National Homebrew Club Ireland

So with Sterling being cheap and homebrew on tap I bought a cheap refractometer from amazon. 

But after calibrating it I get totally different readings from my hydrometer with beer.

I calibrated them both with tap water and they both read 1.000 but with my beer the hydrometer reads 1.010 and the refractometer reads 1.020. Which do I believe? Is my new cheap refractometer sh1t?

Pretty sure that a refractometer should only be used before adding yeast as the alcohol throws the results, so use it for pre boil gravity and original gravity

The alcohol does affect the refractive index, but you can convert the reading for a fermented beer if you know what the starting gravity was.  There's a conversion calculator on Beersmith if you have it, probably many others online as well.

Aaaah I didn't know that. I just plugged the info into beersmith and I got similar results to my hydrometer. Thanks guys.

Quote from: Fal on September 02, 2017, 08:54:57 PM
So with Sterling being cheap and homebrew on tap I bought a cheap refractometer from amazon. 

But after calibrating it I get totally different readings from my hydrometer with beer.

I calibrated them both with tap water and they both read 1.000 but with my beer the hydrometer reads 1.010 and the refractometer reads 1.020. Which do I believe? Is my new cheap refractometer sh1t?

I got caught by relying on the refractometer and thought I had a stuck fermentation and chucked three different yeasts into it then after doing some research used the hydrometer to find it had finished all along.

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Well as it happened I was ready to pitch a second yeast thinking it was stuck myself when I though 'I'll just put a message on the forum first'  We'll worth being hassled by Ciderhead to become a full member