How do I take a hydrometer reading?

I want to take a hydrometer reading from the beer in the carboy. How do you get it in there and get it out? Do you tie a string to it or will that affect the reading? I tied some floss to it and the reading says it is only like 3% alcohol. It has been fermenting for over 2 weeks now, I would hope to have a higher alcohol content than that. Are the hydrometers pretty accurate for alcohol content? Thanks for the help.

Do you have an auto siphon? Just dip it into the carboy and flick it up and down a few times. You'll fill the siphon tube with plenty of brew to take your sample. Or just buy a wine thief; same principle.

Get a turkey baster. Sanitize thoroughly. Fill hydrometer tube. Measure. Drink or discard sample. Do not return it to the carboy.

You are only asking for trouble actually putting the extremely fragile glass tool inside the carboy.

As far as it reading 3%. I am just wondering if you doing this all wrong. A hydrometer does not give alcohol content alone. You need a starting reading and final reading and then you take the difference between the twoe readings to get alcohol. If this is obvious to you please disregard.

Thanks, that wasn't obvious to me, I appreciate your help. I thought the potential alcohol reading on the side was the alcohol content. Thanks again, I'm new at this.

I'm a starting brewer and I'm a little confused about the hydrometer process in general. I get the science behind it, i.e., higher density equals higher hydrometer, as sugar becomes alcohol the fluid's density drops, etc. What's confusing me is how often I'm supposed to/allowed to sample. The yeast ferment anaerobically, so as I see it, if I pull the airlock out to get my wort sample, fresh air will flood into the chamber and then the yeast will be eating the sugar aerobically. Is this just an insignificant amount of oxygen or am I missing something? How often should I be sampling the wort to avoid letting too much oxygen into the mixture?

(And thanks for the turkey baster suggestion, I wouldn't have thought of that.)

Fermenting beer will have a 'cushion' of CO2 on top of it which does a pretty good job of isolating the beer from oxygen. As long as you don't splash around in your beer there isn't too much worry about oxidation.

As for how often to sample...take one sample when you're putting it into the fermenter, one sample when you think it's done fermenting, and another sample about 2-3 days later to ensure that the gravity isn't still going down. You can always sample more if you need to, but this schedule works well for most average fermentations. You don't really want to take more samples than you need because there is always a small chance of contamination when you open your fermenter (and you lose a small amount of your precious beer each time).

Take a gravity sample before pitching yeast to establish OG. then wait about 2 weeks to take the first FG sample. that'll let you know if it's within the FG range of the kit or recipe. Wait till the third day to test again. If the numbers match,it's done. Then give it another 3-7 days to clean up any by products of fermentation & settle out clear or slightly misty before bottling.