Question hydro sampling

[jhuyser]

Brewing my first batch Amber Ale kit. Anyway everything is seemingly going well. I plan on transfering from primary to secondary after 7 days then leaving it in secondary for 2 weeks. I have a hydrometer. I fouled up taking a reading when i was done with my wert and before the pitch. I will being transfering to a glass carboy.

I see alot of recommendation of taking 3 hydrometer readings to see when it is officially done. What tool do most use in order to get the sample out of the small hole of the glass carboy?? without contamination??

 

[jhuyser]

may i answer my own question a wine theif?

 

[weirdboy]

Yeah, wine thief works fine. A clean and sanitized turkey baster will also work. My method is to use a bucket fermenter...much easier to take samples, clean, and add stuff to the fermenter.

 

[Brewnoob1]

Wine thief is awesome. If you can't get it all the way down to draw up enough to sample, just bounce it up and down and the level rises. I do this often and works flawlessly.

 

[helibrewer]

I use a refractometer ($35-40 on eBay). It only requires a couple drops, less sanitation risk, no wort loss. There is a simple spreadsheet to adjust for ethanol. My refractometer reads in Brix which is essentially Plato (Plato is roughly 1.04*Brix) which is close enough for my brewing science given the ease it is to measure.

The other up side is that I can use it in my wine making too.

 

[Brewnoob1]

I thought once there is any alcohol present a refractometer will give a false reading? That not the case? I don't know much about them, but just going off what I've read.

 

[Pie_Man]

Many of us on this forum don't bother with a secondary fermentation. It's unnecessary. In general, leaving your beer on the yeast, in the primary, until fermentation is complete seems to work best. Too often, a beer is transferred to a secondary before fermentation is complete which is not good. There's only a few reasons to transfer to a secondary, like dry hopping, oaking, etc.

 

[unionrdr]

Dito. I leave it in primary,even when dry hopping. Get a stable FG,however long that takes. Then give it 3-5 days to clean up & settle out more.

 

[BamaRooster]

+1 on leaving it in the primary

 

[weirdboy]

I thought once there is any alcohol present a refractometer will give a false reading? That not the case? I don't know much about them, but just going off what I've read.

Yes and no. It does skew the measurements, but in a predictable way. If you know the OG of the wort, there are spreadsheets and calculators out there that will correct for this.

 

[nostalgia]

Wine thief is awesome. If you can't get it all the way down to draw up enough to sample, just bounce it up and down and the level rises. I do this often and works flawlessly.

This. Behold, my awesome video-makin' jammies.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DlQgomUc54]Taking a beer sample using a wine thief and hydrometer - YouTube[/ame]

-Joe

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

I do not mean to come off like a prick, but I get really aggrivated when every time someone asks about using a secondary they get a chorus of " WE HAVE DETERMINED A SECONDARY IS UNNECESSARY" or " MOST ON HERE DON'T USE ONE" That is fine but that is not the question that was asked. He did not ask should he or shouldn't he. . Everyone was so adamant about jumping in to tell him to not use one that no one bothered to tell him that brewing by a time line is a big no no and he has some process issues. FIRST off do not arbitrarily transfer to secondary after 7 days. yeast sometimes take a while to get fired up...up to 72 hours according to what I read on here. That means if you have a long lag time and then transfer after 7 days, you may be transferring after only 4 days of active fermentation........

After a couple of weeks in primary take a hydrometer sample and mark down the gravity...wait a couple of days and take another one. If they are the same THEN either transfer to a secondary or leave in primary to clear up, ..... As for drawing a sample...great answers already.

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

NOSTALGIA.. Thank you for that video! So simple it is crazy but I have fought with that forever!!!