Hydrometer help

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Bloody John Roberts
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I just bottled my Wicked black ale but am a little concerned about bottle bombs.

11/20/2006 1.062 Boil into Primary
11/27/2006 1.022 Primary into Secondary
12/10/2006 1.026 Bottle FG before adding 0.5C corn sugar.

The issue is that I broke my hydrometer and used a different one today to check gravity before bottling.

I don't understand or believe that gravity would rise after two weeks more fermentation, so I filled my tube with tap water and the new hydrometer came in at 1.0. Now I'm worried since the elixir is in bottles.

The other issue is that, with the weather being a lot colder lately, the secondary pretty much sat at 64-68F. I figure this would slow down fermentation some but not much else.

Could this be a faulty hydrometer?
 
I think that I would be concerned about "bottle bombs". Your reading going at bottling was way too high. Your gravity can't rise, so one of the two hydrometers was faulty, the temperatures when you took your reading were wildly different (there are small changes in gravity due to temperature), or you misread the hydrometer (could the reading have been 1.016? - this would be about right).

You can test your hydrometer by dissolving 4 ounces of Dry Malt Extract in a quart of water (it probably would be best to apply some heat to insure that everything is completely dissolved). The gravity of the resulting mini-wort should be 1.046 when measured at 60 degrees. If the hydrometer hits 1.000 and 1.046 accurately, then it's most likely right in between.
 
1.022 or 1.026, either one is too high for bottling. Since most hydrometers simply have a paper scale stuck in them, it is possible for them to be out of calibration.
 
I am leaning towards the belief that my hydrometer results are faulty. I broke my first hydrometer sometime during my first batch cycle and didn't use one on the next two batches I did - I just relied on time. Both were ales and were in primary for 7 days and secondary for 10 days. Both were awesome and not over-carbonated.

Thanks for the responses and I'll posts results in a week or so!
 
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