In case anyone was wondering...

If you pull a 170° sample from your freshly mashed wort and try to take a hydrometer reading, it's gonna be waa-haa-haaaay off. I learned this the fun way, amongst freaking out that I only got 5% efficiency on my first all-grain attempt.

So yeah, cool off the wort before you try to read the gravity.

Somehow in my years perusing this board, I'd never read that so here it is. I'm sure it's here elsewhere, but I never came across it.

Or you can use a refractrometer with ATC

h22lude said:

Or you can use a refractrometer with ATC

Click to expand...

yeh, but stickin it in the freezer is cheaper

BeerAlchemy has a converter so you can pretty much take a reading at any temperature. From what I have read, the converters aren't too accurate though at very high temps, so I rarely take one above 120ºF.

there are also temperature adjustment keys. they have all the temps and the compensations to make it accurate reading at any temp.