Tilt Hydrometer

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Yeah, they’re great. While they tend to be accurate I mostly rely on mine to monitor trends and progress (you can see when fermentation slows and ends)

Having temp is great, too. Really helps checking the temp through all processes (lagering, ramping up, cold crashing, etc)

There is a good thread either in the “general” or “equipment” sub forum (sorry, can’t remember which).
 
I love my Tilt as I'm not only do I no longer need to sample for FG, but pairing it with Bewstat.us I now am able to save graphs on how each yeast strain performs. I've been using my Tilt for 18 months and just ordered a second one since they've made a number of upgrades.
 
Have two of them. Depend on mine to show trends in gravity especially when FG becomes stable w/o opening lids for traditional hydrometer samples/readings. Tilts allow for real time readings with no O2 exposure which is a huge benefit...at least to me.
 
I have two and love them. I have a much better understanding of fermentation. Especially helpful helpful with meads and lagers where I want to take action at a particular gravity point.

A recently had mead going and I noticed that the SG started to hang much sooner then I’d have noticed otherwise. The Ph had dropped too low and I was able to fix it. Back on track in under 16 hours.
 
Great I think I'm sold. Im also upgrading all my kit this week to grainfather. I've watched all the vidoes reviews to death and I'm pretty sold on this kit. maybe a few of you will disagree, but order going in today for the grainfather connect and a grainfather conical
 
I'm loving mine. This is a chart of my first Tilt brew:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQaynclK0FvMOJ8bUQViuubkjW1mhDyWif60SUs91JS38cBi4ztfDETyWZcoUObkUOP0wWjW0W_Oa3c/pubchart?oid=1890832659&format=interactive

The fermentation was crazy fast start to finish. I probably overpitched by a lot. I kinda rushed raising the temp from 67 to 71 for cleanup, then only left it there one day before cold crashing. So, 5 days in and already a full day of cold crashing.

I had another brew day and needed to get this out of my fermenter, hence the rush to cold crash. Also, this is a second generation yeast that I harvested from a commercial beer. Even though it was crazy fast, it initially had an extremely clean white foamy krausen that eventually got crusty. The yeast was extremely active. Multiple bubbles through the blowoff tube per second.

Also, I am interested to do an FG comparison with a manual hydrometer. There was a bunch of brown krausen gunk on the top of the Tilt that may have thrown the reading off. My inclination was that the gunk would increase the FG since it would make it tilt more tilited, however, at 1.006, I am hoping the opposite. I think it is possible because the gunk was all above the submerged part of the top cap. Perhaps, the gunk caused it to be more upright.
 
Just got my new one this week in time for the Belgian dubbel I brewed yesterday. The older ones were sometimes a bit finicky to get working, but the updated version is working like a champ. I also love that the battery life and range has been extended.
 
I've been talking with Marcus there, he is going to get them on amazon soon and I'll pick one up then. Sounds great.
 
Just noticed this product online whilst browsing some HB stuff. They look amazing! thinking about buying one.
 
I'm just about finished using my Tilt for the first batch, but my FG seems insanely low. I'm currently reading 1.001 with an SG of 1.059, or an attenuation of 98%. I'm hoping the Tilt isn't calibrated right and I don't have an infection. It's been slowly dropping over the past few days, so I haven't racked it.
 
JaleHouseBrew said:
I'm just about finished using my Tilt for the first batch, but my FG seems insanely low. I'm currently reading 1.001 with an SG of 1.059, or an attenuation of 98%. I'm hoping the Tilt isn't calibrated right and I don't have an infection. It's been slowly dropping over the past few days, so I haven't racked it.
Click to expand...

I find that my 2 need to be calibrated in water when use it for the first time or after a battery change.

If you can pull a hydrometer sample now do that, compare and add an additional calibration point. One of mine does fine with one calibration point but the other needs two.

Another possibility is if you are using very sticky yeast it can through it off up or down.

So several possibilities. Hope it’s not infected.
 
BroStefan said:
I find that my 2 need to be calibrated in water when use it for the first time or after a battery change.

