Does anyone know how to boil water?

I know this is one of those questions but I really struggle with it so here goes.
I have a really hard time reading the hydrometer. I was hoping someone out there knew of a couple of tricks and to make it worst. I really dont understand gravity readings.

Thanks

1.000 is the Specific Gravity of water. The specific gravity higher than 1.000 indicates the the water has absorbed sugars and other goodies from the grains or extract.

The calibration marks on your hydro indicate the Specific Gravity.

After fermentation, 1.005 is a typical Final Gravity for a lighter bodied beer. 1.030 would be a beast.

Does this help?

Hey man had the same problem...Get one of those skinny long test tube sort of things. Put hydrometer in there dry...fill with wort / beer sample until the hydrometer is floating....Once floating spin hydrometer to dislodge bubbles. After all of that see where the water intersects on the hydrometer and that is your reading.

OG - would be your reading before pitching yeast, but after boiling and topping of to 5gallons. Will probably be in the ballpark of 1.047 - 1.057 depending on style, but i would say that is close to what you are likely brewing to start out with.

FG - would be your reading after fermentation has stopped. 3 consecutive readings at the same output IE (probably around 1.015-1.005) Again depending on style, but 3 straight readings at same FG means fermentation has completed. Taking your two readings and with some math you can determine the abv.

Hope this helps.

How to use a hydrometer:

1) Your hydrometer probably came with a tall, thin tube (about an inch an a half in diameter and about 12 inches tall). Let's call it a sample tube. Fill this with your wort or beer using a sanitized beer thief or turkey baster.

2) Lower your hydrometer into the the sample tube. Do this over a sink because you might spill some liquid. When you lower the hydrometer into the tube it may stick to the side and give you a false reading, so the best technique is to spin the hydrometer with your fingers (like a top) as you let go of it. When it stops spinning it will not be touching the sides of the tube and will give you an accurate reading.

3) Read the hydrometer where the top of the liquid is touching the scale. Your hydrometer might have two or three different scales on it. The one you want to look for starts at 1.000 or 0.990 near the top of the and the values increase towards the bottom of the apparatus. At the very bottom of the scale mine says "SP. GR." meaning specific gravity. This is the set of numbers you want to read from. For example, in this image, the specific gravity would be 1.111 or 1.112 (note: they are making wine in this photo, you probably won't see a SG this high unless you are really trying to).

3.5) The hydrometer reading is depends on the temperature of your liquid. For most "room temperature" uses, it's not a big difference. But if your wort is hot or your beer is very cold (e.g. lagering). You will find conversion factors in the Palmer link below.

John Palmer describes this better and the wikipedia article is good reading also.

Here...let our own Bobby M show you.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtQt7HiObuU]YouTube - Hydrometer - Brewing Beginner Series[/ame]

Bobby M hit it on the head of the nail. Thanks guys.

THANK YOU!!! before this, dividing the numbers to the right of the decimal by 4 never existed to me and multiplying the difference by 131 never existed to me. But now they do!

When you take a reading from the mashed wort into the boil, to calculate efficiency, do you cool the sample down first? I just accounted for the high temp in my calc, but am sure that's not the best way... Also, do you measure each running, or just take a sample out of the brew kettle before starting the boil?

Don't worry about this little trivial stuff, the important thing is that your name and labels are catchy. Sorry to "offend".

not to confuse, But I love my refractometer. Once you fully understand a hydrometer, the change to a refractometer is pretty easy, and i use a website to do my calculations. It really makes life easier, using only 3 drops of wort to get a reading, compared to 3oz

Here is another Bobby M video that explains using both a hydrometer and a refractometer