Hydrometer Samples

Hello All,

I have hunted around the board a bit and am not finding an answer to this. Doesn't mean it isn't on here somewhere I am just not finding it.

Here is the deal; I have prchased a hydrometer that will unfortunately not arrive until Monday. I am bottling a Blonde Ale this weekend and want to brew up my next batch. I am wondering this... if I take say a 1/4 cup of each, the blonde being bottled and the wheat I am brewing cover them and set them on th counter until monday will I still get a decent hydrometer reading?

I think that your unfermented wheat sample should be fine, but you might want to refrigerate it over the weekend to keep it from getting fermented by wild critters, which would throw off your OG reading.

As for the blonde, if fermentation is actually done, I think it would be okay. But bottling it now and taking a gravity reading later is not going to tell you whether fermentation is actually done, or whether you're making bottle bombs.

Um the purpose of taking gravity readings is to tell you if you should do something (like bottling, or racking to secondary0 before you decide to do something. You take a hydro reading before you bottle to make sure fermentation is really complete, so you don't get bottle bombs for instance.

So rather than bottling your beer, why don't you hold off doing anything with that beer until you actually know what's going on with it? In other words don't pull a sample or bottle UNTIL you know if it's reached terminal gravity.

As to the brewing the batch this weekend, if it's an extract batch and you are topping off to the correct volume that your recipe is, you will be at the correct OG that your recipe will state. It's foolproof, since there's no mashing involved, the grains have already converted, so basically you are just dilluting the high grav extract to the correct volume (and steeping grains or adding hops and any spices.) but ultimately the gravity is based on the gravity of the wort dilluted to the correct final volume of liquid. SO you don't really need to take a og reading this time.

I should clarify.... The Blonde Ale has been in primary for 31 days.... I wanted to take a hydro sample for learning only on this one. I wish I had the hydro when I started this batch to get an OG but didnt... So I thought I would at least take a reading to see what the FG is so I understand it.... Kinda the same with the wheat .. yes it is extract only but again I am trying to learn so taking the reading and then testing later to find out when it is ready for bottling at least walks me through the whole proccess and set good habit for when I get into partial mashes and maybe one day all grain....