Christian Ferdinand Oechsle (December 26, 1774 – March 17, 1852) was a German mechanical workshop owner, goldsmith and inventor.Gesellschaft für Geschichte des Weines e.V.: Persönlichkeiten der Weinkultur: Oechsle, Christian Ferdinand (1774-1852)
He is most noted for developing a method for measuring the must weight of the grape must in

winemaking Winemaking, wine-making, or vinification is the production of wine, starting with the selection of the fruit, its Ethanol fermentation, fermentation into alcohol, and the bottling of the finished liquid. The history of wine-making stretches over ...

. The Oechsle scale, named after him and divided into degrees Oechsle (°Oe), is still used for official classification of

German wine German wine is primarily produced in the west of Germany, along the river Rhine and its tributaries, with the oldest plantations going back to the Celts and Ancient Rome, Roman eras. Approximately 60 percent of German wine is produced in the st ...

, Swiss wine and

Luxembourg wine Luxembourgish wine is primarily produced in the southeastern part of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, with vineyards overlooking the river Moselle. Along this river, which for 42 km makes up part of the border between Luxembourg and Germany, Mo ...

Biography

Oechsle was born in Buhlbach at Baiersbronn in the northern part of the

Black Forest The Black Forest ( ) is a large forested mountain range in the States of Germany, state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany, bounded by the Rhine Valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland. It is th ...

area, the son of Israel Oechsle, a master glass blower, and Christina Juditha Lieb. As a boy, he went to school there. Towards the end of the 1780s he was apprenticed to a

goldsmith A goldsmith is a Metalworking, metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Modern goldsmiths mainly specialize in jewelry-making but historically, they have also made cutlery, silverware, platter (dishware), plat ...

and jeweler in Öhringen (

Württemberg Württemberg ( ; ) is a historical German territory roughly corresponding to the cultural and linguistic region of Swabia. The main town of the region is Stuttgart. Together with Baden and Province of Hohenzollern, Hohenzollern, two other histo ...

), followed by some itinerant years. In 1800 he became a master

cabinet maker A cabinet is a case or cupboard with shelves or drawers for storing or displaying items. Some cabinets are stand alone while others are built in to a wall or are attached to it like a medicine cabinet. Cabinets are typically made of wood (solid ...

at a jewellery factory in Pforzheim. In 1810 he founded a mechanical workshop in Pforzheim and among other things manufactured precision beam balances and physical and hydrostatic equipment for

laboratories A laboratory (; ; colloquially lab) is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which science, scientific or technological research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. Laboratories are found in a variety of settings such as s ...

and universities, as well as musical instruments. In 1820 the

Grand Duchy of Baden The Grand Duchy of Baden () was a German polity on the east bank of the Rhine. It originally existed as a sovereign state from 1806 to 1871 and later as part of the German Empire until 1918. The duchy's 12th-century origins were as a Margravia ...

appointed him official gold inspector. In 1829 he developed a safe oxyhydrogen equipment for

soldering Soldering (; ) is a process of joining two metal surfaces together using a filler metal called solder. The soldering process involves heating the surfaces to be joined and melting the solder, which is then allowed to cool and solidify, creatin ...

, and was at this time also operating a

liquor Liquor ( , sometimes hard liquor), spirits, distilled spirits, or spiritous liquor are alcoholic drinks produced by the distillation of grains, fruits, vegetables, or sugar that have already gone through ethanol fermentation, alcoholic ferm ...

distillery Distillation, also classical distillation, is the process of separating the component substances of a liquid mixture of two or more chemically discrete substances; the separation process is realized by way of the selective boiling of the mixt ...

. Oechsle died in

Pforzheim Pforzheim () is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city of over 125,000 inhabitants in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, in the southwest of Germany. It is known for its jewelry and watch-making industry, and as such has gained the ...

, aged 77.

The must balance

In the 1820s Oechsle produced the first single copies of the must balance (

hydrometer A hydrometer or lactometer is an instrument used for measuring density or relative density of liquids based on the concept of buoyancy. They are typically Calibration, calibrated and Graduation (instrument), graduated with one or more scales suc ...

) with a scale in degrees. He realised that if it would be possible to measure the sugar content of the must, it should be possible to better predict the development of the resulting wine. From the 1830s, Oechsle must balances were mass-produced. Oechsle did actually not invent the must balance as such; different versions by different manufacturers had existed beginning more than 250 years previous. What he did do was to introduce a practically useful scale on the balance, and to put the balance into mass production. Oechsle's hydrometers were made out of metal, typically

nickel silver Nickel silver, maillechort, German silver, argentan, new silver, nickel brass, albata, or alpacca is a cupronickel (copper with nickel) alloy with the addition of zinc. The usual formulation is 60% copper, 20% nickel and 20% zinc. Nickel silver ...

; the hollow body of the float was typically gilt.Dieter Oechsle: Original Oechsle-Mostwaage
, accessed on June 23, 2009 When Oechsle started mass-producing his hydrometers, sweet wines from very ripe grapes were established as the top echelon of German wines since a few decades. This development followed the accidental discovery of the first Spätlese wine in 1775, and the introduction of the Auslese designation in 1787. It was therefore attractive to winemakers to be able to easily measure and classify the sugar content of the grape musts.

Personal life

Oechsle married Karoline Wilhelmine Friederike Gmelin (born February 18, 1778) on December 8, 1803 and they had five children.

Publications

* ''Über den Gebrauch der Most- und Weinwaage'' ("On the use of must and wine balances"), 1836 * ''Praktische Anleitung zum Berechnen der Goldlegierung ...'' ("Practical manual for calculating gold alloys..."), 1844 * ''Kleines Handbuch für Goldarbeiter'' ("Small handbook for goldworkers"), 1860

References

External links

Image of an original Oechsle must balance
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oechsle, Ferdinand People from Freudenstadt (district) 19th-century German inventors German goldsmiths 1774 births 1852 deaths