Do you use a tilt?

[Maheesh]

Do you use a tilt hydrometer? I know snafflebit does from his beautiful graphs..anyway, how do you suspend your tilt in the must so as to have it float unhindered? I have mine in a ss hop basket, but the cap keeps pushing it up and the tilt then does not float.

 

[Jovimaple]

I have a Tilt but so far I have used it only on kit wines with no skins or Skeeter Pee (no fruit).

I am going to start a Dragonblood batch soon so I may try using the Tilt just to see what kind of data I get, but I don't expect it will work well. I will verify everything with a hydrometer even if it looks like it's working.

 

[Bmd2k1]

I have a Tilt but so far I have used it only on kit wines with no skins or Skeeter Pee (no fruit).

I am going to start a Dragonblood batch soon so I may try using the Tilt just to see what kind of data I get, but I don't expect it will work well. I will verify everything with a hydrometer even if it looks like it's working.

Considering a tilt mini -- for use with kit vinos....

Just following up on your earlier post to see if you have any additional feedback/thoughts?

Cheers!

 

[Jovimaple]

I have 2 regular Tilts (not the mini and not the pro). I did end up using one for a batch of DB. I used a hydrometer for the starting SG, but the Tilt allowed me to monitor progress and temp. It did get stuck on the fruit bag once so I nudged it back into the must when I saw the SG seemed to be stuck.

I love my Tilts! If you get more than one, be aware that they need to be different colors. Also, the default is to record every 15 minutes but I changed that to 30 minutes. I ferment in a bucket, and I keep an old iPad in the same room, for the Tilt to report the info. If you ferment in a metal tank, make sure the Tilt you get can communicate via Bluetooth through the tank material. I know the Pro is supposed to work with metal tanks but I am not sure about the mini.

 

[Jovimaple]

I didn't take any pictures of it floating in the must next to the fruit bag, but you can see on the spreadsheet snippet that this is where it got stuck - it had dropped to 1.062 and then suddenly was back up above 1.075. (Older data is at the bottom and most recent at the top.)

 

[Bmd2k1]

I didn't take any pictures of it floating in the must next to the fruit bag, but you can see on the spreadsheet snippet that this is where it got stuck - it had dropped to 1.062 and then suddenly was back up above 1.075. (Older data is at the bottom and most recent at the top.)

View attachment 112785

so the tilt needs to float freely in order to work properly for SG?

 

[Maheesh]

I put mine inside of a stainless steel hop bucket, it fills with juice and floats free. I love my tilt, but it’s not to be trusted down around 1.000 sg. From there I use an Anton paar densiometer.

 

[Jovimaple]

so the tilt needs to float freely in order to work properly for SG?

Yes! It took me a while to realize "Tilt" is how it reads the SG. It's in the name!

 

[Jovimaple]

I put mine inside of a stainless steel hop bucket, it fills with juice and floats free. I love my tilt, but it’s not to be trusted down around 1.000 sg. From there I use an Anton paar densiometer.

I haven't had any issues with mine getting down to the low .99x, but I normally don't use skins and as I mentioned, for my DB the fruit was in a bag.

 

[ovjock]

I put mine inside of a stainless steel hop bucket, it fills with juice and floats free. I love my tilt, but it’s not to be trusted down around 1.000 sg. From there I use an Anton paar densiometer.

You have the densitometer for other reasons than home wine? That is some hefty investment.

 

[tjmeyer]

I use tilt pros regularly and find them to be very accurate. I certainly rely on them. Unfortunately, they don't really work in reds due to the cap, methods to strain out a spot for them I find to be more cumbersome than just using a hydrometer, but I still throw them in for temp monitoring. They're great in whites!
I also find their range to be pretty weak, but it saves on battery life. So I just command strip an old phone directly to the side of the fermenter while plugged in, works great.

 

[Maheesh]

they’re 400 bucks, better than winding up with residual sugar.

 

[Snafflebit]

Do you use a tilt hydrometer? I know snafflebit does from his beautiful graphs..anyway, how do you suspend your tilt in the must so as to have it float unhindered? I have mine in a ss hop basket, but the cap keeps pushing it up and the tilt then does not float.

I actually don't have a Tilt, because of the cap and I usually have multiple ferments. But I want one! (or two, or three, or...)