calibrating a refractometer

dashcamdanny

Has anyone in the Naas area got a drop of known gravity wort to calibrate the 1.050 range of my refractometer.

Its grand at zero, but that's not where it has to be right. I am getting differing results from my hydrometer and I don't know which to trust.

neoanto

pretty sure 1.048 should correspond to a brix of 12%

rubadub

Could you try it with something like 7up? as the sugar content will be stated on it and I guess there is an online convertor.

neoanto

Check out this article from brew your own.
Although it's for calibrating your hydrometer you can use the techniques to calibrate the refractometer also.

https://byo.com/mead/item/411-calibrate-your-hydrometer-and-fermenter-techniques

matt007

I think distilled water comes in at 0

dashcamdanny

matt007 wrote: »

I think distilled water comes in at 0

Thanks Matt.

I since got a few more hydrometers from the recent reduced to clear line on Youngs .

They are all fairly good.

I have set my refractometer to them and use this conversion chart.

http://www.winning-homebrew.com/specific-gravity-to-brix.html

matt007

@dashcamdanny

As the alcohol rate increases, this effects the brix reading for the final Gravity.

Heres the calc I use:
http://onebeer.net/refractometer.shtml