• My First

  Refractometers: Measuring Light Refraction

  Posted by Sharp04 on October 4, 2024 at 1:07 am

  Hi all
  Does anyone know of a fairly decent refracto (ABV) I had a cheap one but didnt last more than a couple of days, i was very gentle with it also. Dont want to spend $700.00 on easy dens or lab gear. Just something that will last awhile.
  Cheers

  harold01 replied 2 months, 1 week ago 6 Members · 6 Replies
• 6 Replies

• 

  howard

  Member

  October 11, 2024 at 6:19 am

  your amazon thing is a alcohol refractometer, and (apparently) only accurate on spirits & can be wildly inaccurate for low ABV stuff.
  other refractometers have the Brix/SG scale
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7GjYx-DawQ

• 

  bluc

  Member

  October 11, 2024 at 8:06 am

  Ring andrew at 5stardistilling he will help. Unfortunately they are pretty fragile things.

• 

  harold01

  Member

  October 11, 2024 at 8:10 am

  snap 41 works for me, very accurate

• 

  hjubm2

  Member

  October 11, 2024 at 8:45 am

  & suddenly the Anton Paar Easydens looks cheap :laughing-rolling: got to say though my combination of the Easydens & SmartRef do give a fairly accurate reading on anything including Liqueur though…

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  harold01

  Member

  October 11, 2024 at 9:10 am

  just done a check on a cut I just with a 0-80 refractometer and the reading was 43% and temp was 21°, snap reading was 39.43% which auto temp corrects

• 

  oddian

  Member

  October 11, 2024 at 9:21 am

  Hi,

  I use one of these:

  https://www.amazon.com.au/Alcohol-Refra … 266&sr=8-7

  but if you had a cheap one then I imagine it’s the one you were already using. Mine has been pretty strong though, been using it for over a year with no issues and no need to recalibrate. I do have issues with getting accurate ABV for anything coloured or cloudy though, have a backup dropper style one to validate when I’m nto sure. For example it read cider at 15% when it was 7% but at around 100 proof it tends to remain accurate.

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