!$%@#$&! hydrometers!!!

[Myke_J]

Yup, broke two of them yesterday and I wasn't even drinking when I broke the first one

I was just getting everything ready to start my brewing day. Sanitizing everything with Star San and as I was moving the still wet hydrometer to my clean area it slipped out of my fingers and shattered on the floor. Cursing and chasing the dogs out of the room ensued. I cleaned up the glass and made a second trip to the LHBS at picked up a new hydrometer.

So the rest of the brewday went just fine, a nice healthy boil and tons of Amarillo hops. I finished the boil and started chilling just in time to go pick up SWMBO and get a quick dinner at the local brewpub. They had put their IPA on a nitro tap and it went down really easy.

We get home and my wort is at 65 so I transferred to the primary and added about 3/4 gallon of water to top off. I shook it up to make sure all the water was well mixxed and then went to measure OG. I gave the hydrometer a quick shot of Star San and shook it knock off the foam. More cursing ensued. The brand new never been used before hydrometer snapped off right where it necks down. I really don't think I shook it hard, but who knows. So now I have to buy another hydrometer and don't have an OG for this IPA and it's my first batch of it.

If the there's not too much action in the primary yet, do you think I should try to get an OG reading this morning or just RDWHAHB? It's been about 12 hours since I pitched.

 

[HBHoss]

Yup, broke two of them yesterday and I wasn't even drinking when I broke the first one

I was just getting everything ready to start my brewing day. Sanitizing everything with Star San and as I was moving the still wet hydrometer to my clean area it slipped out of my fingers and shattered on the floor. Cursing and chasing the dogs out of the room ensued. I cleaned up the glass and made a second trip to the LHBS at picked up a new hydrometer.

So the rest of the brewday went just fine, a nice healthy boil and tons of Amarillo hops. I finished the boil and started chilling just in time to go pick up SWMBO and get a quick dinner at the local brewpub. They had put their IPA on a nitro tap and it went down really easy.

We get home and my wort is at 65 so I transferred to the primary and added about 3/4 gallon of water to top off. I shook it up to make sure all the water was well mixxed and then went to measure OG. I gave the hydrometer a quick shot of Star San and shook it knock off the foam. More cursing ensued. The brand new never been used before hydrometer snapped off right where it necks down. I really don't think I shook it hard, but who knows. So now I have to buy another hydrometer and don't have an OG for this IPA and it's my first batch of it.

If the there's not too much action in the primary yet, do you think I should try to get an OG reading this morning or just RDWHAHB? It's been about 12 hours since I pitched.

2 things. RDWHAHB about the OG and second, don't worry about having a clean hydrometer, it never touches the main batch anyway so you don't have to worry about infection.

 

[ChshreCat]

Since you're doing a partial boil, I assume this is an extract or partial mash brew? If it's all or mostly extract, you can just use your expected OG and call it good. So long as your weights and volumes were correct, you're going to be within a point or two of that anyway.

+1 about the clean hydrometer. I make sure to clean mine after every use, but don't bother sanitizing it when I take a sample. The sample either goes in the sink or my belly when I'm done with it, so the hydro never touches the wort in the fermenter.

 

[ThickHead]

Or if you feel you must sanitize your hydrometer just pour a bit of sanitizer into whatever receptacle you use to hold your sample and then drop the hydrometer into that. Keep your fragile equipment away from the rest of your equipment, particularly during sanitation. RDWHAHB...

 

[Myke_J]

Thanks guys, I'll just wing it. Q-Brew gave me an expected OG of 1.072. I used 7.75# of Extra Light DME and .5# Crystal 40. I weighed everything and hit all my numbers right on with the exception of steeping the Crystal, the heat had dropped a few degrees and I hit it with some heat. It jumped up to 165 and stayed there for the remainder of the steeping time.

I'm not to worried about it, I was more pissed off about the broken glass everywhere.

[Edit] It was supposed to be a full boil, but I lost a lot of volume to hops and evaporation. I boiled just over 6 gallons and transfered 4.25 into the primary.

 

[JVD_X]

Or if you feel you must sanitize your hydrometer just pour a bit of sanitizer into whatever receptacle you use to hold your sample and then drop the hydrometer into that. Keep your fragile equipment away from the rest of your equipment, particularly during sanitation. RDWHAHB...

Don't DROP it! I broke the bottom of glass hydrometer jar that way (the hydrometer lived!)... I eventually got a normal plastic hydrometer jar without the leaking screw-on bottom.

 

[HBHoss]

Thanks guys, I'll just wing it. Q-Brew gave me an expected OG of 1.072. I used 7.75# of Extra Light DME and .5# Crystal 40. I weighed everything and hit all my numbers right on with the exception of steeping the Crystal, the heat had dropped a few degrees and I hit it with some heat. It jumped up to 165 and stayed there for the remainder of the steeping time.

I'm not to worried about it, I was more pissed off about the broken glass everywhere.

I'd be more worried about the broken glass. I concern myself more with the FG so I know fermentation is complete. OG is more of an FYI, to me, not much I can do about it at that point except figure out why if it happens to be off.

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

Sounds like you were either planning to measure inside the fermenter or were planning to return the test sample to the fermenter. IMO, don't do either. It's just not worth risking contaminating a whole batch of beer (or breaking hydrometers) for a 1/2 cup hydro sample. I wouldn't add any top-off water before pulling a sample to measure either.

After all the wort is in the fermenter give it a good swirl and pour a sample into a jar or something. Then pour the contents of the jar into the hydro test cylinder. THEN pull out the hydro, put it in and measure, then immediately take the hydro out, rinse and put away. Measure your volume, then add the top-off water and do the math to get your true OG. So if you had 4 gal in there and added 1 gal top-off water to reach 5 gal total your 'true' OG would be: Measured gravity * 4/5 = true OG.

Lots of different ways to do it, that's just how I do it but I would never measure the gravity in the fermenter or return a hydro sample to the fermenter. Maybe you weren't, just appeared that way.

 

[jgln]

I hope that none of you guys who break hydrometers all the time work at an infectious disease or chemical or biological warfare lab.

 

[smizak]

I hope that none of you guys who break hydrometers all the time work at an infectious disease or chemical or biological warfare lab.

You know! I'm still on my first one, two and a half years old. *knocks wood*

 

[Cpt_Kirks]

Refractometers RULE!!!

Two drops, hot or not, and you have a reading.

:rockin: