Awful American units!

[moto748]

Like every British schoolkid, I was brought up to believe that there were 4.546 litres in a gallon. These days, however, it seems there are 3.785! And that's a big difference!

So, anyway, my current practice is, anytime I see gallons on a recipe, whether on this site or in a link from elsewhere, I assume that Americans gallons are intended, unless explicitly stated otherwise. Is that what you guys do? I presume that many of the websites and software we use are originally American in origin, and that that is the explanation for it. Either way, it's a lot more unambiguous if recipes are in litres! Because if you mix them up, you're going to be way out.

Have I got this right?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Yep - and it's a lot easier to do the sums when hopping rates are shown in g/l

Although the origins of it lie in the fact that we use pints of 20floz and Septic pints use 16 floz, based on the old British wine pint. Arguably they are more logical in having lbs of 16oz and pints of 16 floz, although their floz's are 4% bigger than ours so their pints are 473ml vs 568ml.

They also have dry pints which are closer to ours, at 550ml.

 

[Clint]

Thought you was on about excessive pie eaters...

 

[An Ankoù]

Yep - and it's a lot easier to do the sums when hopping rates are shown in g/l

Although the origins of it lie in the fact that we use pints of 20floz and Septic pints use 16 floz, based on the old British wine pint. Arguably they are more logical in having lbs of 16oz and pints of 16 floz, although their floz's are 4% bigger than ours so their pints are 473ml vs 568ml.

They also have dry pints which are closer to ours, at 550ml.

Without prejudice to NB's wisdom on the matter, there's a much simpler solution: compare two pint glasses. If one contains more beer (20 more, even) than the other, then the bigger one is correct and the smaller found wanting. QED.

 

[Pennine]

Don't get me started on our usage of these idiot units... the worst part is they sell two sizes of hops here 1 ounce and 1 pound. Man do I miss 100g packs.

Anyway yeah I'd go with American gallons 3.8l.

 

[Cwrw666]

I use gallons, Lbs and ounces. No problem at all.
Sad for Americans though. A US pint is kind of pathetic.

 

[moto748]

I use gallons, Lbs and ounces. No problem at all.
Sad for Americans though. A US pint is kind of pathetic.

Can I press you on that? What exactly do you mean? Actually it was your brew-day post that prompted this thread for me.

Do you use UK gallons? If you do, and recipes are written assuming US units, you are going to be some way out. And as I said upthread, if gallons are quoted in a recipe, they are normally (always?) talking about US gallons. Do you not agree?

For example, my boiler, which is old, is marked in gallons on the inside wall. But they will be UK gallons, so the markings won't help if I'm working to a recipe with US units.

Measuring jugs and the like sold in the UK are not going to be calibrated in US units.

 

[phildo79]

Don't count on it. They might be. A mate of mine bought a selection of cup measures from Tesco and they were US cup sizes. Now, there isn't a huge difference between US, UK & EU cups but there is a difference between all three. Probably not enough to worry a homebrewer, IMO, but still...

 

[An Ankoù]

Can I press you on that? What exactly do you mean? Actually it was your brew-day post that prompted this thread for me.

Do you use UK gallons? If you do, and recipes are written assuming US units, you are going to be some way out. And as I said upthread, if gallons are quoted in a recipe, they are normally (always?) talking about US gallons. Do you not agree?

For example, my boiler, which is old, is marked in gallons on the inside wall. But they will be UK gallons, so the markings won't help if I'm working to a recipe with US units.

Measuring jugs and the like sold in the UK are not going to be calibrated in US units.

Pounds and ounces are OK, you need to multiply US gallons by 1.2 to convert to imperial. Like cwrw, I've worked in proper measurements until recently, but it's too hard to explain the conversion rates to the locals so I'm having a dalliance with SI units. I think I'll probably end up going back to bushels, pecks and quarts, though.

 

[moto748]

Don't count on it. They might be. A mate of mine bought a selection of cup measures from Tesco and they were US cup sizes.

As far as I'm concerned, a'cup' *is* a US measure. And a bloody daft one too. As anyone who'd tried to follow an American recipe will know.

Why can't they just weigh things, instead of confusing weight and volume measures?

I don't believe a UK 'cup' has any official status.

