RAPT Pill Hydrometer: Hefeweizen

[Positronic_Matrix]

I recently purchased a RAPT Pill hydrometer. Having the fermentation revealed in detail to me completely transformed my fermentation experience. It instantly became my favorite brewing tool. I used to poke at my fermenter with anxiety for the first few days to see if anything was happening. Later, I would sample too frequently, making unnecessary work for myself. Finally, I’d lose interest and let the beer sit longer than needed prior to bottling/kegging.

With a wireless hydrometer, I was able to see the three phases of fermentation: lag, growth, and stationary. Instead of poking at my fermenter, I left it in darkness, reloading a web page instead. It also integrates seamlessly with BrewFather. Here’s my hefeweizen fermentation profile, ongoing right now, as an example. (It’s coming out of the fermenter tomorrow.)

Because I could see the stages of fermentation, it also allowed me to time a change to the fermentation chamber temperature to try to tailor the balance of hefeweizen banana and clove flavours. (There’s also a RAPT fermentation temperature controller for full automation, however that’s for future consideration as it’s a bit pricey compared to an INKBIRD.)

Does anyone else have experience with wireless hydrometers or temperature controllers? I’m curious what else can be done with these tools.

 

[hotbeer]

You might let it sit some more. If it's still cloudy the longer you leave it in the FV the better your beer will be IMO. The one thing that checking for FG often has done is cause even more people to think they need to get their beer packaged ASAP when fermentation ended. For me that resulted in some good beer and some less than good beers. Beers that I left for 3 weeks or more all have been good to great beers.

I'm not a commercial brewer, so I don't need to be in a hurry. Nor do I enjoy the fiddly things of cold crashing and gelatin.

I use a raptPill too. I just save off the data and graphs so I can compare and make some possible rationalizations about why one beer did this and the other that.

What other things are you wanting to do with something that can only monitor SG and temp? And are you asking about for things other than beer?