Refractometer versus Hydrometer advice

What would people recommend a Refractometer or a Hydrometer for home brewing. I have put it into Amazon for product guidance but want to buy from the local Homebrew Shop.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=home+brewing+fractometer&ref=nb_sb_noss

I've got both. Refractometer for pre-fermentation, hydrometer for after. You can use a refractometer for both but you will need to use a calculator to allow for the alcohol content altering the refraction index of the beer post fermentation. Search refractometer on here, you'll find plenty of chat about the pros and cons.

You can easily and happily get by with either. Or both!

Both have their advantages or disadvantages. You have to figure what's best for how you work. That may even mean using both. For me it's refractometers every time, mainly 'cos it doesn't require moving and getting quite big samples to test, isn't troublesome testing hot samples, you look the part squinting through them, and most importantly they aren't any thing like as easy to break.

I use both as well, the refractometer allows adjustment of the OG throughout the sparge and boil and the hydrometer for the fermentation (and post) stage.

Good idea to buy from your local homebrew.
SOME of these shops are run by real experts who will go the extra mile for you.
Once these shops are gone they are gone.

Boots the chemist used to do homebrew but dropped it,!!!
Amazon would not hesitate to do the same if they got more profit per unit of warehouse space with something else.

I get by with the cheap and cheerfull hydrometer.
But the gadget man inside me would like a refractometer.

BTW I have no connection to any homebrew buisiness.

If you're doing all grain the the refractometer adds a bit of glamour on the brew day and it's exciting working out how well things are going at each stage. You feel like a right boffin.

You've got to learn how to use the refractometer, though. It's not just taking a drop and putting it on the screen unless the screen is absolutely dry. You've got to make sure you've swilled off water or a previous sample fully with the new sample on the screen and cover, which is still next to nothing. I just dangle the entire head in the wort. Then closing the screen should be done with it slightly tilted upwards so all the bubbles are pushed to the tip. You get a sharper image with less bubbles.

Don't let samples cool with the refractometer cover open, and don't cool them on a spoon first if the spoon is small. You'll get evaporation and it'll concentrate the wort and throw off the reading.

The difference between most refractometers and automatic temperature control refractometers is a sticker on them that says ATC.

You really need a hydrometer, though. Choose one with a single scale, not one with six crappy things you'll never use and will always be facing your way rather than the gravity reading. I hate my multi scale hydrometer.

Quite agree, Drunkula at my age the eyesight is not so good anymore.
Its a real pain trying to find and read the right scale.

Just make sure that the refractometer you receive is actually one for sugar content... I got mine from eBay and when it arrived it was blatantly obvious that it was for measuring salinity instead of sugar content. It still had a specific gravity scale though, so muggins here thought I could still use it... NOPE. Readings completely out-of-kilter versus the hydrometer, even having recalibrated it five or six times. Sent it back and got myself a proper one now, but still to use it on my first brew, By the way, anyone know how to use the BRIX scale? seems a but mystical to me...

Drunkula said:

You really need a hydrometer, though. Choose one with a single scale, not one with six crappy things you'll never use and will always be facing your way rather than the gravity reading. I hate my multi scale hydrometer.

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I hate mine too.
Where do you find single scale ones?

Cptn_Needa said:

I hate mine too.
Where do you find single scale ones?

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If you look online for a 'lab' hydrometer rather then one designed for home brewers then you will have more success I think (although I'm sure they will be also be more expensive, but possibly also more accurate) - for example take a look at Hydrometers for measuring the specific gravity of a fluid

The trick seems to be to search online for 'volumetric hydrometer'

The-Engineer-That-Brews said:

If you look online for a 'lab' hydrometer rather then one designed for home brewers then you will have more success I think (although I'm sure they will be also be more expensive, but possibly also more accurate) - for example take a look at Hydrometers for measuring the specific gravity of a fluid

The trick seems to be to search online for 'volumetric hydrometer'

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Thanks very much. I’ll take a look.

I find a refractometer great for taking daily reading from small samples and tracking the progress of fermentation, bubbles in airlocks are notoriously unreliable guides. I use a hydrometer for OG and FG because I personally trust the results more as my calculated FG‘s never match up between devices and it’s the tool I‘ve used the longest.

Keep it simple. Hydrometer. I don't even bother to take samples, the hydrometer goes into the FV. Reading at the beginning, reading when its done.

