Tilt Wireless Black Hydrometer and Thermometer: Patented Brewing Technology for Precision Monitoring & Control for Fermentation of Beer, Wine, Cider, Mead & More

This is my 3rd Tilt device as I really appreciate monitoring wine and beer temps and SGs continuously. I’ve used other options in the past which required a floater on a string through the airlock, but these were problematic maintaining a good air seal, but I like that those devices supported WiFi logging so I didn’t need to trigger readings. These devices are easy to setup (just drop in through the opening of most fermenters), easy to use (just open the app, name your brew and reading take place automatically), and the software works well with a nicely designed Google spreadsheet which not only shows all readings but also graphs them and calculates ABV. This is great and I’m happy enough with this product that I’ve purchased 3 of them! That being said, I’m really missing the WiFi support of my old solution. It’s a hassle to remember to open up the app and stand close enough to the fermenters to get a reading (when mine are in the basement I can usually get a reading from the upper floor if standing directly above it), but that manual process leads to irregular samples and gaps in the data, and when you’re not there, you’ve not getting any data at all so you end up with big gaps whenever you travel and can’t see if something going wrong when you’re away. Tilt’s website indicates they offer a solution for this: Free software you can install on a Raspberry Pi device (something you purchase separately and configure yourself - not something they currently sell as a solution). I’ll probably give this a shot soon but wish they had an off the shelf solution for WiFi.

This has saved me so much time and effort regarding the homebrewing process. Unit will broadcast the temp and density reading even from inside a stainless steel fermenter. No need to open lids for readings. You have to be within a few feet of the Tilt to get the reading though. MAKE SURE YOU TIGHTEN THE CAP FULLY. A loose cap will cause your circuit board to short, also make sure you remove the battery after each use and wash the capsule, cap, rubber grommet after each use and leave the Tilt out until capsule and cap are 100% dry. I have made about 25 batches since I purchased this and it has worked flawlessly.

When I first saw the item listing & description, I was intrigued by the idea of just opening an app on my phone to see how the beer is doing. It reduces the potential for contamination, I spend less on cleaning & sanitizing, and it takes the guesswork out of wondering when the beer is done in the primary. Well, almost. Ends up the hydrometer only communicates with the phone app when the app is open, and, honestly, the app is meh at best. I ended up purchasing a Raspberry Pi Zero and installed TiltPi (free image developed by the Tilt Hydrometer team), set up cloud logging. That setup allows for continuous monitoring. I can open the TiltPi site on my mobile browser and see real-time the temp and SG. I can then click on the log link and see a Google Sheet with data being logged every few minutes along with nice charts showing the performance over time. For a data geek, it's perfect. So, the Tilt Hydrometer does what it says, and does it alright out of the box. But if you want to get 24/7 monitoring and logging, I recommend getting the Raspberry Pi Zero/TiltPi to go with it.

I absolutely love this hydrometer/thermometer. It's already helped me get the right water addition post boil to my homebrew and I love that I can throw it in a fermenter and just check it from my phone on their app. It's slick, and there are a lot of 3rd party softwares that can plot your fermentation over time and help integrate it into your brewing recipes. They're also starting to work with professional brewers and have some cool toys offered on their site if you want to really get into larger scale brewing. I have one complaint about this thing: it can be a pain to set up logging. It uses a bluetooth LE signal while floating to send the temp/sg and it sends it every couple milliseconds which will quickly drain the battery. The bluetooth LE signal can be picked up by your phone or another device, like a raspberry pi, set up near the Tilt. You can set up logging through the phone app or a pi using a google doc (csv) which will log every 15 min. (This seems practical: if it logged every time the signal was sent you'd end up with a wicked large csv file pretty fast.) There are instructions on the tilt website for how to do this, and while it takes some time it's pretty straightforward. However, the way the google doc connection is set up is fairly unsecured. I ended up using a spam gmail account to set up logging so if it got hacked I wouldn't lose anything important or personal. Also, if you don't have a pi, your phone will need to be near the Tilt in order to pass that signal to the google doc. However, there's an active community of homebrewing-programmers that are working on some better open source tools for this device. If you want to go down that rabbit hole, check out linjmeyer/tilt-pitch on github. I haven't used it yet but I looked through the code and it looks really promising. All that being said, it's still a great device that I'm going to be using for the foreseeable future.

