do you use metric system for calculation?

[calman]

All my college labs use metric system, and it eases thing a lot. Now I am a beginner home brew and I use gal, oz and it really makes me pause a bit and think when the instruction says "use 3/5 of an oz for 3 gal of water"! I talked to a guy today, he is a home brewer and he got a recipe for 15 gal beer, he scaled down the formular to 5 gal batch and it took him a while to calculate, he made a mistake when I cross check. If it was in metric system, it should take only a few minutes of calculations. His beer turned out to be one of the best batch, though.
Give me choices, I'll take mL over oz. How about you?

 

[Denny's Evil Concoctions]

I'm in Canada, I'm using both. Now I'm dealing with some breweries and possibly getting trained by a brewmaster that does the brewing at a local brewpub in his semi-retirement. (Was brewmaster for Labatts in New West for 30 years) He's willing to show me what he know's. I'm hoping to get involved in running a brewpub in the next couple years.

Anyway in Canada all the breweries use metric, and deal with hecta liters instead of barrels.

As for HB'ing. I find I'm constantly switching back and forth since a lot of recipe's are in lbs and oz's, and gallons. (in other words, the Canadian metric system) I use promash so it's not that hard to convert, though why the hell they don't give you the option of seeing both at the sme time in the recipe, etc menus, I just don't understand.

 

[weberju]

If it takes you that long to scale a recipe (regardless of unit conversions), you have absolutely no idea what you are doing. If you forget a conversion (ex. liters to gallons) just type "liters to gallons" directly into google, and it will tell you the answer "1 liters = 0.264172051 US gallons". Its as simple as that. Theres no reason to get hung up on units. They are trivial.

 

[Denny's Evil Concoctions]

It's when you get into mash dough in calcs that it can get confusing. qts/lb or liters/kg ? a 1.33 is also a 2.77. Though it's not hard to find software that does the conversions for you.

Promash, Beersmith and a few free programs are available.

 

[Chairman Cheyco]

If it takes you that long to scale a recipe (regardless of unit conversions), you have absolutely no idea what you are doing.

But that's okay because this board is here to help! Anyone remember how to sanitize bottles?

As to the actual question, I'm like Denny, being a Canuck I'm pretty much bi-measural when it comes to everything and HBing is no different.

 

[Baron von BeeGee]

I use grams for hops and English system for everything else.

 

[Ivan Lendl]

if she floats she's a witch...

 

[Kaiser]

I sure do use metric. But most of the ingredients that I buy come packaged in pounds or ounces. This results in fairly odd metric numbers. But it is so much easier to do metric in the head, especially if you use Plato for gravity.

example:
when I have 20L of wort at 12P, I have roughly 20 kg * 0.12 = 2.4kg of extract is the boil (I'm approximating a little bit since 20L of 12P wort don't weigh 20kg).

what about 5 gal of 1.050 wort?

But then again, I was brought up metric. Though I have a good understanding of the US units, I feel more comfortable with metric.

Kai

 

[Chairman Cheyco]

if she floats she's a witch...

Good, and what else floats?

Very small rocks?
Applesauce?

A duck!

 

[SteveM]

Back on topic (this is a serious issue). I thought I heard that 1.6 metric beers = one English beer. Or something along those lines. Therefore, I always make it a point to drink 1.6 European beers for every Guinness I would normally have.

 

[calman]

If it takes you that long to scale a recipe (regardless of unit conversions), you have absolutely no idea what you are doing. If you forget a conversion (ex. liters to gallons) just type "liters to gallons" directly into google, and it will tell you the answer "1 liters = 0.264172051 US gallons". Its as simple as that. Theres no reason to get hung up on units. They are trivial.

Yes it is trivial, just numbers. But if you say it is easy to switch back and forth between the systems, then you have no idea how frustrated it is in chemistry labs where most of the points taken come from conversion errors.
For HB, I find it's even harder: working with beer and always start with a beer in hand

 

[El Pistolero]

If it takes you that long to scale a recipe (regardless of unit conversions), you have absolutely no idea what you are doing.

That's just a little bit harsh, don't you think?

 

[Caplan]

I use both metric and imperial. Dead easy.
1 Pound = 454grams, 1 ounce = 28grams, 1 KG = 2.2lbs, etc. The metric to imperial debate still rages in the UK after 30 years of it's introduction....

The trouble with Imperial is the UK and US Gallon are different measures!
1 UK Gallon = Approx 4.5 Litres
1 US Gallon = Approx 3.8 Litres
I brew wine in 1 UK Gallons or by the 4.5 Litres. My demijohns and recipes accommodate it well.
I brew beer in 5 US Gallons or by the 19 Litres. My Beer Buckets/Carboy and (mostly US) recipes accommodate it well.
In the UK we're stuck between three measurements - 'I use Metric as a standard for the Yard Stick'

 

[Blender]

I use pounds and ounces although I am confident I could do proper conversion as long as I can access Google.

 

[SteveM]

This discussion brings to mind a conversation I had once with a buddy. He asked me about metric conversion one of those time when Congress or someone was debating whether the US should switch over. He asked how long a meter was in inches. I told him it was thirty nine and maybe a half inches. He said he thought that converting was stupid since a yard was exactly thirty six inches, so why complicate things by switching to 39 and a half inches?

You won't be shocked to learn that this conversation took place in a bar.

 

[Ivan Lendl]

in 1999 NASA lost a 125 million dollar Mars climate orbiter because they didnt convert from english to metric units...

in 1983 a Canadian jetliner almost ran out of fuel when they pumped 22,300 pounds of fuel into the plane instead of 22,300 kilograms...oops!

 

[Kevin K]

I believe that would be referred to as the Gimli Glider. Google it.

 

[davy]

I agree with Calman metric is much easier all you have to know is simple division and multiples of ten.

For a Hard-Earned Thirst, Homebrew.

 

[Denny's Evil Concoctions]

Canadians have the threeway system going on as well.

Our houses are built in feet and inches. I know of NO contrsuction or buliding codes that state metric. but officailly canada is Metric and our speed and distance signs are metric, water comes in half liter bottles.

Oh God, don't get me started. I blame it all on you damn Yanks.