Converting Between Metric and Imperial Measures

[Tropicalsenior]

7 minutes ago, Smithy said:

I'd recommend something like this

I know that they call you guys the enablers but I don't think you realize how much angst and envy you create when you post things like this. No way in hell can I get my hands on something like this and boy would I like to have it. I just checked and the measuring cups for you are $24. Sounds fine but they want $48 to ship it to me. Even @liuzhou can buy these things in China. All I can do is sit here and turn green.

[liuzhou]

2 minutes ago, Tropicalsenior said:

Even @liuzhou can buy these things in China.

 

Well, like nearly all of the world, China is metric.

[Kerry Beal]

1 hour ago, mmlstarr said:

Hi all!

 

I've been baking some recipes lately that call for liquids in ml. 175 ml of milk; 170 ml of oil, etc. I mean, 175 ml is just about 3/4 cup, so that's easy enough, but my pyrex liquid measure doesn't have a line for every possible number of ml, so... I thought of converting to grams and weighing it out. 

 

I know water is 1:1 ml to grams. Everything else I use an online conversion tool that I'm hoping is right, lol.

 

Thoughts?

I must confess that I either say "siri - what is the weight of 175 ml of sunflower oil in grams" or type it into my search engine and it tells me the weight. 

[Tropicalsenior]

1 minute ago, liuzhou said:

 

Well, like nearly all of the world, China is metric.

Costa Rica is metric also, except when they're measuring Lumber. Go figure.

Even stranger, Nicaragua's measuring system is exactly like The States.

[MaryIsobel]

I can commiserate with you about the outrgeous ahipping charges to Canada - I can get very pouty about it sometimes. I am pretty much wholly metric now but I do convert the price per kilo for meat to pounds in my head Not sure why other than the fact that it is sometimes advertised that way.

[Tropicalsenior]

1 minute ago, MaryIsobel said:

but I do convert the price per kilo for meat to pounds in my head

How strange. After 30 years I still do that and I don't even realize that I'm doing it and I certainly don't know why I'm doing it. It just makes me squirm even more about the prices nowadays.

[ElsieD]

22 minutes ago, MaryIsobel said:

 I am pretty much wholly metric now but I do convert the price per kilo for meat to pounds in my head Not sure why other than the fact that it is sometimes advertised that way.

Me too.

[FauxPas]

40 minutes ago, Tropicalsenior said:

I know that they call you guys the enablers but I don't think you realize how much angst and envy you create when you post things like this. No way in hell can I get my hands on something like this and boy would I like to have it. I just checked and the measuring cups for you are $24. Sounds fine but they want $48 to ship it to me. Even @liuzhou can buy these things in China. All I can do is sit here and turn green.

 

I would offer to order them and send them on to you but when I look up postal rates I see at least another $24 Cdn to do so. And that's with guessing the final box size, it could be more. And of course, the measuring cups themselves are about $40 Cdn from Amazon Canada.  😞  The final cost is pretty high. 

 

 

[Tropicalsenior]

11 minutes ago, FauxPas said:

I would offer to order them

Thank you for the thought, I really appreciate that. However, even if you were to be able to send them, I would then have to go to the Customs here and pay through the nose to get them out. I learned very quickly that the first rule I had to lay down to family and friends was don't ever send me anything.

I learned very quickly to live with the basics and to substitute, substitute, substitute. As I have said before, my motto became; if you can't make, it fake it, if you can't fake it, f*** it.

[mmlstarr]

1 hour ago, Smithy said:

 

I know you've gotten some helpful advice already, but if you're interested in maybe making an upgrade to your kitchen equipment I'd recommend something like this Oxo set of graduated angled measuring cups (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). i have the smallest, which comes to 1/4 cup and measures in tablespoons and ounces on 1 side, and ml on the other side. I also have this conical 2-cup measuring beaker (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) which measures in ml, tsp, T, oz and cups. It gets at least as much use as the angled measuring cup; maybe more.

Thank you!

[haresfur]

3 hours ago, MaryIsobel said:

I can commiserate with you about the outrgeous ahipping charges to Canada - I can get very pouty about it sometimes. I am pretty much wholly metric now but I do convert the price per kilo for meat to pounds in my head Not sure why other than the fact that it is sometimes advertised that way.

 

Converting to pounds sterling? 😁

[haresfur]

3 hours ago, Smithy said:

 

I know you've gotten some helpful advice already, but if you're interested in maybe making an upgrade to your kitchen equipment I'd recommend something like this Oxo set of graduated angled measuring cups (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). i have the smallest, which comes to 1/4 cup and measures in tablespoons and ounces on 1 side, and ml on the other side. I also have this conical 2-cup measuring beaker (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) which measures in ml, tsp, T, oz and cups. It gets at least as much use as the angled measuring cup; maybe more.

