US Gallons in Recipes

[morethanworts]

I was just wondering, do most Americans automatically talk in US Gallons rather than Imperial Gallons? I'm looking at recipes on Brewtoad and elsewhere. 'Litres' obviously would solve the issue, but sometimes only 'gallons' are mentioned. With web forums spanning the seas, there seems plenty of scope for confusion :hmm:

1 US Gallon is only 0.83 Imperial Gallon, so it is obviously something I need to sort out!

 

[jonnymorris]

I think the short answer is, yes.

Recipes from across the pond tend to be for c.19L as opposed to the 23L that I am used to.

 

[boozy_shoes]

Yes they are talking about their gallons instead of proper english ones. It's a headache at first but after a while you just get used to it. I automatically divide every measure by 4 and then multiply by 5 now as all the good brewing books seem to be American and they're lightyears ahead of craft brewing here.

 

[CRoark]

Yes we do always use US gallons. The easiest way to use it is to convert to 19L or if you have brewing software like Beersmith, you can scale any recipe to what you need to keep the proper ratios etc without having to figure it out yourself.

 

[rpt]

Gallons, quarts and pints will almost always be US if it's someone outside the UK talking. Everyone should use litres as it's internationally understood and unambiguous.

 

[dennisdk2000]

As my first brewing book was American, I sat down and worked out factors for each unit used in the book (gallon, quart, cups, ounces, pounds - latter two same in the UK and US) that would take me from the US unit into metric measurements and also from the 1 US gallon brew length used in the book to my 4.5L brew length. Sounds complicated, but it isn't:

Your desired brew length/brew length in recipe = A

Your desired unit of measurement/unit used in recipe = B

A*B = your one-step conversion factor

This is obviously only really worth your while if you have a lot of similar recipes that need converting. Make a note of it in the back of the book, or somewhere else where you're not going to loose it, and you will save yourself some work.

Dennis

 

[pittsy]

it's simple if it says 3.1kg for example just divide by 18.9 then times it by 23 gives you what you should have for uk 5 gallon such as 3.77kg