Buy A Frickin' Hydrometer!

[jdrum]

will soon put it all to rest. did experiment today and a fresh egg will float at
1.080 sg will have pics as soon as i can get it sorted out.

jim

 

[jdrum]

ok lets try this.

started with 2 cups of water, sg1.001
egg lay flat on the bottom

added 3 tbs sugar, sg 1.028
egg was slightly boyant

added 3 more tbs sugar sg 1.051
egg stood up on the small end

added 2 tbs sugar sg1.080
egg floated and broke the surface

next post for the rest

jim

 

[SarahRides]

I went through 3 hydrometers my first few months of wine-making (I never said I was very graceful), so on Amazon bought 4 of them (after buying one for immediate use at the LHBS)..........That was about 9 months ago........I still haven't even had to open the box they were shipped in yet!

 

[jdrum]

then i added 1 1/2 tbs more and went to sg 1.090


egg floated a little higher.

sooo there is a correrlation , and some truth about the egg in the must. so if an impatient newbie dose not have a hydrometer he could float an egg and make wine. true it won't tell him when it finishes, but it can get them started, and give them time to get a hydrometer.

that stink thing came from a c/p from earlier in the thread. lol i left it in for a chuckle.

i made three batches of wine before i got my first hydrometer, and they all turned out pretty good. but i read a lot about any thing i plan to try. and i still have volumes to learn.

jim

 

[cpfan]

One tip about hydrometers. I used to run a Ferment on Premises, so was constantly using hydrometers. I'd break at least one a month it seemed. Some simple drops, others unknown reason - just broken.

I read a suggestion that hot water might be making the glass more sensitive to breakage. After I became more careful with water temp when cleaning and rinsing the hydrometer, I had a LOT less breakage. Still dropped them occasionally though.

Steve

 

[arcticsid]

LOL, thats pretty cool jim, gotta give it to ya, but, can you pull a chicken out of a hat? LOL

 

[MadCow]

I have a hydrometer but my problem is I have no idea what the information it gives means, or what to do about it.

Is there a tutorial somewhere that explains this?

I tested my hips and haws yesterday after 2nd racking and it seemed to say 9800 but it was difficult to see. It was on the line between the green bit and the yellow bit.

What does it all mean I wonder?

 

[jdrum]

ya i could, IF i could catch the chicken to put in the hat. and i sure wouldn't wear the hat after.
this is only a way to check if there is enough sugar to make a keepable wine, not to replace a hydrometer.
the next thing to address is how to read and interpret what it tells you. a lot of newbies get hydrometers and don't know how to use them. another thing is the difference between different hydrometers. mine are all the same make so i can explain them but the ones that are marked with colered segments seem to confuse a lot of people. we need to get them to understand the numbers.

it would help me if someone could post pics of different brands of hydrometers
to compare and i would star a thread devoted to using hydrometers,

jim

 

[cpfan]

MadCow...

Have a look at this page. Hope it will help.

BTW, specific gravity readings generally range from .990 to 1.150.

Steve

 

[MadCow]

MadCow...

Have a look at this page. Hope it will help.

BTW, specific gravity readings generally range from .990 to 1.150.

Steve

Thanks - er, which page ?

 

[arcticsid]

Which chicken?

 

[Oracus]

I think this should be a sticky!

 

[North_Ga_Jug-Or-Not]

Well, I may be wrong here but im gonna try. If the egg sinks to begin with, at 1.000, and it floats when its at 1.080. Then it stands to reason that when you get the egg to float, then your sugar is good to go to make the wine. Going right along with this logic, wouldnt the wine be ready when the egg once again sinks? Meaning that you are back to 1.000 or lower presumably?

And to further add to the discussion, I know ill probably get hammered here, but I still dont own a hydrometer. lol Been meaning to get one, but have done beautifully without it as I know many people that make wine and probably have never even seen a hydrometer. Matter of fact, most cant even read or write(old timers, staying alive and farming were more important than those books haha).

I was gonna get one for S&G's(no pun haha), and as yet another tool to perfect my art. But at the same time, it seems like maybe that would take away from perfecting the "art" if you have a tool doing what your instincts should learn over time..? Kinda like a calculator is a very useful tool, but how many folks out of school for twenty years now are very good at math without one since thats what they use all the time. Just a thought.

