Metric vs English

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Backwoodsbrewing

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I was talking recently with the owner of my LHBS about calculations and general use of mathematics used in brewing. As my math skills are weak I tend to rely on brewing programs like Beersmith and online calculators. I can figure out some of the mathematics most Brewers use but I still rely on the calculators and such because it is quicker and easier. The owner of the Lhbs was explaining to me. That I might consider trying to base my brewing on metric measurements instead of English measurements. He said metric measurements and calculations were easier and more straightforward than English. Is there any truth to this is it worth looking in to ?
 
I'm gonna get killed for this but here goes...

imperial_vs__metric_by_nekit1234007-d5p0ou5.png


Seriously though, while some things might be easier using metric, there is no reason to switch if you are comfortable with imperial. And if you are happy using brewing software, then why not use it?

Cheers :)

Edit: Now I wait and see how long until I get 'the finger'...
 
I was talking recently with the owner of my LHBS about calculations and general use of mathematics used in brewing. As my math skills are weak I tend to rely on brewing programs like Beersmith and online calculators. I can figure out some of the mathematics most Brewers use but I still rely on the calculators and such because it is quicker and easier. The owner of the Lhbs was explaining to me. That I might consider trying to base my brewing on metric measurements instead of English measurements. He said metric measurements and calculations were easier and more straightforward than English. Is there any truth to this is it worth looking in to ?

If you are doing the calculations yourself metric is the way to go. I'm not from the states so it is still a source of very light amusement for me, the fact that metric is not used here with some minor exceptions. I feed my software the data and let it do all the calculations so it matters not a jot to me.

Car engine sizes are always given in cc's
Starters for yeast usually in liters

I'm sure there are others that I can't think of without much effort
 
I'm gonna get killed for this but here goes...

imperial_vs__metric_by_nekit1234007-d5p0ou5.png


Seriously though, while some things might be easier using metric, there is no reason to switch if you are comfortable with imperial. And if you are happy using brewing software, then why not use it?

Cheers :)

I think the EU or Swedish authorities are sending the guys in white coats as I type.
 
the math is easier, as you don't have to convert lbs and oz, into fractional lbs before you do your scaling.
sadly though, all my malts are sold to me by the pound, so I have to convert my lbs of malts into .454 Kilos or 454 grams. Brewpal has been letting me seamlessly throw around imperial and metric measurements stupidly easily. I can enter my ingredients in any mishmash of units that I want to, and then with a finger flip, change them to the units I want and it will do the needed conversions.
 
I agree that the metric system is "more logical" but that doesn't make the calcs any easier.

It is just as easy to mulitply 8.25 lbs by 2 as it is to multiply 4.5kg by 2.

Temps? They're both just relative scales. True "metric" temp goes from -273.15°C at absolute zero to however high temps go.

But I'm an engineer, and half of our coursework was unit conversions just to mess with us.
 
I agree that the metric system is "more logical" but that doesn't make the calcs any easier.

It is just as easy to mulitply 8.25 lbs by 2 as it is to multiply 4.5kg by 2.

Temps? They're both just relative scales. True "metric" temp goes from -273.15°C at absolute zero to however high temps go.

But I'm an engineer, and half of our coursework was unit conversions just to mess with us.

Definitely agree with what you said here. So much lost time wasted in college doing conversions, I could have been drinking more beer.

Regarding brewing I don't think it would be any help. Especially considering everything you are going to buy will be in US units anyway. You would have to convert everything to metric first before you even did recipe size calculations.

I think the US should just bite the bullet and do a mandated switch. With attention spans these days, people in a generation wouldn't even remember what US units were.

The day/month/year thing is totally different to me though. My mind always goes month/day/year because you go from small/medium/large in possible number sequences.
 
The day/month/year thing is totally different to me though. My mind always goes month/day/year because you go from small/medium/large in possible number sequences.

