Checking Gravity During Fermination

BBQnBrew said:

I was watching a You Tube video from Home Brewers Outpost where he explains that you can take a small amount of beer (enough to get a reading in the test cylindar) out of the primary just after pitching your yeast, and keeping it in a bottle for future gravity checks. This way you don't have to open the primary during fermintation. Oh, and you need to put a paper towel in the bottle and keep it in the same environment as the pale.

Will this give an accurate gravity reading for the beer that is in the primary?

I posted the above question on another thread, but I think my title was misleading. So I apologize up front, but wasn't getting responses so i changed the title. If this is bad etiquite I apologize and won't do it again.

Click to expand...

Revvy said:

That "satellite fermenter" idea will only tell you WHAT YOUR BEER WILL FINISH AT, NOT when your 5 gallon batch of beer will be done.

It's used to measure attenuation of the yeast, not rate of fermentation.

It will take yeast a lot less time to chew through 12 ounces of wort than it will 5 gallons.....so don't trust that silly thing that someone came up with because they are too afraid to take samples from their beer as being accurate.

If you do take that as "gospel" you more than likely are rushing your beer off the yeast way to soon. You know "bottle Bombs" or suddenly posting an "is my beer in secondary ruined?" thread because now that you moved it to secondary because the "satellite" said it was done, you now have this scary looking growth that you have never seen in your bucket (because the lid is one) that suddenly grew on top of your wort and is ugly as sin....which we of course will tell you to rdwhahb because that is just krausen and it formed because you racked too soon and the yeast is still trying to work to make beer for you.

The idea came from commercial breweries, but you have to realize when they are using in it a 3 or 7 or 10bbl fermentaion setup, that their sattelite looks like this.

And they are drawing off hydro sample out of that bucket just like we do.

And they are STILL going to be taking readings and tasting the REAL beer in the ACTUAL FERMENTER, before making any determination.

It's been adopted by some home brewers, and unfortunately gets perpetuated by people (mostly noobs scared of taking real hydro readings) but it's about as accurate as airlock bubbling, (and you know where I count that in terms of fermentation gauges- slightly below the astrological calender )

Please don't fear taking a real hydro sample of your beer, don't ever go by a satellite grav reading.....Or an airlock....

Just take your grav reading and be done with it.

Click to expand...

BBQnBrew said:

Thanks Revvy, it did seam to go against common sense, but also seamed damn easy.

But I do have two questions:
1) How are you feeling? And I wish you the best, in what, two days, damn. Many prayers for you. Not sure of your faith but hey....
2) Secondly, when you pull the sample out of the primary do you have to get rid of the sample, or can you pour it back in? Also, I will be using a secondary, how do I know when it is ready to be racked? I guess what gravity reading? I have to use secondary b/c I need to primary to start my next batch, and cannot afford another pale right now, atleast that's what my wardon tells me.

Thanks, and once again I wish you luck Friday.

Click to expand...

Revvy said:

Thanks...But I just got news that my surgery is delayed to monday so I'm not happy.

It's not a good idea to pour the sample back. We all just tend to drink them.

Click to expand...