 

[An Ankoù]

A pox on American recipe writers and their unholy ways. It's not just the cup that's daft. Even worse is the seemingly obligatory preface to every and any recipe where the writer tells you all about how he or she used to have a real treat eating the best xxxx made by their favourite aunt in Baltimore, who breathed out the secrets with her last dying breath and how things are just not the same any more and how you have to go to a certain grocer in some dodgy corner who might still have the right stone ground flour and kosher salt, whatever that is, but you can substitute something completely different and leave bits out if you don't like them.
Then, squeezed into the last few lines, is the recipe. In cups, with oven temperatures in Fahrenheit if you're lucky, but more likely to be "slow" or "moderate", which is about as vague as "cups". As soon as I see reference to one's favourite aunt or granny, I go back and add "UK" to the search string and ask myself why all this stuff is universally necessary. I'm not in the least anti-American (apart from Trump and others of a similar kidney) but again, "Why?"

 

[moto748]

See also, 'sticks' of butter! WTF? What wrong with ounces? But yeah, I've come across the homespun stories myself! I had one for "Suzie's Wonderful sourdough". First, you got the life-story of her friend Suzie...

 

[dwhite60]

It takes a special kind of brain to deal with American units. This might explain a lot about us Yanks!

We'll end up metric, eventually. Back in the late 70's early 80's when we had the big push to go metric there was a problem in manufacturing. We still had LOTS of machine tools made for cutting imperial threads and geared for imperial units. We weren't going to trash them and replace them overnight. Now, with CNC machines becoming the standard, working in metric is a lot easier, More and more manufacturers here work on metric. Not the people I work for though.

I've started doing all my recipes in metric. It's just easier.

 

[moto748]

That's an interesting point about CNC, which hadn't occurred to me.

 

[An Ankoù]

It's a fascinating topic. Just searched for a recipe for bread at random and came across Best Ever Banana Bread by Canadian Readers Digest. You get the obligatory preface before you can even download the recipe, which is in cups and teaspoons for everything. The interesting thing is that there is a choice of units: US Imperial or metric; the former is in fluid ounces and the latter is in ml. Everything is by volume. Nothing, not even dry ingredients, is weighed.
Now I know for certain that that's not the case with beer recipes. Yet again it's we brewers who are leading the way forward.

Being a true nerd at heart, I thought I'd check out the recipes in The Australian Woman's Weekly. Guess what? No dodgy preface, but dry ingredients are in grams (with Lbs and Oz in brackets) and liquid ingredients in cups and teaspoons (with ml in brackets). Fascinating. I wonder how they do it in, say, South Africa!

 

[Clint]

It's a weird one! In work I use metric and imperial...??

 

[TonyT]

Ha! You guys think you’ve got problems. I used to live in Canada which has been a metric country for decades, but some people still use imperial measures for volume and others use American. So if you hear someone talking about pints and gallons you need to make sure which pint or gallon otherwise it gets very confusing very quickly.

 

[foxbat]

It takes a special kind of brain to deal with American units. This might explain a lot about us Yanks!

We'll end up metric, eventually. Back in the late 70's early 80's when we had the big push to go metric there was a problem in manufacturing. We still had LOTS of machine tools made for cutting imperial threads and geared for imperial units. We weren't going to trash them and replace them overnight. Now, with CNC machines becoming the standard, working in metric is a lot easier, More and more manufacturers here work on metric. Not the people I work for though.

I've started doing all my recipes in metric. It's just easier.

It's our fault for bestowing that illogical medieval system on you in the first place. Sorry about that!

 

[HarryFlatters]

My schooling was in metric, I work in metric... I convert recipes to metric in Brewers Friend and adjust if the OG/FG/ABV doesn't look right. I have to work in imperial for beer/gas line, connectors and such... it's a pain in the posterior. I'm not a fan of imperial measurements at all irrespective of whether they're US or UK.

 

[DocAnna]

+1 on the frustration with cups of ingredients and sticks of butter. The idea of measuring ingredients by volume rather than weight is so frustrating when cooking. For many ingredients it's an illustration of the amounts not being that critical, but it just makes recipes difficult to reproduce, oh and the whole Fahrenheit thing is hard to understand too. However, I do have to recognise that I still think in miles for distance and speed, but that is in part due to that being the unit used on road signs and car speed, but I'd also be perfectly comfortable switching to km. To return to @moto748 's point about gallons - it is difficult when the same name is being used for a different unit and really if that's the only unit given then you're in the experimental zone when it comes to reproducing a recipe!