The-Engineer-That-Brews said:

If you look online for a 'lab' hydrometer rather then one designed for home brewers then you will have more success I think (although I'm sure they will be also be more expensive, but possibly also more accurate) - for example take a look at Hydrometers for measuring the specific gravity of a fluid

The trick seems to be to search online for 'volumetric hydrometer'

Click to expand...

Careful of that. There is more to hydrometers than most people care to know. Like "calibration temperature". Lab hydrometers should be calibrated at 20°C like brewing hydrometers, but most seem to be calibrated to the old standard of 60°F (about 15-16°C). But it doesn't stop there! There are two temperatures for calibration. The temperature of the "reference". SG is "relative density" and the reference (pure water in these cases) is what it is relative to. Most "lab" hydrometers still use the 60°F reference. Brewing hydrometers will use a 20°C reference. New "lab" hydrometers should be using a 4°C water reference along with 20°C calibration … they effectively read the "real" density in grams per millilitre.

A brewing hydrometer will read be about 2 "points" over density in g/ml (SG has no "units") so we measure water as "1.000" (it is actually about 0.998g/ml at 20°C). Most "lab" (i.e. old) hydrometers will read roughly 0.999 at 20°C. And to really cause confusion, some "American" hydrometers may also read 0.999 at 20°C (they can be calibrated for 25/25°C).

I forced myself to learn too much about hydrometers, and I certainly stopped using them!

Edison said:

I find a refractometer great for taking daily reading from small samples and tracking the progress of fermentation, bubbles in airlocks are notoriously unreliable guides. I use a hydrometer for OG and FG because I personally trust the results more as my calculated FG‘s never match up between devices and it’s the tool I‘ve used the longest.

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That would certainly suit me, as I find reading the hydrometer a right faff; but I've been put off because I'd heard the the readings from a refractometer get a bit out of whack once fermentation has started because of the presence of alcohol? Is it possible to compensate for that, I wonder...

Found this in a thread from last year:

ABV = (277.8851 - 277.4 x H +0.9956 x R + 0.00523 x R^2 + 0.000013 x R^3) x H/0.79
Where H = Hydrometer Reading (e.g. 1.012), R - Refractometer reading in brix (e.g. 6)

This post on the 'Bellingham and Stanley' instruments site seems to be along the same lines

More details in this good article here on the adjustments needed to use refractometer readings once fermentation has started

As @The-Engineer-That-Brews I'd have thought you'd have been a fine candidate to dispense with "hydrometers" and "refractometers" and done as I have; gone back more to basics and grabbed yourself a "pyknometer"! Also the route to a scrambled mind, but what-the-hell (but then mine's scrambled anyway).

It got mentioned in this forum here, but that link does go on to link another forum (Jim's) and I'd suggest that topic doesn't become reliable until I recently summarised it (starting here).

If that doesn't send you ga-ga, consider it proof that you have a strong constitution.

No need to get too complicated with the refractometer. When I take my OG prior to fermentation with the hydrometer I also note the reading from the refractometer. Enter these both in a free online calculator and this will give you a calibration figure of close to 1.00.
Every time you take a new refractometer reading once alcohol is present just enter the OG reading, new reading and calibration figure.
One such calculator is here:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/refractometer-calculator/

Edison said:

No need to get too complicated with the refractometer.

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Some folks just like to make stuff complicated under the illusion that what they are doing is better, when in reality it mostly isn't.

I batch sparge and use a refractometer to measure the SG of each batch of wart. It’s a bit complicated taking a sample drop of hot wart and dropping it onto the refractometer plate then looking through the eyepiece to see the SG on the scale. It doesn’t make my beer any better, I just like to do it cos I’m interested in knowing how my brewing process is progressing and compare it to previous performance. As for the hydrometer, that really is a challenge to take a sample of cooled wart for the hydrometer jar and dropping...carefully, the hydrometer in to read the SG off the scale, then repeat at the end of fermentation. Again useful data to compare with previous brews but it doesn’t make my beer any better. But I do enjoy doing it.

peebee said:

As @The-Engineer-That-Brews I'd have thought you'd have been a fine candidate to dispense with "hydrometers" and "refractometers" and done as I have; gone back more to basics and grabbed yourself a "pyknometer"! Also the route to a scrambled mind, but what-the-hell (but then mine's scrambled anyway).

It got mentioned in this forum here, but that link does go on to link another forum (Jim's) and I'd suggest that topic doesn't become reliable until I recently summarised it (starting here).

If that doesn't send you ga-ga, consider it proof that you have a strong constitution.

Click to expand...

Readily admit I've never heard of one - will have a read... yessss OK I get the gist of that, I think :-)