Second opinion on hydrometer reading

I am trying to refine my hydrometer readings, and have posted here before. Would someone be willing to back me up on this reading? Am I correct in reading this as 1.074? The meniscus seems to be at 1.072. I just finished brewing this Belgian golden ale. Starting gravity was supposed to be 1.070 according to the recipe. The reading that I am getting is at 68 degrees. https://twitter.com/Bevilaquafoto/status/577946296666992640/photo/1

It could be either, depending on whether the hydrometer is calibrated to the top or bottom of the meniscus.

At 60 degrees, it’s calibrated for the bottom.It looks to me like the difference between the bottom and the top of the meniscus is two lines? Maybe just one? It’s REALLY hard to see this thing!

Just came to say, I really like your photographs! Good luck in your homebrewing and welcome.

Split the difference 1.073
That’s what it looks like to me.

Thank you so much, Flbrewer!That’s what I thought. Thanks, dzlator.

Yeah, 1.073

According to the recipe, I’m supposed to land at 1.070.  Does 1.073 make sense at 68 degrees? Am I overthinking all this?

If calibrated for 60°, our OG is 1.074. If it was an extract batch, your volumes might be a bit off, or the recipe is off. If it is an all-grain batch, you may have extracted more sugars than expected.

I don’t know ,but 2 points is not a huge margin.  I would say that is 1.074, but I read from the bottom of the meniscus typically.  Can’t really get that tight…put it on a refractometer and average 3 samples…that should get you pretty close.

I would call it 1.074 providing your hydrometer is calibrated for 68 degrees.

i vote 1.073 adjusted to 1.074 (68F corrected for 60F). but honestly, no big deal either way you call  t.

Thank you all. I think the take-away is that I am reading it more or less correctly and am in the ballpark of my recipe. This is helpful.

Consider that if it were truly 1.074 and pretend your FG was 1.020…this would be a 7.09% beer. If the OG truly was 1.072, you’d end up with 6.83% ABV.

Doesn’t really matter for our purposes, commercial brewery is a different story. Tell your friends it’s 7%.

+1

Except that we aren’t measuring the ABV, so all you could honestly say in either case is that it’s probably between 6.5% and 7.5%.

What am I missing? Is the FG vs OG not an exact measurement of ABV?

Not even close. It’s an accurate measurement of how much dissolved extract changed during fermentation. Anything beyond that requires making assumptions about the composition of those sugars, and how much ethanol was produced as opposed to CO2, yeast biomass, etc.

Ok, call it 1-10%

All things considered, the abv calcs are estimates. What’s your experience with the etimatates vs. actual Sean?