If you can pull a hydrometer sample now do that, compare and add an additional calibration point. One of mine does fine with one calibration point but the other needs two.

Another possibility is if you are using very sticky yeast it can through it off up or down.

So several possibilities. Hope it’s not infected.
Click to expand...

What he said. My last batch finished at 1.001 but in actuality it was 1.009. Some sticky yeast stuck to it and threw off the calibration. I will double-check the calibration on the next batch.
 
I have 3 tilts and my finals are always off ~.005 - .009 too low as stuff sticks to them during fermentation. It always matches my FG with a hydrometer once I clean it off and drop into secondary.

I still love watching the google docs during active for temps and knowing its still dropping, I just know I can't rely on it for final.

Current Bells 2 hearted clone:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...uxItpCAczA6MjWQa-kNbAbNDoQ/edit#gid=734290882

last hazy imprial neipa said 1.001 but was actually 1.011
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...lJyz8LNLuw2XWStWvy3mtcLoaI/edit#gid=734290882

My number one reason for having it is to not waste beer to take gravity samples during fermentation.
 
Last edited:
twebinc said:
I have 3 tilts and my finals are always off ~.005 - .009 too low as stuff sticks to them during fermentation. It always matches my FG with a hydrometer once I clean it off and drop into secondary.

I still love watching the google docs during active for temps and knowing its still dropping, I just know I can't rely on it for final.

Current Bells 2 hearted clone:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...uxItpCAczA6MjWQa-kNbAbNDoQ/edit#gid=734290882

last hazy imprial neipa said 1.001 but was actually 1.011
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...lJyz8LNLuw2XWStWvy3mtcLoaI/edit#gid=734290882

My number one reason for having it is to not waste beer to take gravity samples during fermentation.
Click to expand...


Is your fermentation chamber temperature controlled? Interesting temp schedules.
 
pantherburn said:
Is your fermentation chamber temperature controlled? Interesting temp schedules.
Click to expand...

Yea the air temp is controlled in my RV garage bathroom where the fermenters sit in a shower pan. It's locked in at 69 looks like. Always interesting to see the yeast +5/6 degrees to the wort temp when they start really going. Palmer talks about raising temp towards the end, I figure I don't fight the natural increase and just let them ride it out. I was worried about the Bells stalling at .24 ish, the temp of the wort started dropping which had me worried. So I raised the air temp and in turn the wort temp a few degrees you can see and it continued going down. But looking back it probably just needed more time, the temp raise to 71/72 might have helped?
 
I’m almost a week into using mine for the first time. I set up a raspberry pi 3 with “Tilt Pi” from their website. Like any other electrical device, I can’t bring myself to rely on it alone, so I’ll always take a pre and post fermentation reading with a hydrometer to compare. Overall, I really love it though. It’s easy to set up and get started using. With the raspberry pi on top of my fermentation fridge, it automatically sends logs of gravity and temperature to a google document that I can check anywhere from my phone. It’s pretty neat to see everything on the sheet together (highest/lowest temp, highest/lowest gravity, current gravity, aprox. Abv, etc..). If you use it with a raspberry pi and your phone app like I did, I found out that you have to calibrate it on each device. I did some research into the tilt and found out that its sole purpose it to read and send raw data, then the device you look at the data does the converting into the things we are interested in, like the temp and gravity. So don’t forget if you plan to use more than one device, each device must be calibrated individually. After calibration, I was only off by 0.001 of a point on the gravity. It’s also very nice to see the time frame that it takes to reach a certain abv.

Yes, it’s a $135 gadget, but if I would recommend it! It’s nice to monitor your Beer fermentation from anywhere and not have to expose it to oxygen each time you want a measurement.
 
Does everyone with a Tilt here use it via Raspberry Pi?
I used mine for about 3 brews with the iOS app and lost interest because the app interface was super frustrating. It kept losing connection to Google Docs and created new documents in the middle of a brew so I'd have one beer's data across multiple charts.
I got a raspberry pi over the weekend so I might give it another shot next time.
 
lucianthorr said:
Does everyone with a Tilt here use it via Raspberry Pi?
I used mine for about 3 brews with the iOS app and lost interest because the app interface was super frustrating. It kept losing connection to Google Docs and created new documents in the middle of a brew so I'd have one beer's data across multiple charts.
I got a raspberry pi over the weekend so I might give it another shot next time.
Click to expand...

