Floating a hydrometer in your carboy?

Am I the only one that does this? I like seeing sg on the fly and not messing with a thief. Sometimes I gotta bump it around a little to dislodge bubbles but it always gets me real close to actual.

Way to cheap to buy a separate hydrometer for each batch I have going . . .

Would be nice to perfectly track fermentation simply by looking.

So your saying you just always leave it in the carboy? I guess that's a good idea.

I do it as well but I also rack to secondary. I drop it in at the end before putting the airlock back on.

How do you get it out without breaking it? Iv'e already gone through 3 from stupid ****, couldn't imagine trying to get the damn thing out of a carboy gently.

You should be able to get it out after you have transferred your cider to a bottling bucket by filling your carboy with water.

I float on in my must bucket because its easier and it changes fast and the early gravity drops are the most important. Once it goes into a carboy I won't care for a long time what the cider gravity is.

Filling the carboy is the easiest way to get it out of a carboy if you do that.

The only thing to consider is your reading could possibly get slightly thrown off if krausen clings to the hydrometer.
If you're putting it in later in fermentation that might be less of an issue I guess.

As far as putting the hydrometer directly in when checking, as long as its sterlized it should be fine. Might be easier to get it back out with a bucket rather than a carboy though.

I haven't had any issues with getting it out of my carboy. I don't usually fill it with water to get it out but looking at it now, that might have saved me some previous fiddling. I put mine in the secondary to save having to take my last two or three samples before bottling. Just makes it easier to tell when the SG is stable.

smegger said:

The only thing to consider is your reading could possibly get slightly thrown off if krausen clings to the hydrometer.
If you're putting it in later in fermentation that might be less of an issue I guess.

As far as putting the hydrometer directly in when checking, as long as its sterlized it should be fine. Might be easier to get it back out with a bucket rather than a carboy though.

Click to expand...

+1 on this

I read on hear about someone using balls with specific gravities and they would drop(or rise, can't remember) when they hit the gravity they were assigned. It might be in the sticky at the top of this section.

Man, it would suck if the hydrometer bumped the side of the carboy and broke!

I don't rack my wines/meads/ciders to secondary until they are 1.010 or less, so the SG doesn't matter anyway. They'll finish and clear, and then I know they are done. I rack when the lees are 1/4" thick- I could check the SG then if in doubt. But I never am.

If it works for you, that's great. But I think it's overall a bad idea. Krausen can stick to them, making them hard to read. They could break in there, ruining an entire batch. And since I have something like 12 carboys, I'd need 13 of them! No way.