Tilt - Does it replace hydrometer?

[WaltG]

Quick questions

Could I buy a tilt, throw it in and just flat trust it? Or is there some bs to figure out? Or is it not accurate enough?

Mine was dead on but maybe calibrate in distilled.

 

[mabrungard]

Quick questions

Could I buy a tilt, throw it in and just flat trust it? Or is there some bs to figure out? Or is it not accurate enough?

Mine was off by about 0.001 sg and the temp was within a degree. I think its good enough.

 

[allanmorgan]

Quick questions

Could I buy a tilt, throw it in and just flat trust it? Or is there some bs to figure out? Or is it not accurate enough?

Pretty much. The most difficult thing to do, which really isn't all that difficult, is to get the Google Spreadsheet set up that logs the data from the Tilt.

 

[marjen]

I am using mine for the first time. I have found the temp to be very accurate, its always exactly what my FTSs is set to. The gravity jumps around. Its usually fairly consistent but I had a couple days where it said .9997 or so. Also jumped up and down between 1.011 and 1.007 the last couple of days.

 

[BroStefan]

I have two and I hate fermenting without it in the beer. Once calibrated it is at least as accurate as a typical hobby hydrometer. You can get occasional strange readings for a single data point but these are easily edited off the spreadsheet so the chart looks right. It also “bumps along” +- 2 pts Sg during peak fermentation which let’s know what is going on inside my SS Brewtech conicals.

The temp is also easily calibrated.

And the customer service is truly remarkable.

I do use my lab grade hydrometer for on official starting and finishing gravity.

 

[WaltG]

I have two and I hate fermenting without it in the beer. Once calibrated it is at least as accurate as a typical hobby hydrometer. You can get occasional strange readings for a single data point but these are easily edited off the spreadsheet so the chart looks right. It also “bumps along” +- 2 pts Sg during peak fermentation which let’s know what is going on inside my SS Brewtech conicals.

The temp is also easily calibrated.

And the customer service is truly remarkable.

I do use my lab grade hydrometer for on official starting and finishing gravity.

Here's an example of what he means by bumping. It's just the physical movement of the fermentation.

Oddly right after this I got 1.009 and 1.012 so I'll see what happens.

 

[BroStefan]

Another thing - it is particularly helpful for meads and lagers where I want to take some action when a certain gravity point is passed.

Once I had a mead that stalled out. I saw the curve flatten out. I got right in, took a Ph reading - too low. Added some potassium bicarbonate and I could see things pick up in a short period. Without the tilt I’d not get this sorted so quickly.

 

[eric19312]

OK I am about 4.6 days into my first try with this device. Brewed a 1.054 hoppy pale ale, pitched with new packs of US-05. Until yesterday I was pretty happy with the performance...Had about 20 hour lag then fermentation took off. Could see that from airlock activity and corresponded well with the tilt reading. Signal is pretty noisy but the trend is clear. Then yesterday after hitting about 1.020 SG started increasing. Based on slowing airlock activity I bumped temps a degree and will bump another degree today. I've brewed this recipe many times and don't really need to rely on the tilt to make that call. But I'm kinda bummed. I am wondering if it is the choice of yeast. US-05 is a sticky messy top fermentor. Maybe the tilt is fouled by the krausen? Any other ideas?

I'm reluctant to take a gravity sample but if I do should I use that reading to recalibrate the tilt?

Also I am surprised by the temperature data. I was expecting 0.1F increments since the readout is tenths of degrees. I calibrated against a calibrated thermometer before this ferment and it is reporting temperature but after 448 data collections all the temperatures reported are one of 65.6. 66.6, 67.6 or 68.6. I am sure that is good enough to confirm temperature control and to track where I am but was surprised to see tenths of a degree presented but only whole degrees of discrimination.

