refractometer or hydrometer?

P

Pat Michiels

Member
im looking for some input. ive been using a hydrometer for years and have checked out refractometers before but never used one. my current hydrometer is little and a pain in the ass to read so my question is do i just upgrade my hydrometer or upgrade to a refractometer? what are the pros and cons of the refractometer?
 
I use a refractometer because I don't think I ever read a hydrometer correctly. Refractometers make more sense to me. Then I got a digital one because I wanted to take all the guesswork out (and I got it on sale!)
 
what about when the beer is fully fermented? ive read that the refractometer doesnt read correctly when alcohol is present so if i still have to use a hydrometer than i might as well skip the refractometer.
 
In my opinion if you have a refractometer you will also need a hydrometer.

Refractometers are relatively easy to use, require only a few drops of wort to get a reading. however, alcohol will skew the reading. so to get a reading after fermentation has started requires additional calculation...(and even those were determined empirically). I have both, but i almost always use my hydrometer. its cheaper and easier.

Also, while you should be calibrating both, i feel that I needed to calibrate my refractometer all the time....though it could be because it was made in china who knows.
 
Well, take it also from someone that doesn't care *that much* about the numbers, so your mileage may vary, but there are calculators that work. Given a known starting gravity which you can get from your refractometer, you can take what your refrac is telling you with alcohol present and figure out what the gravity is. I know there's one built into BeerSmith. The big issue is that you HAVE to know what your starting gravity is for it to work, so if you forget to take reading on brew day you won't know what your final gravity is.

For example, I did a small pale ale a little while back. OG was 10.4 brix or 1.042. Finished beer was 4.8 brix. Throwing that through the beersmith calculator, the final adjusted specific gravity was 1.005 and a ABV of 4.83.

I am trusting that the calculator is right. But those numbers seem fine based on the beer and recipe I used.
 
Here's my $0.02...

I got a refrac For pre-boil and pre ferment readings, and for taking samples to determine finished fermentation on large or wild brews. When you take a sample 2 weeks apart and get the same number, you can be pretty sure it's done, and the refrac only needs a small sample.
Then I do a hydrometer testing to get my final gravity.
This is assuming that I care enough to do that many readings and care what the numbers are, which often I don't.
 
When I bother to take readings, I use my digital refractometer and use a calculator to figure it all out. [mention]Chris Smith[/mention] explained all that pretty well above.
 
I have, and use, both. I use a refractometer on brewday to measure my pre- and post-boil gravities, and I use a hydrometer to measure final gravity after I keg the beer. I do not take any readings during fermentation (for beer*) as I do a 14 - 21 day temperature-controlled primary so I'm confident the yeast will have done all it can in that time. Also, I ferment in a 10-gallon keg so pulling a sample -- either a large one for a hydrometer, or a drop for a refractometer -- is not very easy.

* For mead I take many gravity readings during the process; I use a refractometer on day 0, and a hydrometer every time after that. I know there are calculators out there that allow you to use a refractometer during and after fermentation, I just haven't bothered to try them. Pure laziness on my part... but I get to drink the hydrometer sample, which IMO is an important part of meadmaking. :D

Edit: Dan makes a really good point above: if you take refrac readings during fermentation and two or more consecutive readings are the same, that means fermentation is done. Even if you don't run any calculations to determine the actual gravity just seeing the same (inaccurate) number on consecutive readings is conclusive.
 
+2 with Dan.

I am in the same camp, although I take hydrometer readings on brew day. It's easier to take a smaller sample from my fermentors with the refractometer to monitor fermentation, and then, when I transfer to secondary or keg, I'll pull enough for a hydrometer reading, then do the calcs on the refractometer reading. Using both can also help keep each one in check. I recently discovered that my hydrometer was reading 6 points lower than it should.
 
So after using Brian's refractometer on brew day I pulled the trigger on one and got it today but I think I was shipped the wrong one. Brian's was easy to read and this one has three different scales and the instructions with it say there is one. What the hell am I looking at here?
http://imgur.com/vg3ykg2
 
Whoa, that's weird. Never seen markings like that on brewing/sugar refractometers. Which one did you try to buy (and where did you get it?)
 
i bought it off amazon. it was supposed to be a dual scale with brix on one side and sg on the other. in the description it says "Measures Brix: 0-32% and Specific Gravity:1.000-1.120" but there is nothing resembling either of them on there. from looking it up it looks like this refractometer i received is supposed to give protein readings in urine, so i have that going for me.
 
So this week I racked an IPA to secondary and took a reading with my Dual Scale Refractometer and got a SG of 1.019 (approx 5 brix) but my hydrometer gave me a 1.009 reading.

Now I am going to have to double check my OG reading next time I brew
 
@Bob Thompson check this thread for a link, you can't use FG directly with a refractometer, you have to do some calculation based on the OG and your FG reading to get the actual FG.
 
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