Aw, who gives a $#!% anyway...?

[KDM]

Okay, I'm feeling lots more confident about using the hydrometer now that I've studied the YouTube vid and played with my own rig using everything but the wort for practice. Only thing left to figure out and get comfy with is the temperature thing...

DQ 1: What's a suitable thermometer, where to get it?

DQ 2: Is there a freeware utility that converts, or must I conquer the math too?

DQ 3: Any advice on what to do with the abortive reading I got for OG? (1.070 to 1.075)

DQ 4: When do I get my friggin PhD???

 

[pen25]

you can use any therm you have. i have one of those handy dandy electronic ones for like meat and the like. put it in to the tube get the temp then drop the hydro in it and spin when it rests go eye level with the top of the sample. read the bottom of the arc. then using the temp you first seen with the temp probe find the adjusted reading. use the lower of the 2 or split int he middle. do you know what the temp was of the initial reading?

 

[FSR402]

A better way would be to chill your sample to 60* and then take the Hydrometer reading.

 

[KDM]

The sticky-back thermometer (as provided in my deluxe starter kit) pasted on the side of my carboy read 68. Heh, I thought about chilling the stinkin' sample down to 60 since I'm fairly desperate to avoid math, but didn't know if it was legal. About the last thing I need is for the HBT Police to bust down my door and haul away my wort.

 

[zac]

Hopsalong,

That is entirely a possibility. I have had to use my home servuty system & the local police officers to keep the HBT Police away from my beer brewing.

Chill the sample, I wont tell anybody!

 

[kevmoron]

A hydrometer is great for determining the attenuation and alcohol content of your beer, and for achieving consistency batch-to-batch.

Now, I'm going to get flamed for saying this, but you don't need a hydrometer to tell you when to bottle if you are doing anything with an OG of less than 1.07. I always see people saying to wait until you have the same reading three days in a row. It's a waste of beer to take this many samples. The second week in the secondary fermenter is not for attenuation. It is for conditioning/maturation/clarity, and very little fermentation is happening at this point. If you use a secondary fermenter, your beer will reach final gravity well before it is finished maturing. So just give it a generous and appropriate amount of time to mature, and bottle the sucker.

Unless it is something really out of the ordinary, I primary until airlock activity has slowed to a near stop(usually one week, and I know there is no fluctuation due to temp changes because I ferment in a chest freezer at constant temp). I then secondary for two weeks for anything under 1.07, and bottle or keg. I take two hydrometer samples for each batch - one before pitching yeast, and one before bottling/kegging. That's it. No bottle bombs (well, two close calls when I did not mix the priming sugar well).

 

[Saccharomyces]

I use an analog dial-type probe thermometer from Austin Homebrew for everything except the mash, where I use a calibrated digital probe thermometer which has been waterproofed using silicone tubing.

The digital thermometers (under $100 anyway) are notoriously inaccurate. Be sure to calibrate them using ice water and boiling water if you are doing any mashing with them. Mine reads 3* high so I know if it reads 152*F the mash is really 149*F. All my analog thermometers are dead-on accurate.