Questions about Brix and refractometers are floating up.

Here's a web site that will give a refractometer description.
Westover is simply a manufacturer...

http://www.westoverscientific.com/refract.html

OTOH, here is a website for Pike Agri-Lab and they know what to
do with the devices...

http://www.maine.com/tse/pals/monitor.html

Here's a website that indicates main-line customers really are
looking for better flavor...

http://www.seattletimes.com/extra/browse/html97/ripe_081397.html

I apologize for not describing what I have been talking about.
A refractometer is simply a small laboratory instrument used to
detect the refractive index of a liquid that has *something*
dissolved in it.  It can be calibrated, or scaled, to read many
different substances.  For instance, common Brix refractometers
measure 0-32 Brix.  A straight-up lab refractometer might read
0.900 to 1.200 refractive index.  A honey refractometer is
supposedly designed to measure the water in honey instead of the
other way around.  A battery or anti-freeze refractometer would
measure both a lead-acid battery condition and/or the freezing
point of an ethylene glycol solution.  A urine refractometer
measures in a scale appropropriate to the medical community.
There is even a refractometer scaled (a pun, a pun) to help fish
farmers keep the water at exactly the right consistency.  You
name a process where it is important to scientifically and
accurately measure a solution concentration and a refractometer
will be at hand.

At any rate, they are *all* the same.  They are little hand held
gizmos that look like a telescope, except that the end where the
drop of plant juice (in the case of Brix) goes is on a slant or
angle.  You put the drop on, press it out flat with a little
hinged plate, and view through it to "make a reading."

Simple?  But of course: I've handed one to 4 y.o. city children,
old folks, medium age folks, people at flea markets, children
clustering around in migrant farm camps---you name it.  ALL
instantly knew what to do: squeeze the drop; look through the
tool; call out the reading.

It takes about 2 seconds for them to correlate that the higher
number of two or more tested items means better taste.  You have
to be able to read numbers to review a basic chart so that you
can understand the range of values for any particular produce.

Refractometers by the millions are used around the world, but
mostly in food processing plants, ag departments, produce
buyers, and laboratories.  My hope is to put them in kitchens.
I visualize millions of homemakers gaining the courage to tell
the chemical farmers, "We aren't going to tolerate your watery
crap any more."

Refractometers are cheap: USD$130 gets you a commercial quality
device that will last forever.  If it was possible to make the
prism out of glass, instead of industrial shappire, they would
be cheaper yet.  Whoever was speaking of big prices on here was
thinking of automated digital read-out models used in food
processing factories.

Please understand that my Brix=Quality comments here are ONLY
for fresh fruits and vegetables.  Although I have private data
that I use to predict the ultimate quality of produce *while it
is growing*, the basic Brix charts are designed to help a buyer
identify the best possible food to take home.

And please understand that Brix is a relative means of determing
whatever it is that any specific plant is supposed to do.  If
you were testing foxglove and one plant was decidedly more Brixy
than the other, I would bet my last dollar that a chemical
analysis would reveal it had more digitalis than the other.

In closing I will ask this: why would anyone think that it
doesn't work on milk or opaque liquids?  Mine works fine enough
to tell me that store-bought milk is 10-11 Brix.  I know from
research reading that the best milk is 20 Brix.  I know you
can't put typical 7-10 Brix alfalfa in one end of a cow and
expect to get 20 Brix milk out the other end.  I know that those
who decide to understand Brix will one day have a flash that
tells them Brix=Quality AND Brix=Energy.  It will be up to them
to decide if they want to go one more step and wonder if,
possibly, just possibly, Brix energy equals life energy.

Regards,
Rex Harrill
PS: if anybody who wishes to try the method can't find a local
winery supply house to pick up a refractometer, they can call
Larry Strite in PA USA at 800-659-3325 and buy one for the above
price plus shipping.

And, I can privately e-mail you a scanned chart if you want to
examine the quality ranges you might expect to encounter should
you take up testing.  Listservers won't pass scanned images
through.