When do you take your first gravity reading?

When do most of you take your first gravity reading from your fermenter? I'm excluding the OG reading. Do you wait until you get no more airlock activity and then take it again in three days?

At this point, I wait until after a month has passed since the brew-day... With what I'm brewing, I'm 99% sure that all fermentation has finished by then, so it's more to see what the FG is. If it doesn't hash with what I expected the FG to be, then I give it another week and take another reading. Of course, when in doubt, tasting reveals if it's ready for bottling yet...

I know I may not be doing this correctly myself but normally I do not worry about it until at least 2 weeks in primary. At that time I check the gravity to make sure everything is looking good before either kegging or moving to secondary.

I never go by the airlock just normally check it around my schedule as I plan on moving it to another step.

I usually wait about 7 - 10 days, then do another in a couple more days. If it changed, I'll wait a few more days and take another until two consecutive readings are the same. Then it's time to bottle or secondary...

I normally take it with the last bit left in my fermenter after I keg the rest. If I remember or care that is.

I wait until all of the krausen is gone.

I only rack to another vessel when additional flavor elements are involved, where it makes sense to rack, or I'm actually going to kick off another fermentation cycle, after adding more sugars to the wort and need to use different yeast... Otherwise, the brew stays on the yeast cake for the duration... Finally going to be bottling up my honey cream ale that's been on the yeast for 5 weeks... Didn't get to it over the weekend, but should be able to get it done today...

It really depends on what you want to do.....But since airlock bubbling isn't a good indication of what's happenning that's NOT a good time to take one...just because an airlock isn't bubbling doesn't mean fermentation isn't still going on....you can take one then to see that whether or not your near terminal gravity or not.

If you believe in secondarying, then you'd to take your grav readings down the line a bit, I recommmend taking the first one on day 12 and the on day 14 and racking.

If you're planning on long secondarying you wouldn't bother taking one at all (except maybe on bottling day to get your fg for abv purposes.)

If you are lagering and believe you need to do your d-rest around 80% then taking it around day 5-6 would be a good thing.

But don't forget if you get a three day lag time, on day 5 you're only at day 2 of fermentation.

If you don't want to secondary or want to rack to a keg -take it around the time you would be doing it if you were racking, like I said around day 12.

If you are convinced you're beers not doing everything and you're a nervous nelly, then you'd take it after 72 hours.

If you're ever concerned that there's an issue you can take one to ease your mind.

But there's no pat answer to this. A hydro reading is a diagnostic tool, like an x-ray, it's the ONLY reliable way to tell you where your beer's at on it's journey to terminal gravity.

But remember fermenting the beer isn't the only thing the yeast does...giving it enough time to clean up by products of fermentation like for example diactyl requires more yeast contact in primary. SO even if you opt for secondary or rack to a keg, or you're brewing a low grav beer or are impatient and want to bottle, it's a good thing to leave the beer alone for a few more days regardless of the gravity reading.

But remember yeast can't read, so calendars and recipes have little bearing to the timeline of the yeast0 they have their own agenda. ANd airlocks are just valves, not fermentation gauges, and krausens aren't good indicators either (I've had krausens sit on top of the beer for two weeks AFTER the beer reached terminal gravity) It's good you want to take readings.

You don't need to be anal about them...like I said, unless I believe something's wrong, I only take 2 one on yeast pitch day and one a month later on bottling day- BUT that's because I am long primarying.

The time you choose to do them, really relates to your intention for the beer- whether you're trying to ease your mind, whether you're planning to do a d-rest, or whether you're planning to rack to secondary or keg- each of these reasons have a different rough time frame.

Hope this helps.

Kudos on wanting to take them though.

Thanks for all that Revvy,
That could be a sticky somewhere. I will be doing a d-rest. I'm using Wyeast 1968. I'm supposed to do the d-rest when fermentation is done (at least that's my understanding), so was just thinking about when I should do my first gravity reading. That yeast has a reputation for fermenting quickly and my airlock activity has been robust for a couple days now. I was thinking of waiting about a week before I do the first one. Normally I rack to a secondary, but the rep on 1968 is that it clears quickly. Plus it needs to sit on the yeast for the d-rest. So, I may bypass the secondarying and just call it good some time after it has the d-rest.

I'm one of those that waits til fermentation is complete before d-resting, then I rack to lager. That's because I ghetto lager, usually in my garage and then physically move my fermenter upstairs to get warm...And then 3-days later it goes to secondary and into lagering....so I simply just wait til I can get to the beer, and that's usually 2 weeks. If I were in a tru temp control situation, and weren't phsically moving my beer upstairs to be warm, I might go for the 80-90% thing...But I haven't had any issues with it knock on wood.

I'll take a sample before pitching the yeast.

If I am going to use a secondary I will take another before racking it over.

I'll take one a couple days before I plan on bottling, and one again on bottling day.

All good chances to taste my brew-in-progress... and while I am at it I will check the hydrometer reading to see if it matches my expectations.

I typically do not secondary. I usually check after 10-14 days just out of curiosity - and so I can taste the beer.

But If I'm concerned about something, I will check earlier. It shouldn't really matter when or how often you check as long as you use good technique and keep things sterile.