Steeling my wool

[Walker]

As my signature says... Hydrometers will only make you worry.

I decided to pull out the old devil device tonight after brewing a batch of my IPA and took a reading; 1.046 after correction for heat.

Now... The batch had 8 lbs of DME, and the volume in the fermenter is 5.5 gallons. No WAY that could measure 1.046. It should be closer to 1.070.

Yes, I mixed the wort + top-off water before drawing a sample.
Yes, I took the sample prior to pitching yeast.
Yes, I read the thing correctly.
Yes, I hate those f*cking things.

Why was my reading off? I don't know, and I don't care. My beer will still be good. My goal with taking the reading was to prove to myself that I need to keep the thing away from my beer, and it was a complete success.

-walker

 

[imsoweetadid]

i understand you corrected your hydrometer for the temp difference, but did you first stick you hydrometer in some plain water to see how much its off by?

 

[Walker]

i understand you corrected your hydrometer for the temp difference, but did you first stick you hydrometer in some plain water to see how much its off by?

Don't get me started on an anti-hydrometer rant.

 

[Brewiz]

Walker-san
Relax, don't worry have a homebrew. Then go buy a refractometer and throw away the hydrometer..............

 

[AHammer16]

Yeah i never use my hydrometer either. However the other day i wanted to do a calc on a wit i brewed and I placed it in my measuring flask and the damn thing spontaniously cracked at 85 degrees. WTF it cost me 18 dollars and i used it 2 times. As soon as it touched the 85 Deg. F wort I heard a pop noise and noticed the hydrometer filling w/ wort. Usless piece of crap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[homebrewer_99]

Usless piece of crap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, it is now...

 

[johnoswald]

As my signature says... Hydrometers will only make you worry.

I decided to pull out the old devil device tonight after brewing a batch of my IPA and took a reading; 1.046 after correction for heat.

Now... The batch had 8 lbs of DME, and the volume in the fermenter is 5.5 gallons. No WAY that could measure 1.046. It should be closer to 1.070.

the crack thing may be it (like Ahammer16 points out)
I use mine just to stop the sparge ... I don't want to fool around with the calculations and corrections to see if efficiency was 72.4 or 69.8%
but one day I was putting it back in its tube and let it slide too fast to the bottom and.... crack. I chose to believe the crack was the plastic tube, but it was actually the bottommost glass around the lead. So upon checking water, it also came up too thin, about 0.97 and sinking.

 

[Brewpastor]

I read something once (I think in the Scotch Ale book) about how beer was taxed by how sticky it was. The tax guy would pour a little on a chair and sit on it and then judging from the degree of tackiness he would determine the tax due. The idea is that heavier beers have more residual sugar and are thus stickier. No hydrometers were used. So the lesson is simply BREW BY THE SEAT OF YOUR PANTS.

 

[Boston]

There's got to be a logical explanation:
Are you positive you added 8# DME? Is your scale accurate? Did you stand on a bathroom scale, weigh yourself, then have your wife pour DME into a big bag until you were 8# heavier? Did you have (another) boilover?

 

[brewhead]

Walker-San
Relax, don't worry have a homebrew. Then go buy a refractometer and throw away the hydrometer..............

amen best $40 i spent in a while.

i know you can use a hydrometer and save $40 but I've never trusted the ones that you get at most brewshops. i can test the og before boil - during boil and after boil. and i can do it almost instantly as my refractometer has atc...but it's not really necessary. if you think about it a drop or two of wort cools off pretty darn quick.

why would this be important? well if you are shooting for a certain og..you could easily cheat and add some dme, or increase the length of the boil to reach the desired og. these kinds of measurements can be done with hydrometer, but it's kind of difficult.

 

[Baron von BeeGee]

Did you have (another) boilover?

..........(gratuitous dots)

 

[Walker]

I am *so* going to give Boston a 6'er of bottle bombs.....

 

[ajf]

I don't have a clue why your gravity measured so low, but I'm puzzled as to why you should actually still have a hydrometer after all the unkind things you have said about them.

You should put it up for auction on ebay.

Walker-san's hydrometer must be a collectors item, so it doesn't matter if it lies.

-a.

 

[Walker]

I don't have a clue why your gravity measured so low, but I'm puzzled as to why you should actually still have a hydrometer after all the unkind things you have said about them.

You should put it up for auction on ebay.

Walker-san's hydrometer must be a collectors item, so it doesn't matter if it lies.

-a.

I bought the hydrometer for my wife's wine-making experiment. The kit we bought was expensive ($120), but it had a money-back guarantee provided you followed the instructions exactly. The instructions required rackings and using various additives when the wine was at certain gravities during the fermentation, so... we bought the hydrometer.

In retrospect, how in the world would the manufaturer of the kit know whether or not I actually used a hydrometer?

-walker