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Just bought one on ebay. Shipped from cali to mass in three days. Paid $24.49 with free shipping. The exact same one. I love it. How has yours changed your brewday?
Bobby_M said:If Brix and OG scale is important to you, I offer one at a slightly increased price.
I found this on ebay a few days ago. It has auto temperature compensation, an SG scale, and is pretty cheap.
Don't toss your hydrometer... refractometer is only accurate on fresh wort. Once alcohol is present the refractometer is not longer accurate.
Is this true? I don't mind taking some sample from pre-boil wort and runnings using a hydrometer, but it would be very convenient to get proper FG readings for fermentation/bottling purposes.
At that, I'd check it against your hydro for a couple of runs before you trust it completely.
It's good for all grain brewers who want to check gravity as you are going. Once you pitch and it starts to ferment, they aren't useful really.
You can use it to measure at the end, you just have to do the proper calibration(In Beersmith/etc) to calculate your correction factor. Do this over like 5 brews to get a good average correction factor and you should be able to calculate your final gravity just fine. Keeping the hydrometer around is always a good idea though, just to double check. I dont use the refractometer as much for speed, which its great for, i like to use it as a second source of data to get a more accurate idea of my gravity. I hate reading hydrometers, there seems to always be a few millimeters between ranges..is it 1.065? Or 1.068?
questionasker said:I found this on ebay a few days ago. It has auto temperature compensation, an SG scale, and is pretty cheap.
I bought this one. I clicked the make offer button and offered them $13. They accepted my offer. Total with shipping was $20. I've used it several times and I really like it.
Is this true? I don't mind taking some sample from pre-boil wort and runnings using a hydrometer, but it would be very convenient to get proper FG readings for fermentation/bottling purposes.
william_shakes_beer said:Try this link. Read down to http://www.homebrewstuff.com/refractometer-how-to
hbr2547 said:I purchased and having trouble using. I calibrated water to 1.00 and tested many times - works. I ran a sample of my RIS and reads 1.051 when in actuality it's 1.031 and fermenting. What am I doing wrong?
fosgate said:If it is fermenting you will not get an accurate reading with either a hydrometer or a refractometer.
Hydrometer measures sugar by buoyancy
Density of alcohol
0.789 g/cm3
Water
1.000 g/cm3
Hydrometer will read false Low
Refractometer Index of refraction of alcohol
n=1.36
Pure water
n=1.33
Sugar water
n>1.33
So Refractometer will also read false High.
A batch I bottled today in my brewing science class registered 1.008 on the Hydrometer and the refractometer registered 1.018 before adding bottling sugar. Neither are accurate at face value and are simply an estimate once alcohol is added to the fray. So in a sense neither tool is viable after yeast is pitched.
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