Imperical vs Metric Scales and What to Buy Small Batch Brewing

[dn151864]

Hi Everyone,

I have just started reading up about small batch brewing and it is highly recommended that digital scales be used. If not, if is very easy to ruin a beer and near impossible to perfect one for bigger batch (5 gallon) brewing in the future.

In my reading the person recommends a scale that calculates to "the nearest gram" as being ideal. Now, from all the brewing I've done (still a noob) it seems that we are using ounces not grams.

I searched the forums and found an old thread about something similar from 2008 but want to bring this back up. What do people think about grams vs ounces in a scale and what do you recommend as the best scale I should purchase or would any digital food scale work? Do I want a scale that calculates out to multiple decimals?

Oh, here is the link to the article. https://byo.com/mead/item/1378-small-scale-brewing He mentions it in the second paragraph after the heading "What's Different?"

I live in 'Merica so I can't see why I'd want a scale with grams (unless i'm selling drugs!).

Finally, I might as well ask this but does anyone know of some good resources (books or websites) where I can learn how to brew small batches of beer?

 

[JonM]

I live in 'Merica too and this hobby has made me realize just how absolutely stupid our measurement system is, especially when scaling recipes. (This was most true when I reduced recipes to make small batches.) Increase a liter by 20%? 1.2 L. Increase a gallon by 20%? That's a gallon, a couple pints, a cup, a couple ounces, some fractions of an ounce, blah blah. It's a pain in the butt.

Get a scale that does both. You want one that measures a couple decimal points, especially if you get into water chemistry and you start measuring out a fraction of a gram of calcium chloride and stuff.

 

[MaxStout]

Lots of digital scales can switch between metric and US units. No big deal. Get a scale that displays the units you want it to.

/In before the "U.S. is still lagging behind the metric countries" crowd jumps in.

 

[kombat]

I guess I use a mix of both, mainly due to my equipment.

I weigh my grains in lbs/oz because that's what the recipes specify.

I convert my hop weights to grams because my digital scale only does grams.

I measure my water volumes in gallons/quarts, again because that's what the recipes all specify. I measure my yeast rehydration water in mL, because the packet is in grams, and my beaker is metric. Temperatures, I use ° F, although my digital thermometer defaults to metric every time I turn it on, and I have to switch it.

All that said, I'm considering switching everything over to metric and Plato, as that's what the big guys use, and as noted earlier in the thread, metric units are much easier to scale and add together than imperial.