Hello everybody,
I recently broke the densimeter cylinder. Trying to replace it, I broke the densimeter too. I saw it as my karma telling me to buy a refractometer, as I was looking forward to do that since a long time.
When I used it for the first time during the mash and the boil, I had no problems. When it came to check the fermentation, I had a very unclear reading, as you can see in the picture attached. I don't know if it can help understand why, but I used a lot of flacked barley, had a huge filtering problem and had a massive load of powder in the fermentor (but during the boil the reading was clear...).
Sample was taken from the top of the fermenter, opening the krausen, to avoid all the powder that was sitting on the fermenter bottom. Fermentor was Danstar Belle Saison.
I made 3 readings in 3 different days, same unclear result. Googled it online and checked the plastic cover to be completely flat on the glass, nothing changed. Tried with water, had a clear reading. The reading became clearer after I cold crashed the beer.
The real problem was that I crashed the densimeter, so I had no way to cross check the readings. I don't have temperature problems and I know the yeast, so beer came out good anyway.
What am I doing wrong?
Cheers from Italy!
Piteko
I recently broke the densimeter cylinder. Trying to replace it, I broke the densimeter too. I saw it as my karma telling me to buy a refractometer, as I was looking forward to do that since a long time.
When I used it for the first time during the mash and the boil, I had no problems. When it came to check the fermentation, I had a very unclear reading, as you can see in the picture attached. I don't know if it can help understand why, but I used a lot of flacked barley, had a huge filtering problem and had a massive load of powder in the fermentor (but during the boil the reading was clear...).
Sample was taken from the top of the fermenter, opening the krausen, to avoid all the powder that was sitting on the fermenter bottom. Fermentor was Danstar Belle Saison.
I made 3 readings in 3 different days, same unclear result. Googled it online and checked the plastic cover to be completely flat on the glass, nothing changed. Tried with water, had a clear reading. The reading became clearer after I cold crashed the beer.
The real problem was that I crashed the densimeter, so I had no way to cross check the readings. I don't have temperature problems and I know the yeast, so beer came out good anyway.
What am I doing wrong?
Cheers from Italy!
Piteko