Anyone use this device yet? What is the review?
Personally, I love mine and hope to buy a second one. For lagers they work great for when to ramp the temp up without having to take a sample. They also posted this link on their blog, but I haven’t had the chance to try it out yet.
It’s supposed to be a cleaner way to collect data. I believe that there is also another thread about the Tilt as well.
Cheers
I like mine a lot. A user has set up a website https://www.brewstat.us/ that you can use for tracking instead of google sheets.
man that is cool. Does it fit into the neck of a carboy?
It says it does.
I was listening to an old You Can Brew It podcast the other day and they were talking about an English Ale ferm profile. They said “at 1/2 FG ramp to this” and “at 1/4 FG ramp to that”. This would be great for that application.
Yes, I was thinking of the quick lager method on Brulosophy: “at 50% attenuation begin bringing the temperature up…” It would be perfect for that.
I have two, and have written some code that allows me to use a Raspberry Pi to monitor and store the data on an SD Card, and display it on a local webpage. Works great.
The perfect combo would be connect it with BrewPi or Craftbeerpi and automate the ramp up or ramp down.
I picked up two and had the opportunity to start using them last night. I’ve got side-by-side batches of cider going with different yeast strains. I dropped the Tilt devices in about an hour before I pitched the yeast. Interesting thing I’ve noticed is that the Tilts are both reporting the SG has increased overnight. Nothing too crazy, 1.057 to 1.059. Don’t know if that is a real increase, or not. Don’t know why it would be, only addition was the yeast. I’m not used to watching my fermentation so closely!
Thanks for posting this. I’m seeing a purchase in my future!
Did you adjust for temperature when taking your original gravity?
I calibrated temp and gravity in H2O before putting them in the fermenters. Temp is currently about the same as when cal’d. +/- 1.5°F
That is interesting.
Co2 bubbles
Yep. Gravity is now reading 1.070 after 24 hours. The guide says the Tilt should not be greatly influenced by CO2 bubbles, but it looks like it is. We’ll see if this settles out in a day or two, or if it only reads true once activity slows.
That doesn’t sound right. I can’t see the co2 causing that big of a swing.
I’ve got two Tilts going right now. Both are in the same base juice for hard cider. One batch is in a 3 gallon glass carboy, the other is in a standard plastic fermenting bucket. Pitched with different yeasts. I got the juice fresh off the press, and it measured 1.056 (temp corrected) at that time. My home hydrometer and refractometer both read 1.057 the next day. I did a water cal with the Tilts, but didn’t cal them in the juice when I first added them. One read 1.057, the other read 1.058 (1.057 uncal), so I just let them go. I’m using the Google Docs export function to track activity, and probably could have done a little more before hand if I had thought about running some experiments with the Tilts.
Yeast was pitched a day and a half ago, fermenting room is right about 64F. Cal temp for the Tilts was 65F.
Fermentation had been slow to start, with just a little airlock activity on the bucket when I left the house at 06:30 this morning. Looks like it really kicked off around 08:00! Both Tilts have and SG and temp increase, peaking between 9-9:30. Especially in the 3 gal carboy. Temperature ramped up from 65.0 to 70.0 and SG peaked at 1.081. Temp has dropped back to 69.1 and holding for the past 3 hours, and SG has fallen to 1.068. The 5gal bucket peaked at 1.079 overnight, but didn’t have the temp ramp until this morning. It’s now down to 1.058, on a trend of falling .001 per hour.
I’m guessing it will settle out over time. I wasn’t planning on opening up the fermenters until ready for secondary, so I haven’t measured with a hydrometer for comparison.
From the Tilt FAQ:
Q. How do bubbles from CO2 affect the Tilt?
A. We recommend putting the Tilt in your beer prior to pitching yeast, this will ensure any bubbles will not affect initial readings. Bubbles from dissolved CO2 may cause higher than expected readings for a short time if placed in an active fermenting brew. However, this can be sped up if washed with alcohol (i.e. Everclear).
I have two and love them. I am frequently on the road but I can monitor the ferment and direct my co-brewer to make adjustments.
That said I still use a hydrometer to determine SG and FG.
Even after calibration the readings are not stable enough to tightly control temps. But for determining when you’ve crossed some gravity threshold- great!
The Tilt in the glass carboy was definitely in the middle of a bubble patch. It was also up against the glass right at the shoulder. I moved the carboy around a bit to get the Tilt away from the glass. We’ll see if that makes any difference.
And that’s really what I got them for, we want to stop cider from going below 1.005 if we can. Hopefully this will get us in the ballpark without manual sampling.