first time taking a hydrometer reading...

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TheSnakeJake

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i am trying to determine if my first batch is ready to move to the secondary. i took a sample using a wine thief and my hydro reading was ~ 1.018 (this is a west coast pale ale). the problem is the wine thief goes to the bottom of the bucket and my sample that came out was very cloudy with a lot of stuff floating around in there. will this affect the reading? the bear still kind of smells like pale ale mixed with sour rotten eggs. but there is no air lock activity for 24 hours and i had no krausen on the the top of the bucket. it has been 10 days since i initially brewed. thanks for any help...

-jake (noob)
 
You should be good to go into a secondary with it being 10 days and the krausen sinking to the bottom. The cloudiness won't affect your reading on the hydrometer that much. The smell of the "bear" ;) is what we call "very green" beer. Don't let the smell bother you.

loop
 
You shouldn't need to put your wine thief all the way to the bottom. You can dunk it down about half way, and move it up and down in the wort to take a sample. You can see exactly how it do it in this video.



You could also just try sanitizing your hydrometer and putting it directly in your bucket, thats what I do.
 
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You shouldn't need to put your wine thief all the way to the bottom. You can dunk it down about half way, and move it up and down in the wort to take a sample. You can see exactly how it do it in this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MStynRN-zcI&feature=related

You could also just try sanitizing your hydrometer and putting it directly in your bucket, thats what I do.

thanks... i thought i had to touch it to the bottom of the bucket to make the valve open. i guess that was pretty dumb to stir up the sediment at the bottom.
 
You should be good to go into a secondary with it being 10 days and the krausen sinking to the bottom. The cloudiness won't affect your reading on the hydrometer that much. The smell of the "bear" ;) is what we call "very green" beer. Don't let the smell bother you.

loop

there was quite a bit of solid stuff floating in my sample tube (probably from me sinking the thief all the way to the bottom of the bucket to get a sample). but if this is still yeast floating and fermenting, maybe i should just wait a few more days. :confused:
 
I agree with Loop, you're fine to go ahead and rack to secondary. If you want to wait, take another reading tomorrow and see if anything has changed.
 
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