Excuse me, what? That makes no sense.
By that logic, do you express distance as feet, inches, yards then miles also?
 
Excuse me, what? That makes no sense.
By that logic, do you express distance as feet, inches, yards then miles also?

I understand what you are saying and why it is represented day/month/year. Just that my mind always went to maximum possible numbers for each sequence as a progression.

There are only 12 possible months, 31 possible days, and infinite possible years. So my mind has always sees smallest maximum first (months), next possible maximum (days), followed by largest possible maximum (years).
 
I've been fortunate to have been working with the metric system my whole career (molecular and microbio laboratories). It is a logical, simple system that is very easy to use. But, as mentioned above, if you're brewing in the US it will probably be simpler to just use the imperial system, since that is what most suppliers will be using.

At least until the US catches up with the rest of the world.
 
I understand what you are saying and why it is represented day/month/year. Just that my mind always went to maximum possible numbers for each sequence as a progression.

There are only 12 possible months, 31 possible days, and infinite possible years. So my mind has always sees smallest maximum first (months), next possible maximum (days), followed by largest possible maximum (years).

Yes, I got that. So you would say for example "that is a two feet, five inches and one yard long something-something" also?
Naah... What am I saying, you wouldn't do something like that... It would probably be more like "one yard and seven one-hundred-twentyeights flarb" or something :)

Edit: I had to correct myself... Can't think this backwards...
 
To confuse dates even more, the DoD approved format now DD-MMM-YYYY where month in the three-letter designation.

There are also the various programming methods to display dates as sequential(ish) numbers with the ever more common YYYYMMDD as it can sort numerically or as a text string.
 
I'm a technician/mechanic who went from the U.S. Navy (all std) to a semiconductor manufacturer where almost all equipment I worked on was from Japan, so Metric. Now I work for a French company with mostly French equipment and again almost all Metric. I hate when I run into std equipment. I really wish the U.S. would go to Metric as soon as possible.
 
Unless we are talking Kelvin...in which case it is an imaginary number.

Sorry to disappoint, but that's not ... entirely accurate (cue the secretary guy from Independence Day line):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_temperature

It applies to groups of particles NOT in equilibrium, but it does have uses, and does occur in nature at specific times (supersonic shock waves and chemical lasers are most common examples).

(thank you to courses in Kinetic Theory of Gases and Statistical Thermodynamics)
 
Yes, I got that. So you would say for example "that is a two feet, five inches and one yard long something-something" also?
Naah... What am I saying, you wouldn't do something like that... It would probably be more like "one yard and seven one-hundred-twentyeights flarb" or something :)

Edit: I had to correct myself... Can't think this backwards...

I always love doing flarb conversions.
 
Imperial just doesn't make sense to me, but the only imperial measure i've used regularily is inches, as i've played a lot of games workshop wargames.
 
Just to confuse matters further, both imperial and metric are used in the uk still, although we are officially supposed to be all metric, lots of people still use imperial. Also of course our imperial measurements are different to the US customary units, so one brewers barrel in the uk=1.4 US brewers barrels. Same with pints and gallons of course too
 
I'd point out that, when it comes to mashing, Farenheit is much easier to use than Celsius since instead of talking about the difference between 65.5556 C and 67.7778 C we're talking about the difference between 150 F and 154 F. From a math perspective, figuring out gravity and percentages it really doesn't matter if you use kilograms or pounds, as long as you're consistent throughout.
 
... the difference between 65.5556 C and 67.7778 C we're talking about the difference between 150 F and 154 F.

Nope. Nobody does that. You mash at 65 deg C (or whatever). And that is more than enough resolution.
 
To confuse dates even more, the DoD approved format now DD-MMM-YYYY where month in the three-letter designation.

There are also the various programming methods to display dates as sequential(ish) numbers with the ever more common YYYYMMDD as it can sort numerically or as a text string.

