I hate hydrometers!!

The forum for discussing all kinds of brewing paraphernalia.
guypettigrew
Even further under the Table
Posts: 2626
Joined: Mon Mar 22, 2010 7:10 pm
Location: Christchurch, Dorset

Re: I hate hydrometers!!

Post by guypettigrew » Fri Jun 11, 2021 3:33 pm

Ah, and there isn't a hard 'C' in Greek, as we have in English. All now makes sense.

Guy

User avatar
PeeBee
Under the Table
Posts: 1575
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2016 2:50 pm
Location: North Wales

Re: I hate hydrometers!!

Post by PeeBee » Fri Jun 11, 2021 4:10 pm

guypettigrew wrote:
Fri Jun 11, 2021 2:06 pm
PeeBee wrote:
Fri Jun 11, 2021 12:49 pm
Hydrometers are cr&p. Refractometers are dodgy 'cos they were never intended to be deployed in this way. Stop using devices that use tricks to get the measurement you need and use something that's actually using basics to directly read the measurement you want. A Pyk... Oh, it's already been mentioned! (But spelt with a "c", flippin' heathens).
Who are you calling a heathen, you backwoods Welsh person!! No offence intended PeeBee! Yes, I did wonder why you hadn't joined in, especially when I'd mentioned pycnometers.

'C' or 'K'? Sources found via Google seem equally happy with either. But, just for you, it'll be pyknometer from now on!

Guy
There's no "k" over here, we know exactly how to pronounce "c"! And "Google" ... that bunch of :-#
Nitro Jim wrote:
Fri Jun 11, 2021 2:14 pm
Pycnometer is the preferred spelling in modern American English usage. Pyknometer is to be found in older texts, and is used interchangeably with pycnometer in British English. The term has its origins in the Greek word πυκνός, meaning "dense".
Ah ... a mega-heathen! Interesting that you quote the Greek pronunciation (yeuck, I've just used one of those despicable soft-"Cs" ... flippin' vulgar language), it emphasises the other mispronunciation of "pycnometer" ... it's "puk... ", not "pik... " as in "pick me nose". Again, there's no problem in Cymraig, first "y" in word can be "ugh". We have "u", but don't have much call for caveman noises over here so "u" is pronounced "ee", and we know "y" a vowel unlike our neighbours.

And we're the British, so do not link the word with "English" (some heathen Germanic tribe that infected these shores a while back).



Ooo, I am having fun today :D
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

User avatar
PeeBee
Under the Table
Posts: 1575
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2016 2:50 pm
Location: North Wales

Re: I hate hydrometers!!

Post by PeeBee » Fri Jun 11, 2021 4:18 pm

guypettigrew wrote:
Fri Jun 11, 2021 3:33 pm
Ah, and there isn't a hard 'C' in Greek, as we have in English. All now makes sense.

Guy
Or Latin. Much of our spelling harks back to the Romans (before the Church got hold of Latin and trashed it).

[EDIT: I assume you meant "there isn't a soft 'C' in Greek"?]
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

guypettigrew
Even further under the Table
Posts: 2626
Joined: Mon Mar 22, 2010 7:10 pm
Location: Christchurch, Dorset

Re: I hate hydrometers!!

Post by guypettigrew » Fri Jun 11, 2021 4:37 pm

Ah, British. Geographically correct, of course, except there's no such language as British.

Soft 'C', hard 'C', either way the Greeks don't have one! Just Kappa.

And, just to prolong the fun, Google tells me your 'Cymraig' should be spelt 'Cymraeg' The former seems to translate as 'woman' in English, the latter is a colloquial term for the Welsh language.

Hydrometers are beginning to seem much more appealing than pucknimotors.

Guy

User avatar
PeeBee
Under the Table
Posts: 1575
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2016 2:50 pm
Location: North Wales

Re: I hate hydrometers!!

