Shattered Wine Thief

[Grayson_Stewart]

Brought over from old forum

AkCoyote
(stranger)
05/09/04 09:33 PM

Shattered Wine Thief

Good day everyone:
From everything that I've read, this is an excellent board with a lot of experienced people. Since I'm somewhat new at home distillation, I look forward to learning from those who have been at this for awhile.

A funny thing happened today, well more bizzar than funny, as I was testing my spirit after an all day run. I got 3 liters of 90% spirit from a 5 gallon batch of sugar wash. Excellent taste and as smooth as silk.

To test the batch for alcohol content, I poured enough into my wine thief to take a measurement. Suddenly and without warning, spirit ran down my hand and the wine thief shattered. It was in perfectly good condition last night when I checked a batch of wine and the wash to ensure that it was fermented out.

Could the 90% spirit have caused this and if so, what does everyone else use for a sampling container?

AkCoyote

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." Thomas Jefferson

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Fourway
(addict)
05/10/04 03:32 AM

Re: Shattered Wine Thief new [re: AkCoyote]

the plastic wine thiefs will fall apart when exposed to very strong etoh.
the plastic hydrometer columns do that too.
the clear or tinted hard plastic used for pill bottles and hardware box dividers also behaves this way.

"Dad was a drunk with a fishing problem". --Ben Willis

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Knuklehead
(journeyman)
05/11/04 07:06 PM

Re: Shattered Wine Thief new [re: AkCoyote]

I have a wine thief as well but only use it to take samples out of my fermentor then take a reading. When I bought the thief I emailed the company that made it and they told me it was good for up to 17% alcohol. Using a wine thief on 90% is a bad idea. You will either have to use a quart pickle jar or a glass test cylider. I have a plastic test cylider that I bought form brewhaus.ca that they said was good for 97% alcohol. I think a test cylider is a better way to go since it will fill to test level in 100 or so ml so you can test more frequently.

I am Canadian

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AkCoyote
(stranger)
05/11/04 10:39 PM

Re: Shattered Wine Thief new [re: Knuklehead]

Yesterday I went and bought another thief and a GLASS test cylinder. The guy at the brew shop laughed when I told him what I did. Seems funny now but not when it was disintigrating in my hand.

AkCoyote

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." Thomas Jefferson

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beer4meok
(stranger)
05/23/04 04:14 PM

Re: Shattered Wine Thief new [re: AkCoyote]

Strange, the same thing happened to me this week with a siphon ,cracked just like safety glass in a windshield, then, broke in half. I'm going to try to use the stainless shaft out of the beer keg to replace it.

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USMALE
(stranger)
06/20/04 12:41 PM

Re: Shattered Wine Thief new [re: AkCoyote]

After only two test mine did the same thing. Think I'll try glass.