 

[mirthfuldragon]

Signal is pretty noisy but the trend is clear. Then yesterday after hitting about 1.020 SG started increasing. Based on slowing airlock activity I bumped temps a degree and will bump another degree today. I've brewed this recipe many times and don't really need to rely on the tilt to make that call. But I'm kinda bummed. I am wondering if it is the choice of yeast. US-05 is a sticky messy top fermentor. Maybe the tilt is fouled by the krausen? Any other ideas? I'm reluctant to take a gravity sample but if I do should I use that reading to recalibrate the tilt?
View attachment 565031

I would only recalibrate in distilled water. I have had issues with US-05 acting sticky as well. Also, Conan (Omega DIPA, actually) plus dry hops throws it for a loop in terms of vigor. In those cases, I don't rely on it for the actual FG measurement (but the FG agreed with my hydrometer in the end), but rather to know that fermentation has stopped. I do wish their chart had a floating average of the last 5 or 10 SG readings, but not enough for me to go in and fiddle with it.

 

[trav77]

My tilt does some funny things like that as well. For example. I think it just gets some Krausen stuck to it or something.

 

[WaltG]

My tilt does some funny things like that as well. For example. I think it just gets some Krausen stuck to it or something.
View attachment 565118

I get the same

 

[eric19312]

My tilt does some funny things like that as well. For example. I think it just gets some Krausen stuck to it or something.
View attachment 565118

What was actual FG on that batch?

 

[trav77]

What was actual FG on that batch?

That ended up at 1.012 but took another funny bump toward the end. I’ve taken a few hydrometer measurements along the way on this one and they were always +/- 1 point vs the tilt. Hard to say what the tilt value really is though since it tends to fluctuate. Really would be good to incorporate some moving average/smoothing or such.

 

[trav77]

Dryhopping an NEIPA during fermentation definitely throws it for a ride... can you guess at what point the hops went in?

 

[don_bran321]

I've only used my tilt once since I've bought it. It seems pretty spot on to me for the original and final of the first batch.
My question to you all is how do you know your hydrometer isnt off as opposed to the tilt?
In my experience so far with my electric brewery is once calibrated the electric Tempurature sensors are reload than the manual ones so could this be the same for the gravity?

 

[day_trippr]

Well, let's be honest here, hydrometers have been around forever and are produced in the gazillions.
I'd certainly trust a hydro reading over a Tilt...

Cheers!

 

[WaltG]

So after using my tilt a few times here's what I found.

Good

- OG is right on
- temp us right on ( given 15 min or so to adust for changes(
- will tell you exactly when active fermentation starts.

Bad
- after krausen forms it's not accurate.
- not accurate for FG.


Overall its good to watch temps. You can also see when fermentation slows for things like diacytl rest but it's still imperfect. Would I buy it again for $135? Probably not. Would I for $75? Probably.

 

[trav77]

Yeah this is pretty much my experience with it as well. The more krausen, the wilder it gets. This NEIPA I'm currently fermenting with a top cropping strain + primary dry hopping makes the tilt so inaccurate it's essentially useless during active fermentation.

I have also noticed that even when calibrated, it seems to read especially inaccurate FG when decreasing temperature. Not sure what the nuts and bolts behind the scenes are regarding calibration, but would probably benefit from a non-linear calibration curve (assuming that isn't already the case?).

So I'd agree.. it's quite useful for OG, temp (although my ferm chamber controller setup already reads this through a thermowell so not useful to me), seeing when fermentation starts is handy although at the end of the day, I don't really take any action based on this. While the FG per se is often inaccurate, you can see the general trend when fermentation is finishing up that SG is no longer decreasing. This is nice for timing when to take a final hydro sample and cold crash.

Haven't done a lager with it yet - my hope is that in the absence of lots of krausen it will be more accurate and that it will give me a rough idea of when I can start increasing temperature toward the end of fermentation to speed up attenuation and diacetyl rest.

So yeah, it hasn't changed my life. I still like using it but it really has a few caveats. Invest in other gear first.

 

[don_bran321]

Lost on you...

think of it this way. A mechanical clock vs a digital clock. They both do the same thing. The mechanical clock is older but made of "better materials"
Both day different times... which one do you trust?

 

[don_bran321]

think of it this way. A mechanical clock vs a digital clock. They both do the same thing. The mechanical clock is older but made of "better materials"
Both day different times... which one do you trust?

just bc the old way worked does it necessarily make it better /correct. That's all I was saying. I would haver to put them both to the test.

