Hydrometer - how to use?

Put the hydrometer in the tset jar (also called a flask sometimes). Using a clean, sanitized turkey baster or wine thief, pull some beer from your fermenter and add it to the flask until the hydrometer floats. Look at the line on the hydrometer the beer comes to...that's your reading.

------------->Denny

First, I simply use the tube mine came in as the "jar." Or you can buy them. You can get a turkey baster at "Walmart" and just be sure to sanitize it before putting it into your beer.

If you brew in buckets, you can sanitize the hydrometer and put it directly into the bucket. That's what I did for the longest time (and often still do). Just be careful of sanitization and don't breathe into your bucket. (Most advise against this these days, however).

When you use it, I think most people give it a little spin and try to be sure that there are no bubbles on it since they will "lift" it and distort your reading. Also realize that the liquid will curve up where it touches the glass, so carefully read it "level" with the flat surface of the liquid. Alan has some good details in his equipment faq at:

I did a search for hydrometer and looked in the equipment FAQ.

Also,

has an Appendix A on hydrometers.

I have a thief that has a ball valve at the bottom of a a narrow tube. The tube fills when inserted into a carboy or bucket. The thief can be pulled out and then drop in a hydrometer.

Maybe not the dumbass guide, but everything you ever wanted to know about hydrometers, but were afraid to ask:

The hydrometer might have more than one scale printed on it. Mine reads specific gravity (what you want) but also "potential alcohol by volume" and "balling". At first, newbie that I am, I found that confusing. Any tall, thin, clear container you can clean might work as a test jar.

I was scared to pull the top off my fermenter to test specific gravity, since eeeevil bacteria might get in, so I put a length of heat-shrinkable tubing (from Radio Shack) on the tip of a turkey baster and shrunk it to make a long-snouted "wine-thief". I use it to suck the beer to be tested up through the airlock hole.

You check the specific gravity once before fermentation starts and write it down for later, then check a few times again when you think it might be done but aren't sure. When it stops going down, it's done fermenting. The difference between the two readings can be used to determine alcohol content.

Karl S.