I have always found checking SG in wine that has chunks, e.g., fruit and/or oak, to be a challenge. It's hard to get clear wine without a fair amount of effort. My wine thief gets clogged and either won't fill or leaks.
My solution is to use a tall & narrow fine mesh nylon straining bag. I rinse it, a Fermtech wine thief, and a hydrometer in K-meta, then wrap the thief in the bag. I push it into the must and give it 15-20 seconds for the thief to fill. Pull it out, leaving the bag embedded in the must, and drop in the hydrometer.
Due to CO2, the reading will not be 100% accurate. However, during fermentation this is not important to me, as I'm looking for an indicator of how far along the fermentation is. I care about the original and final SG, not the accuracy of the intermediate readings.
Cleaning the bag isn't hard. I rinse it off with a sprayer to get most of the "stuff" off it. Then I drape it over the divider between my sinks (I installed a deep double stainless steel sink in my wine making area), and spray both sides to remove debris, then flip the bag and do the same for the other side.
My solution is to use a tall & narrow fine mesh nylon straining bag. I rinse it, a Fermtech wine thief, and a hydrometer in K-meta, then wrap the thief in the bag. I push it into the must and give it 15-20 seconds for the thief to fill. Pull it out, leaving the bag embedded in the must, and drop in the hydrometer.
Due to CO2, the reading will not be 100% accurate. However, during fermentation this is not important to me, as I'm looking for an indicator of how far along the fermentation is. I care about the original and final SG, not the accuracy of the intermediate readings.
Cleaning the bag isn't hard. I rinse it off with a sprayer to get most of the "stuff" off it. Then I drape it over the divider between my sinks (I installed a deep double stainless steel sink in my wine making area), and spray both sides to remove debris, then flip the bag and do the same for the other side.