Yeah, YYYYMMDD is the only date display system (other than day counting from some arbitrary day 0) that allows you to do date ordering without having to do extra work to rearrange it to enable date ordering. A "proper" timestamp should be YYYYMMDDHHmmSS, with HH in 24 hr form (unless you are a demented "little endian" like the folks at Intel.) :D

Brew on :mug:
 
Even with proper ISO date time, date and time is a mess any way you look at it...
Why 60 seconds to a minute and not 100? Same with minutes to an hour and hours to a day.
Add time zones... *sigh*
Then there is the leap years, leap seconds and what not... (well, we can't really blame the earth for not spinning in sync with the revolutions around the sun, but anyway).
Still, someone though... "I don't know, this is still not messy enough. How about daylight savings?"
 
Even with proper ISO date time, date and time is a mess any way you look at it...
Why 60 seconds to a minute and not 100? Same with minutes to an hour and hours to a day.
Add time zones... *sigh*
Then there is the leap years, leap seconds and what not... (well, we can't really blame the earth for not spinning in sync with the revolutions around the sun, but anyway).
Still, someone though... "I don't know, this is still not messy enough. How about daylight savings?"

If you need to work across time zones then HH needs to be UTC.

Brew on :mug:
 
A lot of work I do uses MGD (million gallons per day), mg/L concentration, lbs/d loading, HP motors, kWh electricity use, etc etc etc. It always feels stupid to be converting all over the place all the time.

The calculations will be straightforward if your parameters are all in the same system. Once you start throwing in different units of measure in different systems, you need to do all the conversions to make sure you end up with the right units in the end.

I personally enjoy using API gravity to measure my SG, carbonating using kPa, weighing hops in drachms, and weighing grain in dekagrams.
 
As mentioned by Hanglow the US system is called US Customary, which is way stupider than Imperial. Besides being arbitrary and obsolete, we have separate units for liquid and dry with the same names.

An Imperial pint is 568 mL. A US pint is 473 mL, unless you’re talking about a dry pint at 551 mL. According to Wikipedia a pint in Flanders is 250mL, but in India it’s 330mL.

Of course none of this matters if you order a pint in the US. It will probably be poured into a ‘pint’ cocktail shaker glass. The pint glass holds a pint only if you fill it to the brim. One finger from the top is about 12 US fluid ounces, which is 355 mL in the rest of the world.

I find that yeast are happiest fermenting in Celsius. They’re not very smart, and conversions are cumbersome.
 
To confuse dates even more, the DoD approved format now DD-MMM-YYYY where month in the three-letter designation.

There are also the various programming methods to display dates as sequential(ish) numbers with the ever more common YYYYMMDD as it can sort numerically or as a text string.

I do my dates YYYY/MM/DD for that very reason. Sorts alphanumerically automatically.

DD/MM/YY is the worst in that regard :drunk:
 
I find that yeast are happiest fermenting in Celsius. They’re not very smart, and conversions are cumbersome.

I find that my yeast are happiest fermenting in wort! That way they don't have to do any math. They just have to eat sugar and fart co2.

I use both US Customary (though this is the first I have heard of the term) and metric. Linear metric to meters is easy, I can't get my head around kilometers though. Milliliters and liters seem simple as well as grams. The rest though????
 
Celsius is the only metric measurement I cannot stand. I understand it, I understand why its better, but I still hate it. Every other metric measuring standard makes total sense.

I still use pounds/ounces/gallons when I'm measuring macro ingredients like grains and hops, micro ingredients its easier for me to keep track using grams and such (150 grams of DME for a starter for example). It really depends, generally you buy grains by the pounds so I calculate a grain bill with pounds of grain, if you dont buy hops in bulk you buy 1oz packages of hops so you work around 1oz increments for hops, and I have lots of 1 gallon jugs handy so I'll just measure my water in 1 gallon increments.

