Pyknometers (what hydrometers emulate) revisited!

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PeeBee
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Re: Pyknometers (what hydrometers emulate) revisited!

Post by PeeBee » Tue Sep 27, 2022 7:45 pm

The weight of my 100ml bottle full of water is:
20220927_153920_WEB.jpg
20220927_153920_WEB.jpg (49.23 KiB) Viewed 9334 times
Wow. The sample is calculating out at marginally heavier than I earlier recorded (in this thread). I was expecting as much as I wasn't applying this calibration "temperature correction" previously, just trying to have the sample at 20°C, and I remember it might have originally been a tad warmer than desired (and therefore lighter in weight). So, the bottle is calculated as having a volume of 99.69ml instead of the previous 99.67ml ...


I don't why I'm disappointed with the lack of influence the new spreadsheet is having on my brewing so far! I can't honestly think that having created the spreadsheet I'm suddenly 100% more competent at calculating SG?

But ... this is a 100ml bottle and can be used in "free-standing" mode, without reliance on calculators. I've got the information now to create three "TARE weights" to accurately determine SG at temperatures between about 13-14°C and 26-27°C without resorting to a lookup table or a computer/calculator ... may be?

I'll be back to torture you all with some more of my "pyknometer dramas" in a short while.
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

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PeeBee
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Want to know why I bother with all this brain ache?

Post by PeeBee » Wed Sep 28, 2022 1:33 pm

No arguments? No discussion? But I can see the thread clocking up hits so there must be some interest. Well I'll invent my own arguments and argue with them.

One subject I know crosses some minds: Why do I go to all that trouble and maths? Why not buy a hydrometer?

Well, the latter should be known widely by now? I can't handle (or read) hydrometers. But I'm finding many others have "issues" reading and using hydrometers. Pyknometers have the advantage of being displayed with whatever weighing scales, and perhaps computer, you happen to use. They are also very accurate.

The first issue: Complicated maths? The maths is all based on:

Weight in grams
______________ ÷ Density of water at sample's temperature

Volume in mL


The first division returns the sample's density. Temperature compensation? That works itself out (the volume is fixed, the weight changes predictably with temperature). If you need to lookup water density with temperature, there's loads of references (everyone knows its "1" for water, but that is only at around 4°C, some key densities lodge in your head, like 0.9982g/ml for water at 20°C and 0.9991g/ml for 15.56°C; that's 60°F). (If your sample is water and you divide it's density by the density of water at the temperature of the sample, the result is "1" ... that's what "relative density", aka. "Specific Gravity", means!).

Whereas hydrometers: Most brewers ignore that their reading is false because of temperature differences. They can use lookup tables (but don't). Or they could use a calculation I linked earlier:
PeeBee wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 2:03 pm
... They (which includes Graham Wheeler!) were getting in a bit of a tizz with the subject too (hydrometer temp correction ... a "pinned" thread :? ...) ...
Graham Wheeler posted the "polynomial" he'd use for hydrometers (I remember "polynomials" from schooldays back in ... #-o ):

1-(T+288.9414)/(508929.2*(T+68.12963))*(T-3.9863)^2

That's only for the temperature correcting. Now, that is complicated!
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

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Eric
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Re: Pyknometers (what hydrometers emulate) revisited!

Post by Eric » Wed Sep 28, 2022 5:33 pm

Well, I've been following each contribution with interest PeeBee, so thank you for your efforts and conviction in producing this piece of work.
Without patience, life becomes difficult and the sooner it's finished, the better.

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Re: Pyknometers (what hydrometers emulate) revisited!

Post by PeeBee » Fri Sep 30, 2022 12:54 pm

Ah, "Eric to the rescue" :D

I do worry that I'm hiding an important message under mountains of high-browed (for me!) maffmattykul stuff. I started out to create a bit of mischief (I can't easily read hydrometers and haven't touched one for eons), but these pickynometer things are panning out to be very viable alternatives. I hope my attempts to be clever haven't scared too many folk away?

...

But, just one more crack at being a clever dick...
Dodgy-1.JPG
Dodgy-1.JPG (175.91 KiB) Viewed 9282 times
I was attempting to sweep some dodgy maths under a virtual rug. Here's an example on the "Automatic Use" page of the spreadsheet (there's a near identical example on the "Manual Use" page). They are in the "Curiosity Only" areas and high-lighted with the dotty fill (which Google Sheets refuses to display). Zooming in the "dodgy" cell it has the contents:

(Sample_Weight / Water_Density_at_Calibration_Temperature * Water_Density_at_Sample_Temperature) + Bottle_Dry_Weight

Ignore the "bottle dry weight", that's just to have the cell display the total weight of the filled pyknometer. The sample is beer or wort. But the densities are for water. Hence "dodgy"!

"Dodgy" 'cos the beer/wort is a different SG to water? Nay, make adjustments for things like that and because you are doing it to two values (at the two temperatures) then they just cancel each other out. In fact, those density figures could be trimmed down a bit for this and they'd still do the job:

The "density figures" only describe a point on a curve, and I'm using a curve derived from the changes in density due to temperature in water as there can't be data for beer or beer wort 'cos of too many variables. "Dodgy", but I'm hardly comparing beer with something like mercury, and I'm trying to be "open" about my "dodginess". You won't find such discussions with hydrometers, yet those things are based on far dodgier stuff.

It's great, I can manipulate mathematical stuff so much more easily now (talking about beer at retirement age) than I ever could at school (a paltry Grade C at Maths "O" Level!).