 

[Kmar48]

My last batch was the first time using my TILT, and I'm very pleased with its performance. It was a weissbier and the first time I've had to use a blow-off tube so I expected to get wacky readings once fermentation took off and the krausen peaked. The chart is the profile I got from the TILT and my hydrometer had the same OG of 1.053 but a final gravity of 1.012 (TILT read 1.010). This is within the stated error on the TILT of +/- 0.002. I will still check the FG with the hydrometer but I'm glad to say it has worked well so far.

 

[day_trippr]

think of it this way. A mechanical clock vs a digital clock. They both do the same thing. The mechanical clock is older but made of "better materials"
Both day different times... which one do you trust?

Given a hydrometer reading is not subject to riding a crest of krausen like a Tilt your analogy is erroneous.
That's all I'm saying...

Cheers!

 

[mongoose33]

Back to the merits of the tilt....

...I've got one working right now. It let me know when I was about halfway attenuated so that I could begin ramping up temperature in my dark lager. When it stabilizes (10 minutes ago it read 1.013), I'll presume it's done. I'll take a little sample to double-check with a hydrometer, and that's that.

Do we need one? No. Is it helpful? It is for me. Is it expensive for what it is? Maybe. I'm using it in part to gauge when to seal off the conical and let it self-carb, so for that purpose it's useful. I'm trying to implement LODO techniques to see if they're worth the effort, and being accurate as to when I do things, well, that eliminates an alternative explanation for results.

I made some pretty darned good beer before the Tilt ever showed up on my doorstep. It's a convenience I like, and helps me brew beer using processes that are part of my current regime. I expect that without the Tilt, I'd still brew good, maybe great, beer. Heck, I have a California Common in a Bigmouth Bubbler conditioning. No tilt. I guess I'll have to trust my process w/o it.

 

[day_trippr]

I didn't mean to leave the impression I'm anti-Tilt, I actually think it's a decent execution of the concept.
I'm just commenting on the comparative accuracy of a hydro and which one I'd trust more - if I actually felt the need to track or even check gravity.

Tbh, after I've done a recipe once I rarely do any post-pitch gravity checks when I brew it again...

[edit] I think fermenting in glass has a lot to do with that...

Cheers!

 

[Virginia_Ranger]

To the comments about krassen affecting Tilt readings --- I just fermented under low pressure (12-14 PSI, 75-78F) and used the Tilt for readings and didn't get crazy readings, just steady readings all the way toward FG. Keeping it under pressure probably kept the krassen low and have I heard cocerns about how CO2 would affect the Tilt but it seems to have all worked out well. The beer is probably my best this year so far (out of 5 batches all IPAs)!

 

[mongoose33]

To the comments about krassen affecting Tilt readings --- I just fermented under low pressure (12-14 PSI, 75-78F) and used the Tilt for readings and didn't get crazy readings, just steady readings all the way toward FG. Keeping it under pressure probably kept the krassen low and have I heard cocerns about how CO2 would affect the Tilt but it seems to have all worked out well. The beer is probably my best this year so far (out of 5 batches all IPAs)!

I just pulled a sample today from a fermentation started last weekend. Tilt said 1.012; the measured hydrometer sample indicated about 1.0125. Pretty close. I use a final gravity hydrometer for that reading, the one with the limited range (.098 to 1.020).

This is not to say the Tilt can't be confused by krausen.

It can even be confused by a less-than-competent brewer. When I dropped my Tilt in this time and replaced the chilling coil, the Tilt would only read 1.017, despite my putting in wort that had a gravity of 1.053. I opened it back up, and discovered that I had managed--don't know how--to get the Tilt inside the coil. It simply couldn't tilt enough. I dislodged it from inside the coil, and since then has produced decent readings.

 

[fnffishcore]

I use https://www.brewstat.us/

+1 for Brewstat.us I also already have one of those little cubical security cameras in my shed, so I aim it at my iPhone and temp controller on top of my ferm chamber. Just for gits n' shiggles.