First Hydrometer reading

[clay5769]

Hi
Finally after 6 brews I remembered to do a Hydrometer reading I'm sure I'll get a boy out of this now let's see if I get an atta boy or boy did you screw up.
I just mixed up a 6 gallon batch of Coopers wheat beer.
This one didn't call for boiling 4 cups of water then mix .
This one said pour water in fermenter stir in ingredients add water to top off with either warm or cold to get between 70° and 76° before adding Yeast stir well then sprinkle in yeast.

Washed the Hydrometer and cylinder then filled up with no rinse sanitizers, submerged the Hydrometer completely in cylinder filled with sanitizer,let it sit for a few minutes emptied it, I got sample from new batch I had all mixed up
I put Hydrometer in cylinder filled it until it got to the 250ml line took my reading came up with just over 5% alcohol. All in green on Hydrometer

I took out Hydrometer poured sample back in fermenter closed it up now waiting..

My questions are

1. Did I do it right

2. Will there be issues because I put sample back in fermenter


3. Will there be an issue because I took sample from spigot and now nasty stuff will grow in it.

Thanks

[berryman]

What you are looking for are the numbers to establish a starting point OG. Then when done or think it’s done a FG final gravity then can calculate the ABV. Does your hydro look like the one on the left?



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[clay5769]

Does your hydro look like the one on the left


It's this one.
https://www.amazon.com/stores/MiTBA/Hyd ... 643DFBF627

[HerbMeowing]

My questions are
1. Did I do it right
2. Will there be issues because I put sample back in fermenter
3. Will there be an issue because I took sample from spigot and now nasty stuff will grow in it.Thanks

BLUF: you done good grasshopper altho ...

1) you want to record the hydrometer reading on the scale where the values range between 0.990 and 1.200; not the %alcohol scale (altho that scale will work for the ABV calculation but no so much for the more interesting/important 'efficiency' calculations).

2) returning the wort sample to the fermentor risks introducing a contaminant; however ... the risk is reduced greatly when the sample cylinder is clean and sanitized. i've done it without ill effect but prefer not to. more better to have enough excess wort volume you can afford a little waste.

I thankfully learned that lesson from the legendary 'Wilson' of MrBeerFans.com fame who often reminded us his philosophy was '... having more wort is more better than not having enough beer ...'

3) No issue drawing a sample from the spigot as long as you clean and sanitize the spigot -- Q-Tips work well -- before racking to the bottling bucket.

Keep On Brewin' ...

[mashani]

If it wasn't really clear the true "alcohol" can't actually be calculated until it's done fermenting. It is a combo of the OG (which is what you measured, but maybe looked at the potential alcohol scale instead), and the FG when it is done fermenting. You can plug those into a calculator to figure out your actual alcohol when it's done. The "potential alcohol" scale is just a SWAG and I would totally ignore it if you want really accurate numbers.

[clay5769]