Will carbonation through off a refractometer reading?

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well, i guess it depends on how you carb. If you force carb with CO2 i'd guess no and assume that if you didn't trust the reading you could let it sit out overnight and let it go flat.

If you bottle carb i think it would give a slightly different reading than if you force carbed because that added priming sugar could have changed the gravity from when you went to bottle it.
 
Yeah, and really in thinking about this, the beer is producing co2 as its fermenting and we take readings of that all the time :)

Thx
 
Donner is right. C02 will not affect the refractometer reading. CO2 does not refract visible light. Extra sugar added for carbonation will alter the reading if the yeast are still munching on it.
 
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