goswell
Well-Known Member
I've got a refractometer that I will occasionally use and I'm curious what others find when comparing the refractometer to a hydrometer. When I take a refractometer reading, it will usually be spot on with the hydrometer using the simple conversion method. That's all fine and good but everything I've read says you need to use a refractometer correction value of about 1.04 to get it to accurately match the hyrdometer reading. Doing that causes them to not match up anymore?
Example:
Refractometer reading: 16B
Hyrdrometer reading: 1.065
Using a simple conversion formula to convert brix to sg:
((16-1.6)/220)+1 = 1.065 (perfect)
If I take my refractometer reading minus the correction factor:
Refractometer: 16 - 1.04 = 14.9
Using the same formula to convert:
((14.96-1.6)/220)+1 = 1.060 (Now 5 points off)
What gives?
Now it's 5 gravity points off?
Example:
Refractometer reading: 16B
Hyrdrometer reading: 1.065
Using a simple conversion formula to convert brix to sg:
((16-1.6)/220)+1 = 1.065 (perfect)
If I take my refractometer reading minus the correction factor:
Refractometer: 16 - 1.04 = 14.9
Using the same formula to convert:
((14.96-1.6)/220)+1 = 1.060 (Now 5 points off)
What gives?
Now it's 5 gravity points off?