 

[MadCow]

Still struggling with the hydrometer - reading it and deciphering what the reading means.

What are the stages between 1.000 to 0.990 ?

Does it go :

1.010
1.008
1.006
1.004
1.002
1.000
0.998
0.996
0.994
0.992
0.990


And if I have a reading of 0.992- 0.994 is it too dry? Tastes as if it is. (Elderberry)

 

[UBB]

0.992 is very dry. If it's to dry you can back sweeten to your tastes.

 

[MadCow]

Right - well I must be making progress if I can figure that out!

Did I let it go on fermenting too long or maybe not sweet enough to start with?

 

[jdrum]

madcow your right where you what to be, as long as you are below 1.000 your dry. that means the yeast has converted all the sugar into alcohol,(good)
now let it set a while so the sediment starts to settle out. you will see the solids settle in layers when you have good layer in the bottom of your carboy rack to a clean carboy andadd k-met (1/8 tsp per gal) OR 1 camden tablet per gal. and p-sorbate. this will stabilize the wine. then wait 2 wks and back sweeten to taste.


north ga; yes the egg sinking tells you the sugar has been converted to alcohol butyou could still have a sg reading of 1.020 and thats still not dry. it takes about 1.035 before the egg starts to lift the big end up (thats the end that has an air pocket in it).
ART think about it painters use brushes, and anything else they can lay their hands on to express their feelings. mucisions use all kinds of instruments to do their thing. all these thing are just tools, the art comes in HOW WELL THEY USE THE TOOLS. i can swing a brush and play a piano but i am no artist.

jim

 

[GrandpasFootsteps]

Yep, got 2. Had 1, dropped it and discovered that it does not work as a pile of glass. Bought 2 for insurance.

I did the exact same thing a few months ago. Too easy to break. Mine was broken inside the capped plastic tube they come in.

 

[North_Ga_Jug-Or-Not]

@JDrum

Yeah, I guess I see what your saying. I play guitar and drums, guess It'd be hard without the instruments. lol But I was just meaning getting the "feel" for it, if you would. Like these old guys around here that take one smell and a taste and know all they need to know cause they've done it for 60 years.

Getting back to the egg, kind of a funny story. I left work yesterday and stopped by my grandparents to drop off some bowls id taken some food home with. Well me and ole pawpaw get to shootin, and he was telling me an old story about some wine he made and mentioned sugar. I asked him, curiously enough, if he knew what a hydrometer was. After explaining to him what I was talking about, he did in fact know but only because hed used one later on cause as a butcher he needed it to get his sugar cure right. They called it something else, but before that hed had no idea.

Before I could even say nething else, he said "You know how we always knew how much sugar to put in our must?". I laughed a little and said, "I dont know, drop and egg into it". And he looked suprised as hell and said yeah. After a simple explaination, its pretty much what was said earlier here. Ironic as it was, it was also informative because at least we know its not just some old greek but people right here around us that used to do it. Lost art I suppose. He also said if they were ever using a corn mash, or in other words making corn liquor and not wine, theyd use an apple instead of an egg. I never quite gathered why, only assumed the density had sumthing to do with a slightly different reaction? as in more sugar to float it maybe?

Not sure, ill be going back by later today and hanging out with him some more prolly seeing as how we live 2 minutes apart(That perk I like about my new home, close to my paw). But any information I miay learn from him thats not mainstream knowledge today Id love to share with you folks, may be sumthin to talk about over a glass or maybe you can apply it but it'll be there regardless. lol

 

[jdrum]

most distillation mashes use a lower sugar content to give 5 to 7% alcohol, so an apple is less dense than an egg so it floats sooner than an egg providing a lower sg. i don't know the reason distillers use 5 to7% mashes but i think it is to do with the amount of unwanted compounds that the higher % mashes give.

using the hydrometer give a standard baseline, that everybody can relate to when coming to a fourm, so much of the ART is personel preference, what is sweet to you may be sour to me. when you say the must is 1.025 then we all know how much sugar is in the must. it just makes it easier to relate data. and it tells you just where you stand in your fermentation. in time you will get the feel or taste of where you are. it would take years of working with the oldtimers, to learn what took them years to learn from there teachers, and there is always the things that they take for granted and never tell you.

jim