Question about taking temp and starting gravity readings

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kharvey

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Hi there. I will be making my first brew this weekend from a kit from MoreBeer. I have learned a lot from this forum and other sites as well. During the cooling process, do I put the sanitized thermometer straight into the fermenter or do I need to take a sample out of the fermenter to take the reading? Same question for the SG reading? Thanks for the help. Keith
 
Thermometer can go straight into the kettle. I'll often keep my electric thermometer probe in the kettle from the end of the boil so it's sanitized through the boiling wort.

You can put the hydrometer right into the kettle, however I take a sample to eliminate the small risk that they hydro breaks while in the wort.

Remember to correct for temperature when measuring SG. I believe tastybrew has an easy to use tool to do this.

Cheers :mug:
 
I put my floating thermometer in the hot wort while chilling. I get it down to 75F or so, then strain into the fermenter to aerate it & clean out the gunk. Then top off with chilled spring water to recipe volume. This gets the wort temp down to 65F or so. Take hydrometer sample. Then pitch rehydrated dry yeast/starter/liquid yeast.
 
I've found the OG reading is easiest to take in line to the fermentor. I get the line running a bit, turn off my ball valve (or make a crimp in your siphon), and have a small sanitized container ready for ~150ml for a sample. I sanitize the container just in case theres some drippage into the fermentor. Can never be too careful
 
Keep in mind that if you're topping off with water, it has to be mixed really well to get a representative gravity sample. Making extract batches, I found that I was taking repeat samples, mixing in between, until it matched what the math told be it should be. Now I just go by what the math tells me and skip the gravity sample altogether.
 
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