First time brewing

[jennyss]

17 hours ago, ChairmanDrew said:

I've just been tasting my recent brew I did with the Coopers Draught kit. That seems to have more fruitiness to it, but I dont know if it was the bag of enhancer I used for the first time or the can itself.

Yes @ChairmanDrew, it is interesting, but a real challenge to work out what is causing the taste changes - so many variables. Biggest variable being my taste buds - I change my mind all the time!

[Toby92]

It's now day 5, original gravity was 1034 I have tested today and it's sitting at 1003 but I have noticed my hydrometer could be out every time I test it gives me a slightly different reading is this normal? Could I just take an average or should I just get a new hydrometer? 

Also I have only just noticed this problem so my original reading may have been out. 

Taste update much better flavour on day 5. Thanks for all the help this forum is mint

[DavidM]

Give the Hydrometer a test in water at 20 deg

that should give you a reading close to 0

go from there

[Kegory]

41 minutes ago, Toby92 said:

It's now day 5, original gravity was 1034 I have tested today and it's sitting at 1003 but I have noticed my hydrometer could be out every time I test it gives me a slightly different reading is this normal? Could I just take an average or should I just get a new hydrometer? 

Also I have only just noticed this problem so my original reading may have been out. 

Taste update much better flavour on day 5. Thanks for all the help this forum is mint

I've got two hydrometers, a plastic one and a glass one. They both give different readings. I'm only fermenting my 2nd and 3rd brews now but the readings on the first two seemed stable around days 9, 10 & 11. If anything they've fluctuated upwards but I think that could be due to varying temperatures of the samples. I've only just started measuring and noting the sample temperatures when I take the hydrometer readings. I always take pictures of the hydrometers in the sample tube, too.

[Classic Brewing Co]

39 minutes ago, Kegory said:

I've got two hydrometers, a plastic one and a glass one. They both give different readings. I'm only fermenting my 2nd and 3rd brews now but the readings on the first two seemed stable around days 9, 10 & 11. If anything they've fluctuated upwards but I think that could be due to varying temperatures of the samples. I've only just started measuring and noting the sample temperatures when I take the hydrometer readings. I always take pictures of the hydrometers in the sample tube, too.

Yeah, that's a good habit to record everything, I would suggest the glass one would be more accurate, that's all I use these days.

You should test it though, it should read 1.000 in water.

[Kegory]

14 minutes ago, Classic Brewing Co said:

Yeah, that's a good habit to record everything, I would suggest the glass one would be more accurate, that's all I use these days.

You should test it though, it should read 1.000 in water.

Yeah, I bought some distilled water. I'm gonna test them both across a range of temperatures. Apparently I love taking notes.

[Toby92]

5 hours ago, Classic Brewing Co said:

Yeah, that's a good habit to record everything, I would suggest the glass one would be more accurate, that's all I use these days.

You should test it though, it should read 1.000 in water.

I had a old home brew kit I was given years ago and it has a glass hydrometer. I cleaned it up and tested both at 20 degree water glass reads 1.000 plastic was 1.003 definitely sticking with the glass