Haven't taken one yet, I did not want to mess with it....
How many times do you see us talking about taking hydrometer readings on here? Taking a hydrometer reading is not
messing with your beer. It's not harmful to your beer to do it, it's not playing with your beer, and it shouldn't be thought of in any negative ways...It is NOT you last resort in figuring out what is going on with your beer, it should be your FIRST thought in figuring out what's going on,
even before you think about posting a question about your beer on here.
(It even helps US to better answer a question if we know where your beer is at.)
You shouldn't grab the keyboard, you should ALWAYS grab your hydrometer first! Most of the time (and this goes to ALL you lurking new brewers,) you would find that
there is absolutely nothing wrong with your beer.
The only way to truly know what is going on in your fermenter is with
your hydrometer. Like I said here in my blog, which I encourage you to read,
Think evaluation before action you sure as HELL wouldn't want a doctor to start cutting on you unless he used the proper diagnostic instuments like x-rays first, right? You wouldn't want him to just take a look in your eyes briefly and say "I'm cutting into your chest first thing in the morning." You would want them to use the right
diagnostic tools before the slice and dice, right? You'd cry malpractice, I would hope, if they didn't say they were sending you for an MRI and other things before going in.....
The hydrometer is the best diagnostic tool we as brewers have. So don't fear it, or consider it "messing with your beer" coonsider it
understanding your beer.
One thing to realize is that since we are dealing with living micro-orgasms, that no two fermentations are ever the same.Never assume that because something is happening differently, that there is something wrong.
Remember with yeasties, you are dealing with living creatures...every fermentation is different...you can split a batch in half put them in 2 identical carboys, and pitch equal amounts of yeast from the same starter...and have them act completely differently...for some reason on a subatomic level...think about it...yeasties are small...1 degree difference in temp to us, could be a 50 degree difference to them...one fermenter can be a couple degrees warmer because it's closer to a vent all the way across the room and the yeasties take off...
The yeast are in charge of this process, not us, they have their own timeframe, and the more we realize that we shouldn't impose our agenda on it.
In Mr Wizard's colum in BYO this month he made an interesting analogy about brewing and baking....He said that egg timers are all well and good in the baking process but they only provide a "rule of thumb" as to when something is ready...recipes, oven types, heck even atmospheric conditions, STILL have more bearing on when a cake is ready than the time it says it will be done in the cook book. You STILL have to stick a toothpick in the center and pull it out to see if truly the cake is ready.....otherwise you may end up with a raw cake....Even if the instructions say it
should be done, it might not be.
Not too different from our beers....We can have a rough idea when our beer is ready (or use something silly like the 1-2-3 rule (which doesn't factor in things like yeast lag time or even ambient temp during fermentation) and do things to our beer willy nilly....but unless we actually stick "our toothpick" (the hydrometer) in and let it tell us when the yeasties are finished...we too can "f" our beer up.
If you still have krauzen, and if you have not reached close to terminal gravity, then your beer is not ready to be moved into secondary. Don't try to push your time frame on the beer.
That's why many of us leave our beers in primary for a month, and don't secondary unless we are adding something to our beer like fruit or oak, or dry hops. We just leave our beer alone, let the yeast finish their work, and then let them clean up after themselves and clear our beer....We aren't in any hurry for our beer, we don't try to rush the yeast through their cycle ...We know that waiting pays off in flavor and clarity.
So we let it be.
Just relax...take a hydro reading to know whats going on, then if the numbers are still high, that means the yeast isn't done doing it's job. My saison took over two weeks to get below 1.020 and it started off insane over 3 90 degree days....Yeast just does what it has to do, it
knows what it has to do.