed, but some day soon I will be doing recipes, so I got a hydrometer. But how and when do you use it? Do you folks take a reading right after you pitch the yeast for your o.g. Check? When do you start checking for f.g.? I have read that f.g. doesn't matter as much as stable readings, so how often do you open your air lock to see? I thought a big part of this was leaving the beer/wort sealed up. Does everyone rack some beer out of the fermentor in to a test tube, or will your hydrometer float in the car boy? I have a one gal carboy and i am not sure if my hydrometer will float on it or not.