I am having a hard time trying to figure out what is going on. I calibrated my refrectometer with distilled water that was sitting in the same room right before I did this. Room is about 70 deg.
I have two separate beers fermenting and I am getting a large discrepancy.
My english bitter which has been fermenting for 11 days I get a SG of 1.010 and brix of 3.7 they seem to be relatively close, but still off by a bit. 3.7 = ~1.014
The Blonde ale that I have seems to be much different I am getting an SG of 1.009 and brix of 4.3. This is way farther off than I am expecting as 4.3 = ~1.017.
I am highly confused and think I may be doing something wrong with the refrectometer, as I checked twice with two different hydrometers.
Any pointers or tips?
Have you tried this: http://www.northernbrewer.com/refractometer-calculator/
The presence of alcohol will throw off a refractometer reading.
[quote=“brans041”]I am having a hard time trying to figure out what is going on. I calibrated my refrectometer with distilled water that was sitting in the same room right before I did this. Room is about 70 deg.
I have two separate beers fermenting and I am getting a large discrepancy.
My english bitter which has been fermenting for 11 days I get a SG of 1.010 and brix of 3.7 they seem to be relatively close, but still off by a bit. 3.7 = ~1.014
The Blonde ale that I have seems to be much different I am getting an SG of 1.009 and brix of 4.3. This is way farther off than I am expecting as 4.3 = ~1.017.
I am highly confused and think I may be doing something wrong with the refrectometer, as I checked twice with two different hydrometers.
Any pointers or tips?[/quote]
I’m guessing your refract reads only in brix, so for example the 3.7 reading is refract and the SG of 1.010 is hygro? According to the Schwartz chart 3.7 should equal ~ 1.014
My refract is both scales…the SG tends to be a bit off from the above mentioned chart.
As the previous poster said, these are both post - ferm so a calculation is needed.
Two more considerations for the bitter numbers (wouldn’t explain the wide gap you’re seeing in the blonde)…
- Are you sure your hydro’s read exactly 1.000 in your brewing water at the calibration temp?
- I find it’s sometimes very difficult to get an accurate reading of my refractometer. May be off +/- .2 brix just because of this.
Combine these two issues and you have the potential for a .004 point discrepancy.
