Official Broken Hydrometer Count

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IslandLizard said:
Are you sure there wasn't some large incentive to help it along to the other side? ;)

Regardless, 2593 it is, that's what counts here.
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there was, like (i think chity chity bang bang) "up from the ashes, grow the roses of success!" lol

https://www.ebay.com/itm/H-B-Instru...490166?hash=item3fb87317f6:g:a70AAOSwsQJcUIhy

this one has S.G. on oppisite sides and .0005 increments on the other two! never again will i wonder why the f**k i'm supposed to care about plato....like pluto it's so worthless it's not a planet....why does it take up a third of the circumference!
 
bracconiere said:
there was, like (i think chity chity bang bang) "up from the ashes, grow the roses of success!" lol

https://www.ebay.com/itm/H-B-Instru...490166?hash=item3fb87317f6:g:a70AAOSwsQJcUIhy

this one has S.G. on oppisite sides and .0005 increments on the other two! never again will i wonder why the f**k i'm supposed to care about plato....like pluto it's so worthless it's not a planet....why does it take up a third of the circumference!
Click to expand...
That sounds pricey!

There are precision, final gravity hydrometers with a fairly narrow range between 0.990 and 1.030 or so. The scale being long enough to get an accurate .0005 reading, .00025 (that's 1/4 point) or even better can be estimated. But... do we need that kind of precision?

When final gravity has been reached, that's it. Not much we can do about it, except for adding water if we don't like it.

I broke my first, a good one, 2nd or 3rd brew. Due to a rookie move, the (lowish) final gravity made it torpedo down to the bottom of the wine thief I used to take samples. It bottomed out and shattered, leaving small glass shards and a hundred steel pellets in there. At least they didn't get in the batch of beer, that would have been a real problem.

So I got another one for $10-12 at an LHBS that had clean plain white paper ones, not the confusing rainbow kind everyone else had. It's branded "TRUE BREW". The scale is fairly long, almost 4.5" between 0.990 and 1.170. It's easy to read, Brix/Balling, %Alc, and SG. Deviations at .002, but wide enough to estimate .001. That's close enough for me.
Now if it could only face the correct scale when done spinning it would be perfect.

Over time I accumulated 2 more from CL lot purchases. I never use those, they're not any better or easier to read. One is white the other the typical multi color. The scales are quite compressed. They're backups and apparently offer protection for the good one, that's been going for nearly 10 years. Not to jinx...
 
IslandLizard said:
That sounds pricey!

Now if it could only face the correct scale when done spinning it would be perfect.

...
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that's exactly why i'm willing to spend the $30 on this one, lol...nothing but beautiful SG all around! and i ALWAYS brew a 1.060 beer, for calorie counting reasons...so it's 1.0 to 1.07 is fine for me.....i already have one plain form one, love it...this one is better though...

and 'True Brew'? isn't that the gruit stuff? it does work in hoped beer right? lol
 
2597

I've had this one for 25 years. Bought it when I first homebrewed way back then. Gave up back then too but kept all my stuff around. 9 batches in since march and the damn thing just jumped out of the tube I was carrying it in.
 
JefeTheVol said:
I figured at because so many of brewers are completely clumsy that we should be keeping a count of how many hydrometers the average message board breaks over a one year period. If you're like me, I broke mine the first time I used it. Checking account balance: minus $14.95. Ill start. Just search for this thread if, and when, you break one because I think it will be interesting to see how many we actually go through.

Hydrometer Count: 1
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1- not even sure how it happened but it did .
While were at it, lets count floating glass thermometers broken as well... 1
yep , went to a digital instant read probe after that one. Much better and faster . I recommend everyone have one.
 
JefeTheVol said:
I figured at because so many of brewers are completely clumsy that we should be keeping a count of how many hydrometers the average message board breaks over a one year period. If you're like me, I broke mine the first time I used it. Checking account balance: minus $14.95. Ill start. Just search for this thread if, and when, you break one because I think it will be interesting to see how many we actually go through.

Hydrometer Count: 1
Click to expand...
You would think by now they would be manufactured with pyrex so they arent so fragile.
 
I've been brewing for a few years now and have went through THREE. I recently just broke the third one, which has promoted me to buy the Herculometer... I hope this purchase resolves this issue!
 
sk8masta88 said:
I've been brewing for a few years now and have went through THREE. I recently just broke the third one, which has promoted me to buy the Herculometer... I hope this purchase resolves this issue!
Click to expand...

Check the calibration of the Herculometer. I was gifted a set and none of them was accurate. NB sent a second set to replace the first and it suffered the same issue. Zero point off by .002 to .003 (low) and at 1.020, the low range herculometer read 1.016. At 1.050, the mid range read 1.046. All my glass hydrometers read all calibration solutions accurately.
 
sweetcell said:
likely too expensive for only a small gain in strength. would you pay $50 for a hydrometer that will still break if it falls on a hard floor?
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I didnt drop mine . Im still wondering what did in fact happen to it since I always take great care while using , cleaning and storing it. it had a crack on the bottom tip. I might , $50 is a stretch since you can buy pyrex measuring cups for under $5 .
 
