american/imperial/metric

It is really driving me nuts trying to figure out recipes,water volumes etc.when we here in the (slowly thawing north) deal in metric.Us older ones grew up with a 160oz imperial gal., and most of the time I have no idea what units are being used by the posters or recipe makers.Is there some rule of thumb or should I just RDWHAHB and eyeball all of my weights and volumes?
Imp= 1gal 160OZ,1 qt = 40oz,1 pint = 20 oz. not quite as easy as metric
But what rocket surgeon came up with 128/32/16?

can you link or post some of the recipes in question?

Sounds like you need to put back a few more brews and 'worry' about more important things, such as when you will brew your next batch.

I go with 4 qts/gallon and that is good enough for me. Have another brew.

All recipe in question,unless from the UK which are usually metric.

I know there are 4 qts in a gal.however there is a 25% difference betweena 32oz american qt. and a 40oz imp.qt.

fine, don't post any recipes. it's probably better that you worry about it

lylo said:

I know there are 4 qts in a gal.however there is a 25% difference betweena 32oz american qt. and a 40oz imp.qt.

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I can almost guarantee that the few people who do post volumes in quarts mean the 32 oz "american" quart. I don't think I've ever even heard of an imperial quart til just now

Also, there are a ton of conversion tools and calculators online

Don't forget that 1 US oz is larger than 1 UK oz.

1 Imperial ounce = 0.96076 US ounce.

M_C

Doesn't that make the US oz smaller? Oh well I guess rather than cause a cross border incident I'll just go with npauley88's theory and assume that most recipes I come across are in the US measurements.

For some reason, the US has always made their own "versions" of most measurements and other stuff. I don't specifically know the reason, but it's a fact.

The "avoirdupois" ounce (that has become the "standard" ounce), is roughly 28.35g.
The (now pretty much extinct) "troy" ounce, is about 31.15g.
The US liquid gallon (the most popular) is 3.785L (again, all the conversions are approximate).
The imperial gallon is little less than 4.55L.
But then, to make it a little more complicate, there is a US dry gallon, which is roughly 4.4L.

Then you have other confusing things, like, for example, a billion in the US is 1,000,000,000, while, for the rest of the World, it's 1,000,000,000,000.

I don't know the reason behind it. I'm sure there is one. I was raised on the metric system also, so, believe me, I feel your pain. Luckily, most countries in the World have switched, or are in the process to switch to metric. Let's hope the US does too, ASAP.
Meanwhile, I use online converters, or I convert all my recipes to percentages, whatever makes my life easier.

lylo said:

Doesn't that make the US oz smaller? Oh well I guess rather than cause a cross border incident I'll just go with npauley88's theory and assume that most recipes I come across are in the US measurements.

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That makes the US fluid ounce larger than the Imperial fluid ounce (the ounces weight are equal in the two systems). But Imperial gallons are larger than US gallons. The main conversion factor to remember is that 5 Imperial gallons are equal to 6 US gallons (almost exactly). And most recipes (nearly all) posted on this forum are in US units.

Here's a handy chart:
http://www.mathsisfun.com/metric-imperial-conversion-charts.html

So I guess those trillions Obama is spending aren't as bad as it seems!!

lylo said:

So I guess those trillions Obama is spending aren't as bad as it seems!!

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Well, a trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon you're talking about a lot of money.

Hear hear.
Metric would be so much simpler. 90% of a liter is .90 liter. 90% of a gallon is 3 quarts, 1 pint, and 2/5 cup. Cripes.

Actually, "90% of one liter" would be, in Canada, considered "900 ml".

However, in Europe, and especially so on bottles of beer and wine, it would be "90 cl". Or a 250 ml bottle of beer in Canada becomes "25 cl" in Europe.

Let's not mention the handful of times that I've seen seen bottles under 100 ml (say 75ml), which in Europe were labeled as "0,75cl" (that last one is pretty retarded if you ask me! LOL)

For some reason I never really understood, "cl" and especially "dl" (deciliter) are not used much at all in Canada.

M_C

JonM said:

Hear hear.
Metric would be so much simpler. 90% of a liter is .90 liter. 90% of a gallon is 3 quarts, 1 pint, and 2/5 cup. Cripes.

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Misplaced_Canuck said:

Actually, "90% of one liter" would be, in Canada, considered "900 ml".

However, in Europe, and especially so on bottles of beer and wine, it would be "90 cl". Or a 250 ml bottle of beer in Canada becomes "25 cl" in Europe.

Let's not mention the handful of times that I've seen seen bottles under 100 ml (say 75ml), which in Europe were labeled as "0,75cl" (that last one is pretty retarded if you ask me! LOL)

For some reason I never really understood, "cl" and especially "dl" (deciliter) are not used much at all in Canada.

M_C

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.9L, 900mL, 900cc...all different ways to say the same.
Theoretically, if you talk about liters, you should stay with the same unit, and use deciliters (dL), centiliters (cL), and milliliters (mL) for the fractions. Yet people tend to use whatever is more comfortable for them. In my country, we use mL and cc (cubic centimeters) indistinctly, so you get used pretty quick to the meaning of each.
If you're gonna get rigorous, the official SI unit is the m3 (cubic meter), so the "right" way to define a liter would be 1dm3 (1 cubic decimeter), or 1000 cc or cm3 (either way, 1000 cubic centimeters), but, I guess for simplicity reasons, people tend to use either scale, depending on convenience, same way they use the ton (not a volume unit) so signify 1m3, or 1000L.

unionrdr said:

I went to sciencemadesimple.com,where they have a bunch of downloadable conversion formulas,etc to make life easier. That includes temps from Celsius to Fahrenheit. For example,the Cooper's beer kits are typically 23L,which equals 6.072 US gallons. In other words,about 3/4C over 6G. Or my 20C brewing temp (for the Cooper's ale yeast)=69F.
Anyway,the formulas on that site are quick & easy to use. Not to mention,you start to get the hang of it after doing it for awhile. It's gettin about time For some ale,& the passionfruit vodka our daughter gave us for our b'days a couple of weeks ago...

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Here's what I use (yeah, I know, it's really old school, but it works):

http://www.sliderulemuseum.com/Pickett/S474_Pickett_N909-ES_MetricConversionSimplexTrig.jpg

There's even a virtual slide rule here (flip to the back side if the front is displayed) which you can manipulate:

http://www.antiquark.com/sliderule/sim/n909es/virtual-n909-es.html

I hope you get a virtual pocket protector and propeller bean with that.

lylo said:

I hope you get a virtual pocket protector and propeller bean with that.

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I don't have those, but I've got a really neat-o leather case for it that I can hang from my belt!