H is for Hydrometer

A while back, I did something stupid. No, not go on several national television interviews rambling about tiger blood and whatnot (not that I wouldn't if I actually were famous enough to have a TV interview). I broke my hydrometer.

For those of you who don't know what a hydrometer is, it basically determines the specific gravity of a liquid, which is the density relative to water. Water = 1.000, Ethyl Alcohol at room temp = 0.789, and Mercury at room temp = 13.600. The specific gravity (or SG) of beer is important in determining how much sugar is in the unfermented beer and how much alcohol has been produced after fermentation ends. The higher the SG, the more sugars that can be converted to alcohol, and the higher abv the beer ends up at. This is why the beers that have a high percentage of alcohol are called "High Gravity."

So, I broke the tool that tells me what my gravity is. This wasn't too bad, since they don't cost too much. I quickly got an order together and had a new one shipped my way. It was coming in Saturday, which meant I could brew Sunday as I had planned.

When Saturday morning came, I brewed up a yeast starter since the next beer I am making is a little higher gravity than what I've done before. The yeast starter allows for both more and healthier yeast to be produced before the beer is brewed. That allows the yeast to survive in the higher alcohol content of a higher gravity beer. Everything was going well until the shipment came.

Once the package arrived and the yeast were happily reproducing, I eagerly opened it up. My excitement quickly turned to anger as I found that my brand new hydrometer had come pre-shattered. It was too late to turn back from my brewing schedule since the yeast starter wouldn't keep until time to get a new hydrometer, so I brewed on Sunday anyway. I'm just going to guess that the Original Gravity was at the right level and hope for the best.

I called customer service, and they were very helpful. They agreed to send a new hydrometer out to me free of charge. It should be here any day now. This has not changed my opinion of Northern Brewer at all, in fact, I kind of respect them more for how helpful they were!

Anyway, this weekend I will be going home, and my second batch of beer, "The Innkeeper" should be ready to drink! I'm really excited, I think it's going to be very good! I'll post a picture and tasting notes once I try it.

Hope everyone's having a good week! Drink good beer, live a good life!