[Thirsty_Monk]

I use refractometer to check glycol.

Hydrometer is for wort and beer.

I have three hydrometers one is 0-8 Plato, another is 8-16plato and third is 16-some number I never hit.

[brewsumore]

I trust the accuracy of my narrow range hydrometers for OG and FG, so as to correctly calculate ABV.  I figure that guests like a number they can trust, mostly for gauging how much they might consume before driving home.  That is, for each tap I show the beer name, the ABV, and the IBUs.

I batch sparge and use an $80 refractometer to check combined mash and sparge runoff in the kettle pre-boil, to compare it against the calculated pre-boil SG, to see if I am on track / want to make adjustments during the boil.

[jtoots]

I broke so many hydrometers that it was actually becoming a significant cost.  Haven't dropped my refractometer yet........

[denny]

I broke so many hydrometers that it was actually becoming a significant cost.  Haven't dropped my refractometer yet........

I haven't broken one since I bought a spare as a backup...go figure!

[jeffy]

I broke so many hydrometers that it was actually becoming a significant cost.  Haven't dropped my refractometer yet........

I haven't broken one since I bought a spare as a backup...go figure!

For the same reason that I never had a water pump failure on my antique BMW 1600 when I had a spare in the trunk.  You have to scare it into behaving sometimes.