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Hydrometers
YOU are the winemaker at Fall Bright! We basically provide the amateur winemaker with the grapes or grape juices and winemaking supplies and the know-how to make his own wine. Check out our website
www.fallbright.com for information and online shopping. Call 607-292-3995 Tuesday to Saturday, 10-5. Drop by: we are on the east side of Keuka Lake near Wayne on Hyatt Hill.
Hydrometers are often manufactured with a triple scale: potential alcohol, Brix, and specific gravity. It is a must have item for winemaking (and brewing, too).
BEFORE you begin fermentation, please take a hydrometer reading. A stable wine has 9 to 14 percent alcohol. In order to achieve this level of alcohol, the juice or fruit to be fermented must have
an adequate sugar level. General conversion of sugar to alcohol is approximately 58% (0.575%~). A brix of 21 degrees yields around 12% alcohol.
View the hydrometer floating in the juice sample at eye level. Take the reading from the bottom of the meniscus (see illustration below). The balling/ brix scale is the brix or sugar percentage.
TEMPERATURE ADJUSTMENTS: Most hydrometers are calibrated for a sample at a certain temperature and will give adjustment factors in with their instructions. Brix test is a measurement of dissolved
solids in a juice/wine being tested. Should there be any alcohol in the wine sample, the test would be properly called a Balling. The actual testing procedure is, however, identical.
1. Adjust the temperature of the juice sample required as indicated on the hydrometer stem. If the sample contains any carbon dioxide gas, the gas should be removed by careful agitation.
2. Pour sample into clean and dry hydrometer jar up to about 2 inches from the top. If your jar is not dry, rinse it with some of the juice.
3. Insert clean and dry hydrometer, holding the top of the hydrometer stem in a pendulum effect.
4. Spin the hydrometer in the sample.
5. Read the instrument at the bottom of the meniscus (see illustration above).
6. Retake temperature immediately and make necessary adjustments per hydrometer instructions that are packed in the tube. If your hydrometer is not packed in a tube, you will need to buy a
hydrometer jar.
A +5 -5 hydrometer is a narrow range hydrometer used for reading dry or almost dry wine at the end of the fermentation. If using a +5 -5 hydrometer and the reading is below a (minus) -1.5 degrees
or -2 degrees, then the wine is dry and not stuck. If the hydrometer reading is higher than a minus -1.5, such as a 0 reading or a plus 1 degrees, then there is residual sugar and one may attempt to
restart the fermentation. If you call Tom for advice with a young wine, the first thing he will want to know is the hydrometer reading. It is an inexpensive, must-have tool.
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