Post by PeeBee » Fri Jun 11, 2021 4:54 pm

guypettigrew wrote:
Fri Jun 11, 2021 4:37 pm
...
And, just to prolong the fun, Google tells me your 'Cymraig' should be spelt 'Cymraeg' The former seems to translate as 'woman' in English, the latter is a colloquial term for the Welsh language. ...
Guy
Ah, bums.

I'll get you back, especially after that "pucknimotors" jibe.
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

User avatar
PeeBee
Under the Table
Posts: 1575
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2016 2:50 pm
Location: North Wales

Re: I hate hydrometers!!

Post by PeeBee » Fri Jun 11, 2021 8:15 pm

guypettigrew wrote:
Fri Jun 11, 2021 4:37 pm
Ah, British. Geographically correct, of course, except there's no such language as British. ...
Guy
You're right. "British" is a nickname the Romans had for all the people in this land. And the language was Cymraeg. But "British" was a whole lot more acceptable than the name imprinted in later years ... "Welsh"!

Anyway. This is your thread. Have you ordered your Pyknometer bottle yet?
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

User avatar
An Ankoù
Steady Drinker
Posts: 82
Joined: Sat Mar 02, 2019 6:55 pm
Location: Brittany, France (56)

Re: I hate hydrometers!!

Post by An Ankoù » Sat Jun 12, 2021 6:18 am

Crap hydrometers are great.
Calibrate with water every now and then to see whether the scale has slipped up or down in the tube.
Use the same instrument to measure OG and FG to get an estimate of how strong the beer is. Then add priming sugar to mess up the result.
Get some idea of efficiency to compare one brew against another and perhaps tweak a few processes.
Get an idea of when fermentation is finished rather than "stuck".
Use a trial jar. 100 ml is not a waste it's just good sanitary practice. Also, you can taste the wort / beer at all stages by sipping from the jar.

Can anybody tell me why we need to measure beer gravity to the Nth degree, particularly when it's only a snapshot of the gravity at the time of measuring.
Last edited by An Ankoù on Sat Jun 12, 2021 7:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
I'm cheap. Just give me beer.

Nitro Jim
Piss Artist
Posts: 182
Joined: Wed Feb 18, 2015 6:10 pm
Location: Spalding, Lincolnshire

Re: I hate hydrometers!!

Post by Nitro Jim » Sat Jun 12, 2021 7:40 am

An Ankoù wrote:
Sat Jun 12, 2021 6:18 am

Can anybody tell me why we need to measure beer gravity to the Nth degree, particularly when it's only a snapshot of the gravity at the time of measuring.
I don't bother anymore and haven't done for sometime.
Beer is my drug of choice.
I don't need anger management classes, I need people to stop pissing me off.

No beer, no fun - know beer, know FUN!

Carrots may be good for your eyes but alcohol is better as it gives you double vision!

User avatar
MashBag
Even further under the Table
Posts: 2140
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 7:13 am

Re: I hate hydrometers!!

Post by MashBag » Sat Jun 12, 2021 8:07 am

PeeBee wrote:
Fri Jun 11, 2021 12:49 pm
...... Oh, it's already been mentioned! (But spelt with a "c", flippin' heathens).


Never thought of spelling it refrakometer. Blimey!

User avatar
PeeBee
Under the Table
Posts: 1575
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2016 2:50 pm
Location: North Wales

Re: I hate hydrometers!!

Post by PeeBee » Sat Jun 12, 2021 4:11 pm

Here I am measuring today's efforts "to the Nth degree". And I know why I do it ... because I can! For anybody puzzled by all this "pyknometer" chatter, this is a pyknometer in action today:
20210612_150158_WEB.jpg
20210612_150158_WEB.jpg (54.36 KiB) Viewed 1348 times
Yeah, so it's a bottle with a hole through the stopper. Was anybody expecting some thing more elaborate?

You can get them with appendages to fit thermometers, which serve no useful purpose and they break off in no time. But it's the availability of low-cost accurate weighing scales that have made them an option recently. This ones telling me the specific gravity (more accurately relative density) is 1.035: Seems I've not been getting my expected gravity (I'd planned on 1.039).

