How to Use a Hydrometer

Video Transcript

"So now that we have our glaze mixed, we need to make sure that it's the right consistency. The original and old fashioned method of doing this, by the way, this is my large commercial spoon. When you mix this glaze, you want to pull from the bottom and make sure that you're bringing everything around. The old way to test the thickness of your glaze is to put a finger in there and just see if it breaks on the folds of your knuckles. And it should be thick around your finger and breaking on the folds of your knuckles. That's about the right consistency for glaze. Now that's not a completely fool proof way of testing the consistency of your glaze. The only way to be a hundred percent certain is to use a hydrometer. Like I said, this measures the specific gravity of the glaze, which is the amount of water in this mixture. So we're going to mix this up very well. This glaze does settle out rather quickly, so every time you're going to do anything with it you're going to stir it. You're going to take your sponge, get it just barely moist, and wipe off your hydrometer. You don't want the hydrometer wet, but you don't want it to stick either. And then you just drop this right in there gently and let it fall until it stops falling. And once it settles, you can tap the side of the bucket, just gently, and that can urge it to its final position. Once it settles, you look and see where the top of the meniscus is on the hydrometer. And that tells you the reading. In this case, we've got fourteen twenty, which is just right for this particular glaze. Usually between fourteen hundred and fifteen fifty is a hydrometer reading that you're going to be looking for in stoneware glazes."