Gravity question

[Byron]

Had a pale ale on FV for 10 days. Bubbles have slowed right down to almost nothing.

Took a read 2 days ago and was about 1.014 read today and is 1.012. Now I've left the hydrometer in for about 5mins on the side and looked again and it's now reading 1.016!! If I push it down and let it bob about a bit it settles initially at 1.012 again but slowly creeps up. It's at 1.018 currently.

Should I trust the initial read or the latter one?

Confused 🤷*♀️

 

[Mungri]

Had a pale ale on FV for 10 days. Bubbles have slowed right down to almost nothing.

Took a read 2 days ago and was about 1.014 read today and is 1.012. Now I've left the hydrometer in for about 5mins on the side and looked again and it's now reading 1.016!! If I push it down and let it bob about a bit it settles initially at 1.012 again but slowly creeps up. It's at 1.018 currently.

Should I trust the initial read or the latter one?

Confused 🤷*♀️

I've noticed this with my readings. I put it down to small bubbles forming on the hydrometer pushing it up, so have been using the initial reading.

 

[Byron]

I've decided to leave until tomorrow and see what happens to the initial reading

 

[Dads_Ale]

Take the initial reading. C02 will stick to the hydrometer over time making it more buoyant and giving false reading. Give it a twirl to dislodge the gas.

 

[Gunge]

Give the hydrometer a little twirl when placing it to dislodge bubbles; don't let it sit there for any longer than necessary. They are really quite sensitive - I left one in my last batch of stout by mistake but decided to leave it there as I have a few and it wasn't hurting owt. After 15 days in the FV it was showing a SG of 1000!! Turned out that the bit of fermentation gunk sticking to it was weighing it down or summat. Cleaning it and testing again revealed a true SG of 1012!

 

[dad_of_jon]

Take the initial reading. C02 will stick to the hydrometer over time making it more buoyant and giving false reading. Give it a twirl to dislodge the gas.

and if you have a lot of these bubbles the beer is still fermenting anyways.:)