Official Broken Hydrometer Count

I just bought a second one on my last trip to JW Dover. I now have one for the mash & one for the sparge water.

 

1131. Damn it!

 

More than I wish to count...I have this nasty habit of dumping my rinse bucket without realizing the hydrometer and/or thermometer are in there.

Those thermometers with the little bb things are the worst, they go everywhere!

 

Broke one in my third ever batch last year while cooling. So sad, still drank the beer just didn't share, just in case.
Guess that makes 1132

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10 years on the same fancy glass triple scale hydro.
But I shattered my sixth sampling tube yesterday.

Jeebus, even the polyrazzmatazz tubes are fragile as hell...

Cheers!

 

Funny story: I picked up some free stuff off of Craigslist, including a hydrometer I didn't need. Same day was testing the gravity of my witbier, and while the hydrometer was in the test tube, the thermometer fell into the tube, put a bind on the stem, and I broke out trying to get it unstuck. 1133 (and my sixth in 18 years).

 

WTF! I have literally broke 3 in the last 4 months (1 me, 2 kids reaching on counter). I guess that makes the count 1136.

 

+1 knocked over my graduated cylinder with a sample of saison + hydrometer while working on something else

= 1137

 

+1 right before taking a reading. Argh.

1138

 

+1 while cleaning it...

1139

 

[aside] Still using a now 11 year old triple-scale hydro.
But I broke the fifth sample tube in that time - and four of those were acrylic!
[end aside]

Cheers! (and it's still 1139 and counting)

 

+3 for me, so that totals 1142

 

2 for me

1144

 

Two for me. My most recent just happened three days ago while reorganizing some of my beer equipment. For some reason, I had left my hydrometer out of its "protective tube" on the counter. I bumped the counter and I remember everything happen in slow motion. My eyes locked on my hydrometer rolling off the counter and gravity thrusting it to the floor. It's quite amazing how many thoughts can rush through your head in a matter of milliseconds. "Catch it!" I thought, as my hand reached out. Then, mid reach, I remembered the floor is carpeted. "It will be ok, let it go, if you try to catch it and fail, you might break it." My mind relaxed, fully expecting the hydrometer to land softly on the pillowly cushion of my carpet. Alas, it was not so. Apparently even a 3 ft or so fall on carpet was too much for my hydrometer to handle. Cracked in half dead center and left me picking up small shards in the carpet.


1146

 

Smashed in the kitchen drawer, no witnesses. This one only survived two months after the last died in the house move.

Bin day is Thursday

no flowers please

 

+1 = 1148
Knocked off the counter after taking reading. Thank god I have another two for the last batch of this marathon I started.

 

1149

Washed after taking a reading, knocked it with a spoon or something.

 

I've just taken a reading on my batch and is coming up at 40 does anyone know what that means?

 

I'd guess you mean 1.040.
Water is 1.000. I would guess you still have some fermenting to do. As your fermentation progresses, you'll get closer to 1.000 (possibly lower).

Hope that helps.

 

This is my reader

 

Yep, notice the 1.000 near the top?
The 10, 20, 30, and so on are variations on the 1.000 series. So what you say is 40 is actually 1.040.

 

O right thanks, So how would I work out the alcohol content from that?

 

You can ball park it by subtracting the current reading from original reading (prior to pitching yeast) and multiplying it by 133.

Technically, you'd need to adjust for temperature, but it will get you decently close.

 

Is there any way to do it if I haven't done it before the yeast went in?

 

Not reliably.

The best you can do is probably plug your ingredients into some software and have it estimate your original gravity. There's a free app called "Brew Log" (if you have an Apple device) that will give you an estimate based on the recipe.

 

1150

After 5 years, it finally happened. Knocked over my sample tube.

 

1151

The bottom popped out of the sample tube and the hydrometer fell into my bin of sanitizing solution. Worst part is that it was inherited from my father, who had it for 5 years...and I broke it after 4 batches...I still hear about it...

 

1152

Knocked over my sample tube. Boooooo.

 

I took a reading of my batch today and there reading 1000 which is the same as water? Confused???

 

This is the wrong thread to be posting in for fermentation advice. This thread isn't about hydrometers that you believe are malfunctioning; it's about people who have actually broken them into pieces accidentally.

Fermentation can drop down to 0.991, i.e. 9 points less than 1.000. That's what they mean when they say "really dry".

 

How do I figure out alcohol content?

 

Original gravity - Final gravity x 131.
Ex. 1.050 - 1.010 x 131 = 5.2% ABV.

 

Busted the hell out of my hydrometer last night!

 

The beginning of the week I brewed an improved version of my dampfbier recipe & was cleaning things up. I noticed one of my two new hydrometers had a small BB sized hole in the top. Dammit. I was being extra careful not to break them too. So I'm 2-4 at the moment.

 

Guess I should have update this when it happened, but finally broke my first hydrometer. Nothing fancy, just knocked it over off a shelf and dropped it into the floor. How I managed to go this long without breaking one is a mystery, or miracle, whichever one floats your boat. Given that I tend to destroy everything I touch, I'd say a bit of both.

 

I slid my hydrometer into the glass test jar at a 45 degree angle like I usually do, but this time it punched a perfectly round hole in the bottom of the tube and smashed on the garage floor.

I'm investing in a plastic test jar for my next hydrometer.

 

I believe this would be 1153

Somehow rolled it off a table while boiling and it fell to the concrete patio. What's worse, if I found that I had a spare hydrometer, but not until after I had pitched the yeast and tucked the bucket into the chiller. I failed to keep a wort sample to measure later for the OG. Just one screw up after another! lol But racked that beer into a secondary last night, measured it, and tasted it, and I'm very happy with it!!

 

1154

I knocked over my sample tube and it fell off of the table onto the basement floor. I've been brewing since 05 or 06 and this was the first one that I have broken. Fortunately, I had a spare one.

 

1154 + 2 = 1156


Just went through 2 hydrometers in 2 months and a 400ml beaker, dang granite counter tops. You can be a gentle as possible putting them down but tap it ever so slightly wrong and its a gonner.