Gravity reading Conundrum

[meirion658]

Morning all as above I have bit of dilemma which is confusing me so I thought I would ask the experts.

Currently, I have a IPA on the go which has been fermenting away nicely for the past 7 days monitoring with the Tilt Hydrometer. ( I changed the battery before placing wort and forgot to calibrate so calibration is out)

Tilt currently reading 1.005

I took a sample last night and used the tried and tested hydrometer which gave me a reading of just over 1.010.

To double check I also took a sample from the hydrometer tube and took a reading from my refractometer reading 1.040 - Needs calibrating you might think?

Decided to test a sample of tap water
Hydromet reading 1.000 or close to it
Refractometer reading 1.000

Made a sample of 1.120 using tap water and sugar
Hydrometer reading 1.120
Refractometer reading 1.120.

Thinking I might have made an error with initial refractometer reading took another small sample this morning and again it read 1.040!!

Please help me understand what is going on?

 

[xozzx]

The 1.040 on the refractometer was uncorrected? What was your OG? What was your corrected refractometer reading?

 

[meirion658]

The 1.040 on the refractometer was uncorrected? What was your OG? What was your corrected refractometer reading?

the OG was 1.070

When I tested the refractometer this morning it was in line with the hydrometer give or take a point or two in the water 1.000 and sugar solution of 1.120

When I tested the wart the hydrometer gave 1.010
The refractometer was 1.040

 

[xozzx]

A refractometer is only really good for measuring wort as ethanol (alcohol) distorts the reading, you need to correct any reading after the wort has started fermenting. There are plenty of calculators online which will calculate the gravity based on the OG and the current reading but this will still be less accurate than a hydrometer and requires a lot of testing to dial in the correction factor.

Using brewfather and correction factor of 1.04 this gives FG from your refractometer of 1.020.

I only ever use my refractometer for OG and use hydrometer for anything after fermentation has started.

 

[xozzx]

What yeast were you using? Going from 1.070 to 1.010 gives 85% attenuation, this is pretty high. Most yeast will attenuate upto about 80%, its not impossible to get 85% but it is high.

 

[AMyd666]

Apologies for jumping on to this thread with a slightly different query, but I checked my wort before pitching yeast with both a refractometer and hydrometer just to see what difference there would be. Refractometer 1.057, yet hydrometer 1.052!
I checked my refractometer with water again to zero it but it made no difference.
Any ideas?

 

[MmmBeer]

Refractometers should be calibrated to 1.000 with distilled water. You only need a few drops, so boil a kettle, place a wine glass diagonally over the spout and another glass below to catch the drips.

 

[AMyd666]

Tried that and it made no difference. Both read zero

 

[Buffers brewery]

I cross-calibrated (if that’s a word) my refractometer and hydrometer by making various strengths of distilled water/sugar solutions. You can check “standard” values against tables...
http://www.brsquared.org/wine/CalcInfo/HydSugAl.htm