Do you measure your ingredients when prepackaged?

[jangelj]

Do you measure your grains and extract if they are prepackaged? I made a Gumbalhead clone this weekend. Used 3# Wheat DME, 1#Torrified Wheat, and 1# 2 row. They were ordered from Austin HB in those quantities, so I didn't weigh them. Just cut open the bags and used them as-is. (Also used 3# Light DME that I had on hand).

Now that I think about it, there could have been some overage or underage when Austin weighed them. I'm not really concerned, just curious. If most people weigh ingredients or not.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

Yes. Always.

 

[cms]

I measure everything (by weight) except for LME - that's already hard enough to work with without transferring into an intermediate vessel to weigh.

 

[Golddiggie]

At least the first time I get ingredients from a source, I weigh them... Especially if the package isn't from the manufacturer (even then it's easy to put it on the scale). After that, I do the occasional random weighing to ensure things are still good.

Typically, a fraction of an ounce of something, in a batch, won't make a big difference (for grain at least)... Hops are a bit different.

 

[jangelj]

Yeah, I weigh my hop additions (I buy by the pound from Hops direct). But the 3# Wheat DME, 1# torr. wheat and 1# 2-row I did not weigh. Interesting that when I measured my SG, it was a good bit high. Beersmith esitmated 1.056 and measured was 1.064. You could easiily say that I didn't mix the wort and top-off water well enough, but I am usually pretty close to the estimate with my standard shaking of the carboy. Maybe the SG was high if there was extra dme, torr wheat and 2 row.

Oh well, I'll have beer.

 

[dantose]

Heh, got a 50# bag of 2 row and 1# Columbus bulk. 4 batches in progress wwith nothing measured

 

[IffyG]

DME and grain I don't worry about since I trust Rebel to weigh things out. Hops on the other hand, I have found a bit of variability in a one ounce package. As such I picked up a cheap digital scale from Amazon ( http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0012N1NAA/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 ) to weigh out hops a bit more precisely. It's also handy for weighing dry yeast for small batches.

 

[TheMan]

Absolutely, every time. There are already enough places for me to screw up myself, I don't need to just blindly trust someone else that isn't as invested in my own brew. Weighing them myself to double check eliminates one more variable.

 

[Golddiggie]

Base malts, when I bought them milled, were typically in 5# bags from the online resellers. I typically would confirm that it's within tolerance of that. For specialty grains, I usually don't use an entire pound of one type, so I measure out what I'm going to use.

For hops, I buy in 4oz packages, so I measure the amount being used every time. I'm actually planning on shifting over to the powder scale for hop weighing... Far more precise, and reacts far faster than my other scale. Only goes up to 70g though.