A lb is a lb, A liter is a liter, but a gallon is????

So, my question is with respect to ppg. What gallon is it? Imperial or US?

Example;

7.5 lbs light LME with a 35 point contribution per pound per gallon.
23 Liter wort volume

imperial gallon
grav = 1.052

US gallon
grav = 1.043

So whats the deal?
Who knows?
right on,
Newfie

Spelling

If English units are intended then something in the recipe will be spelled weird.(Or in your example...Liter is used which probably would not be used if this was an English recipe. They would not combine the measure of Liter and Gallon in the same recipe. Also If it were English....liter would probably be spelled Litre)

So you can be sure that recipe is meant to use US gallons. Americans are about the only people on the planet who would use Liters and Gallons in the same recipe.

Most recipes express OG. If you add water to the wort to get the desired OG then it really does not matter what type of gallon you are using because you do not actaully use the measurement anyway....it is a "guideline".

If the recipe does not state OG and FG.....then you should look at the style guidelines and see which gallon would put you in the correct SG for the style of beer that you are brewing. One of the two types of Gallons would put the SG out of the style guideline and you should use the one that does not.

If a recipe is in lbs and ozs you can be fairly sure you can assume USG.

BTW DJ31...If a recipe is using SI units (or English units as you call them) I can assure you everything will be 'spelled' correctly as per the 'English' language.

A lb is a lb, A liter is a liter, but a gallon is????

ANSWER: 4 Quarts!!!

ProMash has a great conversion tool.

If the DME is in measured in kilos or stones, the gallons are Imperial. Otherwise, figure 61,440 minims each or 1.6 board-feet if you live in Timbertown.

david_42 said:

If the DME is in measured in kilos or stones, the gallons are Imperial. Otherwise, figure 61,440 minims each or 1.6 board-feet if you live in Timbertown.

Click to expand...

Nothing like tossing a few stones of DME into the boil pot!

With respect to gravity contribution from extracts. If using coopers light LME, and its listed as 35 points per pound per gallon; which gallon are they referring to.
When formulating recipes and trying to hit specific gravities this is an important piece of information.
right on
newfie

The correct answer is, we don't know. Coopers produces products in five or six countries. Your recipe is pounds & liters.

LME at 35 points per pound per gallon is probably (~95%) talking US gallons.

And in Canada I use x Kilos of grain for 5 US gallons or 19 liters.
But I measure short distances in feet and inches yet drive 7 kilometers to town to buy a quart of milk, or er, is that a liter of milk?

I have two 10 Imperial Gallon carboys and three 5 US Gallon carboys.

I also know that a liter of liquid extract weighs 3 lbs. But have no idea how tall I am in Meters.

Ahh, living in a metric country next to non Metric USA.
Even though we are officially metric, all building codes in Canada are in Feet and inchs and PSI, etc. Go figure!

Yea, and if you buy a Ford truck in the states, count on having both english and metric socket wrenches... Not for the fault of the states, but Ford must have parts made throughout the world.

naw, its not fords fault. Its the american governments fault. They were in favour of metric and were supposed to convert. But ... they backed out. You have to thank fiscal responsibility for that ( translated: must be a war to fund).

none the less, i discovered that the ppg is in US gal. Confusing the two when planning a recipe can lead to large errors.
As an Ex.

If planning a 1.045 sg beer using 6.43 lbs LME(35 ppg) with a 23 liter wort.
Mistaking imperial gallons for US gallons would give you a sg of 1.037 instead of the 1.045 calculated. This would change the whole brew.

right on,
newfie

I use this great conversion site when some of my measurements get screwy...

http://convert-me.com/en/convert/cooking

Just make the entry like 1.5 gal and it'll convert it into everything else for you.

It's one of my favorites for sure.

homebrewer_99 said:

A lb is a lb, A liter is a liter, but a gallon is????

ANSWER: 4 Quarts!!!

Click to expand...

Or in my case 8 Pints... man what a bloody pain in the royal A$$. I gotta get a quart measuring cup.

Do yourself a favour, resist the metric system as long as possible, you'll miss imperial units when they go, they are so much more usefull. Being 185cm tall means nothing to me, but 6ft is easy to visualise. We've all used 12" rules (not 304.8mm rules) and most men can picture what 6" looks like (although 152.4mm actualy sounds better)

Though being to divide measurements in your head because it's all base 10 has its advantages.

Beside 3 decimeters is a foot anyway. And my pint glasses are roughly 50 centiliters.

1 liter of water weighs 1 kilogram. Pretty simple, till you live in a land of cross system usage. ugh.

newfie said:

With respect to gravity contribution from extracts. If using coopers light LME, and its listed as 35 points per pound per gallon; which gallon are they referring to.
When formulating recipes and trying to hit specific gravities this is an important piece of information.
right on
newfie

Click to expand...

You need to just use good software and let it do the work for you. Otherwise disolve 1 gallon of coopers into 1 gallon of water and measure the specific gravity.

I was playing with pomash and discovered that most of the volume units are US. Besides the unit conversion section, of course, which has both. Since one pound of LME (35 ppg) raised one US gallon of wort to 1.035, the gallon must be a US gallon.

But, none the less, I'm brewing tomorrow night and will do some figuring and post back here.

Stay tuned,
newfie

Don't overthink things too much. Making Beer is a relatively simple process. Concentrate on cleanliness and everything will be fine.

Sometimes missed gravities end up making the beer better. Don't sweat it too much. Final Gravity is the biggest factor to worry about. If you have @7 lbs of extract per 5 gallons then you will have plenty of alcohol. More is better.

still not sure. Did a steep last night and added LME on the fly to bring gravity to 1.045. started with 4.4 lbs (2 kg) LME, 2.2 lbs (1kg) British pale 2 row, and 1lb(.456kg) crystal 55deg. Was doing a full wort boil and sg was at 1.041 at 6USgal. Added 10.5oz(300g) LME pre boil to bring grav to 1.045. Then boiled, chilled, pitched, and air lock is doing happy dance today.

right on
newfie

ps Doug, I have to overthink things, I'm an engineer."if it ain't broke ... not enough options"

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this difference pretty small... could have been lost anywhere in the process right?

hey bs, the little addition was due to inefficient steep. The question that i initially posted was about ppg contributions, specifically about which gallon was being referred to. When planning a beer, using the wrong gallon could lead to a error of 20% in target sg.

thats all

newfie