New toys!

[guypettigrew]

At the moment I measure the volume of wort before the boil using a dipstick in the kettle. The dipstick is a bit of plumbing pipe with felt tip marks I put on ages ago. Hardly very accurate.

The final volume in the fermenter is determined (ha ha!) by running the wort from the kettle into a Young's plastic fermenter which I've also marked up using a felt tip pen. The wort is then pumped into my SS Brewtech chronical.

All very amateur, and means my efficiency calculations could easily be a few percentage points out either way.

So I've just bought two of these. One to go under the kettle, one to go under the FV.

The gravity of the pre boil and pre fermentation worts can easily be determined with a refractometer or hydrometer. The scales will tell me the weights and, with a quick calculation, the weight can be converted to volume. My efficiency calculations will now be much more robust.

And before anyone says it, yes I know it's completely OTT, but it's fun, and the scales are shiny!

Guy

[Kev888]

Scales can be very useful, I have something similar (though not as shiny, sadly) which gets used for all sorts of things - it is especially useful for filling kegs (and checking how much is left in a keg), and obviously measuring grains etc.

If you expect to use them to monitor progress whilst filling/emptying vessels, make sure the 'auto off' won't operate before you've finished the task. Sometimes it won't operate if the weight is changing or (like mine) can simply be disabled, but a lot of them just switch off after a short time - the scales generally reset to zero when switching on again!

[LeeH]

I used to have a set under my mash tun on my old rig. Was very useful.


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[TheSumOfAllBeers]

Wouldn’t call it an over indulgent purchase.

Like the OP, volume calculations drive me cracked. If you can’t rely on volume calcs, your efficiency figures will be off, and from there you will struggle to hit numbers with goalposts moving all the time.

It’s a cheap price to keep the sanity

[guypettigrew]

Thanks all. Good to know others use scales to measure volume. Don't feel so OCD now!

Next brewday will be Tuesday. Really looking forward to trying the scales out.

Leaving the kettle on the scales while it's boiling concerns me. The heat might ruin the scales. Anyone have any ideas about what to put between the kettle and the top plate of the scales to stop the heat going through?

Thanks.

Guy

[Haydnexport]

a thick piece of silicone sheet