Hope I don't screw this up

....worse than I already have. Nine days ago I brewed up Denny Conn's bourbon vanilla porter recipe. This one has not been without some goofy challenges. Per my usual practice I missed my OG (still trying to solve this problem), but after a supplement of DME I hit the OG right on. Then, during cooling my floating thermometer broke. No mercury, just some larger pieces of glass scattered about the wort. Seems to have settled out in the boiling tank, plus I strained it pretty well going in to the fermenter. Then, last night getting ready to check the gravity I notice my hydrometer was broken - nice clean break across the bubble. Seeing as it was late and stores were closed I epoxied it together water/beer tight, tested for accuracy (which it appeared to be) I got a reading of 1.020. Right on the nose! Still have an active ferment going, but another couple days and I think it will be time for the secondary and the vanilla beans and bourbon.

For all the weirdness with this one this is the best tasting beer I have made yet going in to the secondary. I hope I don't ruin this puppy.

I can't believe you epoxied your hydrometer together and it's accurate.

If I'm lyin' I'm dyin'. I've epoxied a million things around the house so I've become quite proficient at it. I just pretty much put on a very very thin coat along the crack. The clean break made it real easy to do. That said, I'm off today to get a new one. Last night I was just anxious to take a reading.

How can you be sure it's accurate by a reading 0f 1.020 in your beer? How do you know the beer is definiteyl 1.020? To make sure it's "spot on" you need to make sure you have 1.000 in water at 60*F

IrregularPulse said:

To make sure it's "spot on" you need to make sure you have 1.000 in water at 60*F

Click to expand...

That's exactly how I tested it.

You have done us proud by going out of your way to take a hydro reading. I'm impressed.