Vinometer

I note that a lot of folks seem to have trouble using this. It actually works like it is supposed to. If you are using it to test a wine or a mash that has some component of solids in it you should run it through a coffee filter first. Then pour a small sample into the cup end. If it does not drip out of the bottom of the capillary tube, look closely at it and you will probably see air bubbles in the capillary tube. The way to get these out is to suck softly on the bottom of the capillary tube until there are no bubbles in it and then it should drip, albeit slowly. After 6 drops have fallen tip the cup upside down and watch the capillary tube and you will see the level of liquid in it dropping. It should stop at the level of alcohol percentage that is present in the sample. If there is still a lot of sugar or solids present in the liquid subtract 2% from the measured alcohol level and it will be accurate enough to give you a pretty accurate measure. Clean it well afterwards with either distilled water or isopropyl alcohol. The isopropyl alcohol dries it out quicker and I use 91% isopropyl for this. This should solve quite a few of the issues that I have noted in other reviews.

These work. I have always wanted to verifiy the alcohol of my wine just before I bottle it. These give me similar reading to my SG before and after readings. Since I started buying juice in the buckets, sometimes the juice starts to frement in the buckets lowering your before starting SG reading. In this case, you have no idea what the true alcohol level is with a vino meter.

Because other reviewers indicated that this was fragile and broke easily, I purchased two of them. One of the first things I noticed is that the scales printed on the sides were significantly different between the two. They had the same range (0 - 25) but the distance from one end of the scale to the other was different. (photo included) I thought that it was nice that the scale was calibrated to each device. I was wrong.Trying several different wines with alcohol content indicated on the bottles, I found that they were more than a little different from each other and neither was what was indicated on the bottle.Bottle 1 - 14.8% on labelVinometer 1 - 10%Vinometer 2 - 8%Bottle 2 - 7%Vinometer 1 - 5 1/2%Vinometer 2 - 6 1/2%I did this a couple times since the one that was reading higher was now reading lower.Water - 0%Vinometer 1 - 0%Vinometer 2 - 1%Overall, I do not trust these at all. When looking for a target of 12% in my wine, they do not help me. Having bought two of them is both good and bad. Good in that I know not to trust them. ( I wouldn't have known that if I only had one and would be completely misinformed as the alcohol content of the wine I make) Bad in that I have spent twice the money.I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THIS TO ANYONE.Just added: Amazon was very nice in refunding the purchase amount for these vinometers.

It does work at an affordable price I am willing to spend for accurate alcohol content measurement. Agrees with my hydrometer before and after calculations. Valuable when/if I need to add water (or additional sugar) during fermentation as the additions will mess up the hydrometer results.As mentioned, the line is hard to see, so I use hydrometer calculations as a baseline of where to look for the line THEN have another person read it as well.I would rate this with 5 STARS if the line was easier to see.

I am a wine maker and will keep this as a novelty. If I paid more than $9.00 for it I would return it. It has a very small scale. You can barely tell the difference between 1% (it tells you your alcohol is around 13 or 14 %. It will NOT tell you your alcohol is 13.5%.) I checked a commercial dry red wine that is 13% alcohol by volume. This device read about 17%, which I know is high. When I make wine, I calculate ABV (alcohol) based on the starting and ending specific gravities. I'm sure the specific gravity method is much more accurate than this little device. It's cute and cheep, so I'll keep it. Probably won't use it much! I suggest you don't buy it if you are looking for an accurate alcohol reading. It is probably fine if you just want to know roughly how much alcohol is in your solution. I can't comment on accuracy with different solutions.

Works great and it's a great price but it can be a little hard to read other than that it works as expected I would recommend this to anybody

A couple trys to get the hang of it, it works great. After sending to TTB for test ABV test. Just 1 point off.

5 years ago a supplier sold a bad batch of vinometers in the State of Alaska and a lot of the wine makers up here lost track of reality. The vinometer said 6% and it was actually 15%. Thanks Amazon for providing a very accurate tool. Another good deal from Amazon.