The beer is another of my "projects": Created in a Grainfather, no sparge, full-boil-length-mash, fermented under pressure, fermented in the dispensing keg, just a whole list of cheats and short-cuts. The recipe is for "Centennial Blond", a pseudo-lager.
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

User avatar
PeeBee
Under the Table
Posts: 1575
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2016 2:50 pm
Location: North Wales

Re: I hate hydrometers!!

Post by PeeBee » Sat Jun 12, 2021 5:10 pm

MashBag wrote:
Sat Jun 12, 2021 8:07 am
PeeBee wrote:
Fri Jun 11, 2021 12:49 pm
... Oh, it's already been mentioned! (But spelt with a "c", flippin' heathens).
Never thought of spelling it refrakometer. Blimey!
The reason I insist on "pyknometer" is because English is not spelt like it sounds (phonetic) and heathen folk may pronounce it piss-nometer if spelt pycnometer and wonder what it used for! It's "puk...", okay?

As I've already said there is no "k" in Cymraeg, and no squishy soft "c" so we have no need for "k". Unfortunately we did have use for the letter "ð" (crossed "d") but some Charlie got rid of that (and others) leaving us to make do with "dd" (that is still regarded as one letter in Cymraeg).



Now who was it that got me started with all this? (Again).
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Carnot
Piss Artist
Posts: 162
Joined: Wed Sep 13, 2017 8:32 pm

Re: I hate hydrometers!!

Post by Carnot » Sat Jun 12, 2021 8:56 pm

Guys,

Do you really believe a pycnomter is accurate?. I have a a distillation unit and a scale that is supposedley good to 0.001 g but I doubt it. Then I have a 25 and 50 ml pycnometer to add to the tale. I do not have a high regard for this methodology because the room for error is huge. A high end hydrometer will do an as good if not better job. I have the horrific experince of caiibraring 1 ml pipette in my 1st year of BSc Chemistry. What an ordeal. Trying to measure to 1 mg is tough- try 0.1 mg with a beam balance. It would test the patience of Jobe.

WallyBrew
Hollow Legs
Posts: 473
Joined: Sat Jan 05, 2008 11:30 pm
Location: Surrey

Re: I hate hydrometers!!

Post by WallyBrew » Sat Jun 12, 2021 9:18 pm

Carnot wrote:
Sat Jun 12, 2021 8:56 pm
Guys,

Do you really believe a pycnomter is accurate?.
In the hands of someone who knows how to use one they give repeatable results to within 1mg of two readings on a 4dp balance.

In the hands of someone who does not know then maybe they are crap.

I have a 1000 grain, 100mL, 50mL, 25mL and 10mL ones in my possession and I know how to use them.

User avatar
An Ankoù
Steady Drinker
Posts: 82
Joined: Sat Mar 02, 2019 6:55 pm
Location: Brittany, France (56)

Re: I hate hydrometers!!

Post by An Ankoù » Sat Jun 12, 2021 10:18 pm

I come back to the question, Why? Are the results from a half-decent hydrometer, sample in a trial jar and corrected for temperature, not sufficient for homebrew purposes?
Does this separate the brewers from the lab geeks who've hit on brewing as a medium to further their own ends?
I'm cheap. Just give me beer.

Carnot
Piss Artist
Posts: 162
Joined: Wed Sep 13, 2017 8:32 pm

Re: I hate hydrometers!!

Post by Carnot » Sat Jun 12, 2021 10:28 pm

Wallybrew,

You are 100% spot on. You are the exception not the rule and you have a 0.1 mg scale, and I guess a whole host of other analytical kit incuding atomic adsorption. Not exactly a home brewers inventory. I have 25 ml and 50 my pycnometers. My weakness is the scales. 0.1 mg accuracy gets to be a little expensive in more ways than one.

A decent hydrometer calibrated for alcohol is a whole lot easier than a pycnometer. Not perfect I grant you but realtively easy to use.

Post Reply