I really like this piece of equipment. I can easily monitor my homebrew from anywhere in the world. It is very accurate with SG readings as I monitored my brew manually as well and was only off by +/- 0.001 on all of my readings. Here is a list of my minor complaints: -you need the app for this to work and the app is constantly slinging adds at you. I would much rather prefer being able to bluetooth with my PC. -I lost connectivity three times during my 2 week fermentation. At first I thought the readings were ruined and I would have to start over. No matter how many times I tried to reconnect through the app, it wouldn't. I had to restart my phone (using an old smartphone as my receiver) of which it started right where it left off. Had I not noticed at the right time though, I'm sure I would have had no data during the disconnection. -temperature is reported as whole values rather than to the tenth of a degree. My temperature profile looked like a roller coaster when it was finished although my basement is fairly steady in temperature. Yes, I know fermentation is exothermic but that doesn't explain the swings up and down throughout. -an on/off option via Bluetooth would be nice instead of the requirement to stand on end. I would definitely buy this again and tell others to as well...if you are a data nerd too. The convenience of not having to open my fermentor was well worth the price. Just buy it already.

This thing is SUPER cool!! I will first say that the Tilt can vary from actual somewhat (up or down 1 or 2) but that doesn't bother me. The REAL benefit of this thing is knowing when your fermentation is complete! You can tell this by the "flatline" effect you get at the end of fermentation (see pic). This lets me know EXACTLY when it is done. For those worrying about connecting to a device, I say don't worry about it! I had an old cell phone connected to it. I took the phone into the house from the garage and was getting updates when I was 30 ft away. That may not seem like a lot but when you factor in that the Tilt was in a plastic fermenter in my chest freezer fermentation chamber, it's a huge distance. I know it's expensive compared to the traditional hydrometer. But think about it. No more wasting beer on samples. No more oxygen ingress or chance of infection when taking samples. All you do is let it ferment and then after you transfer to bottling bucket or keg, remove the Tilt from the fermenter. Couldn't be simpler! You do have to clean it and sanitize it before the next batch but that is simple to do. If you have been on the fence about getting one, hop off and place your order. You won't be disappointed.

I think most users purchase the Tilt for brewing beer, but it is a great tool for making wine. I use it in primary fermentation right up until the first racking into a carboy. It makes recording the wine type, specific gravity, alcohol content, and temperature as easy as a Google doc. I have four of these and find them to be a wine making must have now. If you make just one batch of wine at a time, then using the phone app will suffice for connectivity with your tilt. If you are making multiple batches at once and will run multiple tilts at once, it make a lot of sense to get yourself a Tilt Pi. The hardware is inexpensive and the software is free. The Tilt Pi allows for continuous recording of each batch up to a Google doc. It provides you with a step by step view of how each batch is progressing and gives you plenty of insight on temperature and specific gravity all the way through. I would never go back to hand measuring SG now that I have used the Tilt and I strongly recommend it.

Love these things! It's like finally getting a baby monitor for your newborn. I had just one but as soon as I started fermenting two batches at once I just couldn't handle it. Using my old hydrometer felt like I was stuck in the Stone age. Not to mention the precious beer you waste for testing. Set up isn't readily obvious and the supplied guide is pretty useless. But with a bit of Google and YouTube you will be working just fine in 5-10 minutes. No it does not connect to your internet for auto updating. It connects to a blue tooth device and updates through their app. It does however come with a set up for Google spreadsheet so you can run a log for your brew. If you have a device lying around that can stay in your brew room you can capture continuous updates strait to Google sheets that you can then check on your phone when ever you want. I started out using the Google sheets but ultimately decided checking the 2 times a day manually before and after work was plenty enough. If you do decide to buy more than one be sure to get different colors. The app separates the readings based on color of the device. Over all, fantastic little device! I'm completely spoiled and never looking back!

Worked exactly as described and matched my manual readings. Instructions included a little lacking but lots of info online. Jist know that it is contained in a plastic tube that needs to be removed. Trying to calibrate and would not work at all. Just floated horizontally. Yup. Take it out of the packaging tube :)

Es ist soooo genial. Zu jederzeit an jedem Ort völlige Einsicht in das gärgefäs. Ich habe erst ein altes Handy mit dem Tilt verbunden und dann die Daten in eine cloud geladen, nun nutze ich den Raspberry und das läuft super. Dazu die App Brewfather und das Bierbrauen läuft auf einem völlig neuen Level. Der zweite tilt wird nun bestellt 🤘

Unit appears to function well. Both Hydrometer and temperature. Easy to use. With this I can remotely monitor the fermentation process; without the need to open the fermenter and risk contaminating the batch. Sadly the waterproof plastic tube housing the electronics disintegrated and I thought all was lost. That was until I reached out to the distributor and then the manufacturer. Chantel at La Fabrique du Vin jumped right in and began to process a warranty replacement. Another person suggested contacting Tilt directly; which I did. Grace at Baronbrew responded right away and we began the warranty replacement. They coordinated with La Fabrique du Vin and within a few weeks, a brand new Tilt arrived complete with a wrench to safely remove the end cap. Way To GO!! Chantel and Grace! Thank you SO very much!!

Hubby is a home brewer, bought this for Christmas for him. He swears by them! It arrived quickly!

Fantastic, what a wonderful addition to my brewery. Hope better improved APP someday.