I went to use my refractometer this weekend while brewing and had some issues with it. Went to calibrate it and it was off by 1.0, no biggy. Tested the wort and the blue line was very blurry. No matter what I did to the focus it stayed that way, walked from outside to inside, stared directly at the light bulb, nothing would change.. I wiped it clean and put some distilled water on it to calibrate it (off by 1.0 again) and it was a nice hard edge. Wiped it clean and read the wort and it was blurry. Calibrated again, then tested the wort - 16.2, but blurry. Picked up the cover and placed it down again. Tested 15.0, crisp line. Did it again 14.2 crisp line. Crash cooled some and used the hydro, 16.2. Cleaned and went to calibrate again, off by 1.0 again. Seemed to go off calibration with each use and sway between blurry and clear at random. Thoughts? Do I need to do some sort of cleaning? Is it shot? Thanks for the help.
Did you leave the sample in the refractometer for any amount of time? They typically need a couple minutes to let the temperature adjustment work. How many times have you used this refractometer?
