I designed a simple recipe with Beersmith. Maris Otter LME and approx 10% rye mini mashed/steeped at 155F. Calculated SG was supposed to be 1.049. However, my refractometer reading was way lower 1.035 during a spot check, before I even got to the fully diluted volume in the fermenter. Suspicious of having missed the mark by such a wide margin, I took a hydrometer reading which was way too high at the other end of the spectrum.
Not sure what to do, I decided to trust the volumes in the recipe, and diluted to my target of 4.5 gallons, which should have yielded the 1.049 SG and instead gave me 1.030 on the refractometer and 1.070 on the hydrometer. Temp of cooled wort was 70F, close enough to 68F that it could not justify the big delta between the readings.
I took a reading of distilled water in the refractometer, and confirmed it was calibrated at 0. Did the same with plain water in the hydrometer test jar and got a 1.000 reading. The instruments seemed to be calibrated just fine.
I retook a refractometer reading and used the Brix scale in case the conversion was not accurate and confirmed that the reading was still around 1.030.
(...in the meantime, my rehydrated yeast was looking kinda tired, having waited more than 45 minutes to be pitched while i took multiple reading and checked calibrations. Hopefully, the viability was still high enough and the fermentor seems to be bubbling OK this morning.)
Back to those darned measuring instruments: this morning I mixed up some DME and water to get an estimated 1.042 mixture. I also bought a high precision hydrometer that confirmed the density to be 1.041. The old hydometer, the one that gave me the 1.070 reading, was also reading 1.041, and the refractometer came close at 1.040. All the readings were in agreement!
I have no clue of what could have possibly gone wrong on brew day to get me such different readings. Any ideas?
Not sure what to do, I decided to trust the volumes in the recipe, and diluted to my target of 4.5 gallons, which should have yielded the 1.049 SG and instead gave me 1.030 on the refractometer and 1.070 on the hydrometer. Temp of cooled wort was 70F, close enough to 68F that it could not justify the big delta between the readings.
I took a reading of distilled water in the refractometer, and confirmed it was calibrated at 0. Did the same with plain water in the hydrometer test jar and got a 1.000 reading. The instruments seemed to be calibrated just fine.
I retook a refractometer reading and used the Brix scale in case the conversion was not accurate and confirmed that the reading was still around 1.030.
(...in the meantime, my rehydrated yeast was looking kinda tired, having waited more than 45 minutes to be pitched while i took multiple reading and checked calibrations. Hopefully, the viability was still high enough and the fermentor seems to be bubbling OK this morning.)
Back to those darned measuring instruments: this morning I mixed up some DME and water to get an estimated 1.042 mixture. I also bought a high precision hydrometer that confirmed the density to be 1.041. The old hydometer, the one that gave me the 1.070 reading, was also reading 1.041, and the refractometer came close at 1.040. All the readings were in agreement!
I have no clue of what could have possibly gone wrong on brew day to get me such different readings. Any ideas?