sanitizing water use

[Radler]

How is it that everybody gets gravity readings? Everytime I brew I mix up some Sanstar and have a bucket of it for everything but to just sanitize the stuff to get a gravity reading it seems a horrible waste of water. Is there any other method to sanitizing just the tube etc. for sucking some out to measure?

[brewmeisterintng]

I take my gravity readings:
Initially, on brew day so I sanitize my wine thief in conjunction with my carboy.
2nd when I have waited long enough during the secondary confirmed by little to no action in the air lock. Sanitizing in my bottling bucket. I use bleach as it does a decent job and is so economical so if by chance my secondary was still too high I wasted a little time and a few cents of bleach. It requires a little more contact time but in my opinion is worth the trade off.

James