The spreadsheet also shows the results using the different "Tare Weights". The purely calculated "manual" (black) box always shows the "reality". The coloured boxes show a jumble of results as the weighing scales would indicate (i.e. "stand-alone" mode). It would allow you to pick the most appropriate Tare weight, should you need it (I think not). The apparent "jumble" is because they are all at the same temperature, as indicated by the apparent calibration temperatures: E.g. "SG 20°C/20°C". The first temperature is the sample's "calibrated" temperature (which I'm using in the "simulation" to be the assumed actual temperature), and the second is the calibrated temperature of the water "reference". The "manual" (black) box might be very slightly out of compliance because of the "tricks" I used to calculate the "Tare Weights" (but remember, the spreadsheet is showing SG with four, not three, decimal places). If I allowed the simulation to show the results at the calibrated sample temperature it would come out as the not very useful:
Dodgy-2.JPG
Dodgy-2.JPG (23.11 KiB) Viewed 9282 times
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

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Re: Pyknometers (what hydrometers emulate) revisited!

Post by PeeBee » Wed Jan 03, 2024 11:56 am

Ha! ... You think I've forgotten this little project? Well, I haven't!

So ... What the hell was I getting up to? I think I trying on a bit of appeasement? "Adapting" the sample bottle to have a virtual capacity so the operation was much the same as a hydrometer. Maybe? Stuff and nonsense! Just ditch all that "temperature" piffle-paffle, and go for some simple explanation that, above all else, I can understand!

Pyknometers don't need temperature compensation if working with "specific gravity" (SG). SG does the temperature compensation automatically; unlike with hydrometers which "SG" was never designed for anyway.

I think I get the phrase "Specific Gravity" now? Density ("Gravity") depends on mass (weight), volume and temperature. "SG" does away with the "temperature", so it is specifically (just) the density (mass/volume)?

I'll start a fresh thread and straighten it up (with simple working out).

It'll take a bit of figuring out to do that "read SG off the weighing scales" bit though.


This all has a serious purpose! Hydrometers are on the way out. Us brewers can't go the way of the science community who years ago justified the expense of "oscillating U-tube" instruments and the like. So, I'm putting my money on pyknometers 'cos accurate weighing tackle is getting so cheap. And I'm getting ahead of the possibilities. ... I think?
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

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Re: Pyknometers (what hydrometers emulate) revisited!

Post by swiggingpig » Wed Jan 03, 2024 3:50 pm

I've only just read this thread and found it very interesting, I look forward to the next instalment :D

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Re: Pyknometers (what hydrometers emulate) revisited!

Post by PeeBee » Wed Jan 03, 2024 6:05 pm

swiggingpig wrote:
Wed Jan 03, 2024 3:50 pm
I've only just read this thread and found it very interesting, I look forward to the next instalment :D
Thank you.

It might be "very interesting", but in returning to it there are great chunks that are utterly baffling. I'm just trying to straighten them out. (When the author is finding the work baffling, I guess there is a problem with it!).
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

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Re: Pyknometers (what hydrometers emulate) revisited!

Post by PeeBee » Fri Jan 05, 2024 9:00 pm

So far ...

A slimmed down spreadsheet. Or spreadsheets (I've kept one free of the "read SG off the weighing scales" to use with smaller bottles; like 25ml). All the "for curiosity only" stuff is gone, and I'm using the "Pyknometer with SG" method, i.e. no temperature compensation to phart about with. Still using the "adapted bottle" approach (complicated nonsense) for the "read SG off the weighing scales" stuff because it worked, and I couldn't be bothered changing it; but it's giving me a headache meshing the bits of SG reading together *** 'cos I insisted on pushing the fourth decimal place into the background (forty plus years reading SG as only three decimal places has ingrained a bit). The "simulation" layout for building the Tare weights for "read SG off the weighing scales" has become a lot more intuitive.

Anyway ... a taster. Can't post the finished spreadsheets yet 'cos they're not finished:
Pyknometer Calculations (100ml) NEW.jpg
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"15.55C" is only the conversion from 60F, and people still use 60F calibrated hydrometers. The ability to work in Fahrenheit is only there to show off ... Pyknometers, as I keep repeating, don't need temperature compensation in the "hydrometer" way. But the "read SG off the weighing scales" bit will need ideally fixed temperatures and "compensation" for when not ideal. But extremely easy temperature compensation!

Note the hydrometer equivalent compensation configurations (like "SG 16C/25C"); They are properly arranged now.

[EDIT: *** No big deal; just a misunderstanding with rounding when converting numbers to strings. I didn't think rounding was applied, and it is. I convert the SG figures to strings so I can manipulate the display better ... ironically to avoid roundup errors!

And! ... All that about "Fahrenheit" may not be complete! I changed 15C to Fahrenheit, but left 25C because it's an exact conversion of 77F. But Americans use 77F calibrated hydrometers (but mainly marine aquariums?) and 80C calibrated hydrometers (26.67C, used in hotter climes).]
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

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Re: Pyknometers (what hydrometers emulate) revisited!

Post by PeeBee » Sat Jan 06, 2024 9:53 pm

Done! Works too! I'll start off another thread with links to the spreadsheets ... (later!).
Pyknometer Calculations (100ml) NEW B.jpg
Pyknometer Calculations (100ml) NEW B.jpg (164.15 KiB) Viewed 8450 times
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

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