Refractometer

Chris Alvey · Post by **Chris Alvey** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:31 am

Does anyone have/know someone who has a refractometer ?

Long story short, I made a beer this weekend and did not end up with enough of a sample to take my O/G. I was thinking a refractometer just takes a bit of wort to get a measurement.

Thanks

jefrey3 · Post by **jefrey3** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 10:07 pm

I have a refractometer. Once fermentation has started and alcohol is present my refractometer won't read accurately.

Chris Alvey · Post by **Chris Alvey** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 6:48 am

Ahh.. thanks very much. I was just getting ready to post that the whole thing is a dead issue anyways because my sample started fermenting last night, so it would be wrong too. I appreciate it though, thank you.

This is, however, a good sign for a beer. Seems like the beers that I fail to measure/record properly always turn out well. Irony.

psfred · Post by **psfred** » Mon May 08, 2006 8:30 pm

Chris:

A refractometer reads the RI (duh) of the beer, and only part of it is sugar. The protiens, etc cause it to read "high" as fermentation proceeds, since you are reading the real attenuation instead of the "appearant" attenuation.

Ever wondered what those numbers mean? In a nutshell, the hydrometer measures the density of the wort, and alcohol weighs less per volume than water -- wine usually reads -1.010 or so when finished, for example, because it is less dense than plain water from the dissolved alcohol.

A refractometer has some error from the alcohol, too, but it's much smaller (and may be the opposite, I don't remember).

A typical commercial beer reads between 5 and 7 Brix as finished beer, with a beer of 10.060 initial gravity will read 22-24 Brix (% sugar w/v)

Very handy once you get your brain around the difference in the scales.

Peter

Chris Alvey · Post by **Chris Alvey** » Tue May 09, 2006 7:38 am

That's a great explanation, thanks much for posting that. It certainly makes a lot of sense.