Creative Ways of Testing?

Hi All,

I am looking for your thoughts on a creative way of getting liquid out of my primary for gravity testing. I have bee using a turkey baster in the past, but this time it does not reach. I have been getting very little ativity since Sunday, and it smells ok, but I wanted to test the gravity just in case I missed something or if I had poor yeast.

Anyone have a creative idea of how to get at the beer?

I am planning on paying Bells a visit tomorrow to get a longer turkey baster if needed, but I was hoping to test tonight if anyone has any thoughts.

Thanks!

Grab yourself a Wine thief at bells instead.

I never thought of that....Hey thanks! What a great idea.

Wine thief is certainly one way. The other way that I use quite often is to tilt the carboy and but the turkey baster in at an angle. You have to have very low levels in the carboy for this not to work.

-a.

ajf said:

Wine thief is certainly one way. The other way that I use quite often is to tilt the carboy and but the turkey baster in at an angle. You have to have very low levels in the carboy for this not to work.

-a.

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The only reason I wouldnt like that method would be if you were checking gravity right before transferring. It seems like it would kick of a lot of krausen when doing it, though it would work.

The wine thief is awesome, especially when I want to have enough sample to drink.

My own creative way for gravity readings is to use a refractometer instead of a hydrometer. Since the refractometer needs only a few drops, I use a 1ml glass pipette to grab a small sample from the carboy, although this is a bit too small, so I'm probably going to get a 10ml pipette.

I moved to the refractometer because I hate all of the fuss involved with hydrometers. Yes, I'm lazy.

SavageSteve said:

The wine thief is awesome, especially when I want to have enough sample to drink.

My own creative way for gravity readings is to use a refractometer instead of a hydrometer. Since the refractometer needs only a few drops, I use a 1ml glass pipette to grab a small sample from the carboy, although this is a bit too small, so I'm probably going to get a 10ml pipette.

I moved to the refractometer because I hate all of the fuss involved with hydrometers. Yes, I'm lazy.

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If you are lazy then you should know that refractometers only give accurate readings before fermentation. After fermentation(with the alcohol in sample)you have to do a lot of math to make a refractometer reading correct. refractometers measure sugar and not alcohol and a sample that has alcohol in it will throw the correct reading off. I've seen the computations somewhere for using refractometers but decided to stick with hydrometers because I'm too lazy.

beerthirty said:

you have to do a lot of math to make a refractometer reading correct. ... I've seen the computations somewhere for using refractometers but decided to stick with hydrometers because I'm too lazy.

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Exactly. Like I said, I'm lazy, so I let my brewing software do the calculations for me (BeerTools Pro).

You are correct in everything you said, but using brewing software lets me use the refractometer for all my gravity readings. If I weren't lazy, I'd calculate the correction factor for the different malts I use to increase the accuracy of the calculation, but so far I've found that the default value is good enough.

beerthirty said:

If you are lazy then you should know that refractometers only give accurate readings before fermentation. After fermentation(with the alcohol in sample)you have to do a lot of math to make a refractometer reading correct. refractometers measure sugar and not alcohol and a sample that has alcohol in it will throw the correct reading off. I've seen the computations somewhere for using refractometers but decided to stick with hydrometers because I'm too lazy.

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Refract reading corrected still arent as accurate as a well calibrated Hydro but, because of the minimal sample needs, the ease of use, and the fact that most of us are gonna calc the readings in software anyway, the ballpark reading is fine for tracking progress.

I suggest a larger pipette for sure. Large enough to at least get a small swig of the beer. Usually a taste can tell more about the beer than a refract or hydro ever could.

GilaMinumBeer said:

I suggest a larger pipette for sure. Large enough to at least get a small swig of the beer. Usually a taste can tell more about the beer than a refract or hydro ever could.

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One of my motivations for taking tiny samples with the pipette is to minimize the amount of beer I lose due to testing. When I used to bottle entire batches, I always felt cheated when I didn't get at least 48 out of a batch. I keg now, but by combining small sample sizes and a larger brew length (5.25 or 5.5 gallons), I have no problem filling my kegs all the way up.

I've only done 2 brews now with the refractometer, but both have been dead on between the calcs and actual hydrometer readings. I am a QA manager in the medical device industry, so I'm not sure how long I'll continue taking both, but I'm going to guess "not long" since the maximum error is a coupla thousandths in gravity and the only risk is I misreport my ABV by a fraction of a percent.


Damn, I hate being the first on a new page.
........so lonely.

one day I too may have software. untill then I will spend my money on ingredients and use a hydrometer. probably cause I'm too lazy to learn the software

beerthirty said:

one day I too may have software. untill then I will spend my money on ingredients

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$20 is too much to spend on an invaluable tool?

it's a spreadsheet you can download free from Morebeer.
'course, you gotta buy the $50 refractometer to use it.
I fully support your "more ingredients" call

I bought a turkey baster from wally world (walmart) and had some 1/4" plastic tubing at home, I shaved a little off the end of the tube to thin the O.D. a bit, and cut a 18-24" piece, stuck it in the turkey baster and now I use that to grab my samples. I can almost get enough for the hydro reading on the first shot...cheap, quick, easy.

I just bought a beer theif after not having one for two years of brewing. Hands down one of the best brewing items i own. Worth its weight in gold if you ask me.

well, thanks all. I ended up getting the thief, and it worked well. FYI, I was actually suprised at my reading of 1.02. I must have missed the activity completely, but I am glad I checked because I was going to actually add yeast.

Thanks for the input. have a cold one on me....