I use a 3.5 year old Android phone I got for free. The app can be frustrating, but I went through the "advanced" setup using the link trigger the scripting through google docs. It is a little more complicated (just follow the steps) but then the data is linked to my own personal google doc (and not Tilt's), which makes it easier to manipulate. But I understand your concerns and frustrations. I understand why they did it that way - it is all but free to them and us and lets us own the data without additional web serving costs - but in this day and age, when there is the expectation of seemless, instant, cross-platform data sync, it is very frustrating.
 
lucianthorr said:
Does everyone with a Tilt here use it via Raspberry Pi?
I used mine for about 3 brews with the iOS app and lost interest because the app interface was super frustrating. It kept losing connection to Google Docs and created new documents in the middle of a brew so I'd have one beer's data across multiple charts.
I got a raspberry pi over the weekend so I might give it another shot next time.
Click to expand...

I use the Tilt Pi app on a pi zero w. Works a dreams.
 
I'm surprised that they don't store the data locally on the iOS/Android device and upload in batches when the connection is available. It seems so much more resilient and it's not like a gravity/temperature reading every couple seconds is going to fill up available storage.
 
lucianthorr said:
I'm surprised that they don't store the data locally on the iOS/Android device and upload in batches when the connection is available. It seems so much more resilient and it's not like a gravity/temperature reading every couple seconds is going to fill up available storage.
Click to expand...

I was hoping for this as well. I had to reboot the old phone yesterday as it wasn't updating the sheet every 10 mins like normal. I got a batch upload but not the historical data, the timestamps were all clustered together.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...B1icaRdRVzHtfbOqSopr1ppc6g/edit#gid=734290882

You can see it on 3/4 -> 3/5

New power porter brewed yesterday after reboot -> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...ed_oY_KjymbYcXDieVe2hjfXkU/edit#gid=734290882
 
mirthfuldragon said:
I use a 3.5 year old Android phone I got for free.
Click to expand...

Do you leave the Android phone plugged in at all times or just let it charge and unplug? I have an old Galaxy 4S that I have connected to the Tilt, gave it a full charge this morning, unplugged it and in the afternoon, it's down to 53% battery.
 
Chorgey said:
Awesome! I don't know what a raspberry pi3 is though. Do you have a link on where to purchase one and/or information on one?

Cheers!
Click to expand...

It's a $30 low power mini computer that can run lots of things e.g. old gaming emulation, headless airplay speakers, etc. There is an even more barebones version thats ~$5 http://www.microcenter.com/search/search_results.aspx?Ntt=raspberry Search youtube, lots of tutorials.


Here is the disk image for the tilt:
https://tilthydrometer.com/blogs/ne...ge-download-for-your-raspberry-pi-3-or-zero-w

Hope this helps, at least a bit.
Dan B.
 
I just got a Tilt and have it up and running via pi zero w. I do not know how I lived without this thing! Even if it's not dead accurate on SG having temp and seeing activity is priceless - especially being able to take a look pretty much anywhere or anytime. Need to get a couple more of them now.
 
kopper said:
I just got a Tilt and have it up and running via pi zero w. I do not know how I lived without this thing! Even if it's not dead accurate on SG having temp and seeing activity is priceless - especially being able to take a look pretty much anywhere or anytime. Need to get a couple more of them now.
Click to expand...

@kopper - any issues getting the Pi Zero W working with the Tilt?
 
my tilt isn't updating to brewstat all of a sudden. It is sending info to my phone and the phone is attached to wifi and got a few data points but then as of about 4am nothing further. It is still reading and the temp is same as temp showing in my thermowell. Not sure what to do.
 
Doed said:
@kopper - any issues getting the Pi Zero W working with the Tilt?
Click to expand...

No, followed the instructions on the site and it worked just as it should. It did take a little longer than the 2 minutes they mention to get the emails but that is likely because it is way down in the basement about as far from our router as you can get.
 

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