Tilt Hydrometer readings.

[Chuchu&brew2112]

I recently acquired a Tilt hydrometer. I have had a few things happen and am wondering if anyone else has experienced them.

1. I measured the OG of a Helles Lager with a refractometer at room temp and it was 1.041. After placing the calibrated Tilt in the fermenter, it was reading 1.037. I did adjust the Tilt in the app to the refractometer reading as I trust it. Is this common or is there a more thorough calibration I should be doing with the Tilt.

2. This question is more addressing my stupidity and something I noticed after fixing my issue. After Ferm had started, I woke in the morning to find a SG reading of 1.026. At 15 point drop in about 8 hours. This seemed funny so I started looking at things and noticed no bubbles in the airlock. That led me to notice I had not screwed the lid on my big mouth carboy correctly. I fixed the problem and boom, bubbles. About 10 min later I checked SG on the Tilt and it read 1.036. A much more believable number. Is it possible that the small pressure in the Ferm could affect the Tilt reading? I do also use a thermowell and could have hit the Tilt during adjusting. However I doubt this as I didn’t move the lid around much. Just spun it to get the threads lined up properly and then tightened.

Any insight will be appreciated. Thanks people.

 

[beernutz]

You should be able to calibrate the Tilt using the app to 1.0 in water before using it in wort. I use a Raspberry Pi with the TiltPi image to configure and read my Tilt including calibrating it.

That said, even when mine is calibrated I typically see an initial SG difference of .01 to .04 between a hydrometer reading and what the Tilt reports.

I have not seen that large of a reading difference with my Tilt as you report in #2 but it does fluctuate a bit especially early on. I believe bubbles on the tilt will alter its reading so maybe that explains what you saw.

 

[TheHopfather]

I've got a couple of Tilt's that I got this Christmas. I have never once had the Tilt reading match my hydrometer reading, both SG and FG. I've calibrated my hydrometers in distilled water and I trust them. Funnily enough both of my Tilt's read 1.000 in distilled water, but they don't seem very accurate in beer.

The closest I've seen the Tilt come to matching my hydro's was on an IPA I recently did. The Tilt ended up reading 1.009 FG and the hydro was showing 1.010 FG. I find the Tilts are useful to see when fermentation is slowing down and for determining when FG is reached. I also like it to see what the beer temp inside the carboy is. I do not count on it to be an accurate measure of gravity however. Once you pull the Tilt out of your batch you'll find some yeast stuck to the side of it, the extra weight has to screw up the reading. That doesn't explain why they don't seem to match the SG readings though.

 

[Alex4mula]

I've got a couple of Tilt's that I got this Christmas. I have never once had the Tilt reading match my hydrometer reading, both SG and FG. I've calibrated my hydrometers in distilled water and I trust them. Funnily enough both of my Tilt's read 1.000 in distilled water, but they don't seem very accurate in beer.

The closest I've seen the Tilt come to matching my hydro's was on an IPA I recently did. The Tilt ended up reading 1.009 FG and the hydro was showing 1.010 FG. I find the Tilts are useful to see when fermentation is slowing down and for determining when FG is reached. I also like it to see what the beer temp inside the carboy is. I do not count on it to be an accurate measure of gravity however. Once you pull the Tilt out of your batch you'll find some yeast stuck to the side of it, the extra weight has to screw up the reading. That doesn't explain why they don't seem to match the SG readings though.

I also have two and this is my experience and use too. After 6 brews they measure on average 6 points lower on OG and 4 points lower on FG. On distilled water they measure 1.000. Still like them a lot.