Disclaimer: Metric makes sense to me, 100%, its so much better in a lot of ways, but I'm still going to do a lot of my measurements with imperial/standard whatever you wanna call it measurements.
 
I wish I could get myself over to celcius. The problem is that I've lived a farenheit life. Short of grabbing my smart phone I don't have a quick reference for celcius.

FahrenheitVsCelsiusVsKelvin-67227.jpg


I should just set everything in my house to C, and just suffer for a week till it feels natural. The distances on the main highway from the border to Tucson are in km and I've gotten used to that...
 
I wish I could get myself over to celcius. The problem is that I've lived a farenheit life.

For me, brewing for four and a half years using the Celsius stick on thermometers that came with my Cooper's kits (still use those fermenters to this day) has really gotten me adjusted to Celsius. :D

As for the metric system, it's like most here have already said, it's just smarter and makes the most sense and that is why the large majority of the world use that system. Divisibles of ten. Whenever I have someone tell me how stupid the metric system is I ask them, "So you know how many inches in a foot yes?" then they respond, "Of course 12". Then I ask next, "How many feet are in a mile?" Then they say, "Oh... god I don't know". Then I tell them 5280. Then I ask them how many ounces in a gallon and most believe it or not don't know. So I point out how we have to remember all these ridiculous numbers whereas you don't have to with metric.


Rev.
 
I think it’s a national embarrassment that US metrication seems to be going backwards. My brother says no big deal; it’s a software switch.

One of my neighbors just graduated high school and he doesn’t know a kilogram from a millimeter. I learned the Metric system in high school in the 70's.

A liter is a big quart, a meter is a big yard. The problem as I see it is with temperature. It hit 40C today in Texas, but that doesn’t play as well in the barbershop as complaining about 104F.
 
To confuse dates even more, the DoD approved format now DD-MMM-YYYY where month in the three-letter designation.

There are also the various programming methods to display dates as sequential(ish) numbers with the ever more common YYYYMMDD as it can sort numerically or as a text string.

See iso8601 if you're bored :ban:
 
+15 C This is as warm as it gets in Finland, so we'll start here. People in Spain wear winter-coats and gloves. The Finns are out in the sun, getting
a tan.

+10 C The French are trying in vain to start their central heating. The Finns plant flowers in their gardens.

+5 C Italian cars won't start, The Finns are cruising in cabriolets.

0 C Distilled water freezes. The water in Vantaa river (in Finland) gets a little thicker.

-5 C People in California almost freeze to death. The Finns have their final barbecue before winter.

-10 C The Brits start the heat in their houses. The Finns start using long sleeves

-20 C The Aussies flee from Mallorca. The Finns end their Midsummer celebrations. Autumn is here.

-30 C People in Greece die from the cold and disappear from the face of the earth. The Finns start drying their laundry indoors.

-40 C Paris starts cracking in the cold. The Finns stand in line at the hotdog stands.

-50 C Polar bears start evacuating the North Pole. The Finnish army postpones their winter survival training awaiting real winter weather.

-60 C Korvatunturi (the home for Santa Claus) freezes. The Finns rent a movie and stay indoors.

-70 C The false Santa moves south. The Finns get frustrated since they can't store their Kossu (Koskenkorva vodka) outdoors. The Finnish army goes out on winter survival training.

-183 C Microbes in food don't survive. The Finnish cows complain that the farmers' hands are cold.

-273 C ALL atom-based movent halts. The Finns start saying "Perkele, it's cold outside today.

-300 C Hell freezes over, Finland wins the Eurovision Song Contest.
 
It always gives me a laugh when I read something like "I added 10qt of water to my 5gal pot and infused 1oz of vanilla extract", I mean you just used 3 different units for the same thing!(volume)

Then again, you guys have been using these since you were young so of course for you it's not as hard as it is for me to compute that. It's not that easy to just change an entire country's way of counting things.

Being this is mostly a US forum I just adapt to the situation and use your units so I can be understood.
 

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