* off-topic warning * (maybe not off-topic, but certainly tangential)

Soulshine2 said:
$50 is a stretch since you can buy pyrex measuring cups for under $5.
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true, but a) companies have been making pyrex measuring cups for a long time, so the market has matured, and b) the majority of houses in the western world has a pyrex measuring cup, i.e. there is a huge market. net effect: we have reached scale on measuring cups. there isn't the demand for pyrex hydrometers that would drive several factories to pump them out cheaply in order to compete.

but i, for one, would consider buying an expensive pyrex hydrometer if it was available...
 
Rather than Pyrex, I'd have thought your best bet would be the titanium glass that various companies like Schott are now using for "unbreakable" wine glasses.
 
Continuing the topic drift... there is no reason that a hydrometer needs to be glass at all, it could be stainless steel with precision etching. The key here is precision. As the plastic hydrometer demonstrates, a high degree of precision is required, and with that comes cost. Let’s say someone gets a precision SS hydrometer made and charges $150 for it. Who’s buying?
 
balrog said:
When you can do a digital refractometer for 120, count me out.
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even digital refracts can't give an accurate reading as soon as alcohol is present. any correction you make via a calculation will be an estimate, a best guess. true precision requires a hydrometer.

:smh: ok, enough of this :off:... anyone broken a hydrometer lately?
 
CJ-3 said:
Took 6 years but I broke my first hydrometer tonight while cleaning up.

2,598 is the new total

Do I get some kind of a badge now? Some type of badge of shame perhaps?
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lol, yes you do...

hydro.jpg


but of honor, not shame, i had to throw one on the floor because i didn't like the way it looked at me...
 
sweetcell said:
even digital refracts can't give an accurate reading as soon as alcohol is present. any correction you make via a calculation will be an estimate, a best guess. true precision requires a hydrometer.

:smh: ok, enough of this :off:... anyone broken a hydrometer lately?
Click to expand...
QA pro brewer friend gave me an FG hydrometer years ago, it's the perfect way to accurately know when my beer is finished. It survived our move last year so I can't wait to use it again soon.
 
2,598 + 2 = 2,600 :(

I broke my first one a couple of weeks ago after just a couple of months of brewing, said to myself, "Be careful, they're far more delicate than you thought..."

I then broke my new one after a week, putting something on top of it in my brewing equipment box. Doh!!

Have my third one wrapped on cotton wool now (literally), hoping my clumsy self can get at least a few months life out of it...
 
deeve007 said:
2,598 + 2 = 2,600 :(
Click to expand...

Add another for me today. Reaching for a clamp to hold the water hose in the fermenter for clean up and I dropped it. It bounced around and hit everything in the brewery. ...including the hydrometer flask containing the beer I just pulled to get a final finish gravity.

2,600 + 1 = 2,601
 
brewbama said:
Add another for me today. Reaching for a clamp to hold the water hose in the fermenter for clean up and I dropped it. It bounced around and hit everything in the brewery. ...including the hydrometer flask containing the beer I just pulled to get a final finish gravity.

2,600 + 1 = 2,601
Click to expand...

being that liking your post would be inappropriate, i'll just hold my head low...please a moment of silence...

(but i can crack a joke)

 
I broke my first one in 1.5 years of brewing a couple weeks ago. Knocked it off a shelf in it's plastic sleeve but it fell like 5 feet onto concrete so I knew it was a goner.

2,602
 
Resurrecting to say I broke my 2nd ever hydrometer last brewday. I wanted to get the same one again since it was nice and packaged well (and is a veteran owned business), but it almost doubled in price in 2 years, so got a generic one from the LHBS.
 
BrewMan13 said:
Resurrecting to say I broke my 2nd ever hydrometer last brewday. I wanted to get the same one again since it was nice and packaged well (and is a veteran owned business), but it almost doubled in price in 2 years, so got a generic one from the LHBS.
Click to expand...
I'm curious what was the brand name of the one you broke?
 
2 and I stopped buying them, I still have a spare one but I go with the refractometer and maths now, I can't break maths yet hahahah

Apparently the total count is now 2606 + 2 which makes 2608 broken hydrometers
 
Broken mine today, such a silly way of breaking it too. I usually keep it in a protective plastic tube, that opens on both ends. So I opened one end, took the hydrometer out, opened the other end of the tube for some reason and just slid the hydro through the tube thinking it was closed at the other end... Glad I took the hydrometer reading first though, gonna have to go buy another one.

Total count - 2608+1
Total - 2609
 
MrKristof said:
Broken mine today, such a silly way of breaking it too. I usually keep it in a protective plastic tube, that opens on both ends. So I opened one end, took the hydrometer out, opened the other end of the tube for some reason and just slid the hydro through the tube thinking it was closed at the other end... Glad I took the hydrometer reading first though, gonna have to go buy another one.

Total count - 2608+1
Total - 2609
Click to expand...
I broke my second one by leaving in the countertop and it decided to roll over and fall to the floor in a completely flat countertop hahaha
And the first one was that I was measuring a 40°C hot wort and when I grabbed the hydrometer I was left with the thin part in my hand and the fat one floating around in the tube hahaha the cut was super clean so it was pretty safe, I can't imagine if it had exploded in my hand or something like that
 

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