Can I keep the hydrometer in?

I'm making my first batch of beer, its been a few days since I put the beer in the second fermentation vessle ( a 5g carboy ) and I just checked the hydrometer, now its too far in there to get back easily. My thought is leave it in there, are there any disadvantages to that?

Also I pumped some co2 into the void space in the carboy, is that right?

chazman113 said:

I'm making my first batch of beer, its been a few days since I put the beer in the second fermentation vessle ( a 5g carboy ) and I just checked the hydrometer, now its too far in there to get back easily. My thought is leave it in there, are there any disadvantages to that?

Also I pumped some co2 into the void space in the carboy, is that right?

Click to expand...

You can leave the hydrometer in there... you don't really have much of a choice at this point.

After you rack the beer out of the secondary, just fill the carboy up with water to retrieve the thing. It'll float up to the top and you can grab it then.

In the future, it's better to take a sample OUT of the carboy and do your reading that way rather than put the hydrometer into the carboy.

As for the headspace purge with CO2.... that's nice that you did it, but it's not really necessary. When you rack the beer into the secondary, it will knock some CO2 out of solution and self-purge.

-walker