 

I use a small oxo angled measuring cup sometimes but it is far from the most accurate way to do it. Basically impossible to account for the meniscus - for that you need to hold the measuring line up to eye level.

 

I have a measuring cup that does the reverse - it has graduations for grams of various things like sugar and flour. It is spectacularly useless.

[Senior Sea Kayaker]

I've had one of these for over twenty years so don't know if they're still available.

'The Perfect Beaker'

Graduations are pint, cups, fl. oz., Tbsp, Tsp and ml. I received it as a gift and remember being a little skeptical about it's accuracy so I brought it into the lab and compared volumes with lab glassware and found it reasonably accurate.

 

[Smithy]

2 hours ago, Senior Sea Kayaker said:

I've had one of these for over twenty years so don't know if they're still available.

'The Perfect Beaker'

Graduations are pint, cups, fl. oz., Tbsp, Tsp and ml. I received it as a gift and remember being a little skeptical about it's accuracy so I brought it into the lab and compared volumes with lab glassware and found it reasonably accurate.

 

 

That's actually what I have, but couldn't remember the model. I guess I could have looked at the label!

 

7 hours ago, haresfur said:

 

I use a small oxo angled measuring cup sometimes but it is far from the most accurate way to do it. Basically impossible to account for the meniscus - for that you need to hold the measuring line up to eye level.

 

I have a measuring cup that does the reverse - it has graduations for grams of various things like sugar and flour. It is spectacularly useless.

 

I had one of those measuring cups that purported to show weights of dry items. It looked like a neat idea, but as you say it was basically useless. Its saving grace was the standard volumetric markings, but I aleady had enough of those types of measures. I gave it away.

[Darienne]

11 hours ago, ElsieD said:

Me too.

I'm not.  I do some things in Metric...and others in Imperial.  And that's that.  I think I personally was just too old when Metric was introduced to make a complete switch.  

[AlaMoi]

14 hours ago, Okanagancook said:

You can always add more liquid using table spoon and teaspoons…15 ml per tablespoon.  5 lm per teaspoon.

 

uhmmm, almost (g) - such is the "problems" with "units"

"

• In the United States,1 tablespoon = 14.78 ml (or . . .  14.7868 Milliliters)
• In the United Kingdom, 1 tablespoon = 17.75 ml
• In Australia, 1 tablespoon = 20ml

"

[mmlstarr]

13 minutes ago, AlaMoi said:

 

uhmmm, almost (g) - such is the "problems" with "units"

"

• In the United States,1 tablespoon = 14.78 ml (or . . .  14.7868 Milliliters)
• In the United Kingdom, 1 tablespoon = 17.75 ml
• In Australia, 1 tablespoon = 20ml

"

And another thing, lol. A recipe I just used called for 1 tsp/5g of baking powder. I measured a level tsp of bp and it was 3 grams. Is this because the recipe was using british tsps and I'm using american?

In general, I'm guessing it's better to use the weight measurement for these things when possible rather than dry volume? 

[blue_dolphin]

11 minutes ago, mmlstarr said:

In general, I'm guessing it's better to use the weight measurement for these things when possible rather than dry volume? 

 

I weigh everything I can get a weight measurement for.  Liquid or dry.  Especially sticky stuff like honey or peanut butter.  Spoons for small amounts when it's just impacting flavor, not chemistry. 

 

Always good reading:  The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

[ElsieD]

I have one of these which I use for converting imperial measurements to metric and vice versa.  It also came with a small chart of the specific gravity of a number of common foods.  Mine came from Lee Valley and I just called them and they don't carry them anymore.  You may be able to find something similar.

[pastrygirl]

52 minutes ago, mmlstarr said:

A recipe I just used called for 1 tsp/5g of baking powder. I measured a level tsp of bp and it was 3 grams. Is this because the recipe was using british tsps and I'm using american?

 

I think the recipe writer was being lazy.

Edited October 16, 2023 by pastrygirl (log)

[AlaMoi]

the issues with density are widespread - perhaps the most 'well known' is flour . . .

packed / fluffed / sifted . . . all different weights.

some place did a "study" - they had x number of (I think culinary students...) dish up two cups of flour.

all the weights were different, some not so much, some different by 20-25%

 

"A recipe I just used called for 1 tsp/5g of baking powder.:

hmmm, wonder if that was a brain-on-vacation thing . . . as 1 teaspoon is generally given as 5 ml, not 5 grams.

but baking powder has, if anything, a bigger fluff factor than flour, in my experience , , anyway...

 

my fav site-to-be-avoided gave this:

1 cup = 8 ounces = 227 grams

ah,,,, I'll look elsewhere . . . .

 

[mmlstarr]

1 hour ago, AlaMoi said:

the issues with density are widespread - perhaps the most 'well known' is flour . . .

packed / fluffed / sifted . . . all different weights.

some place did a "study" - they had x number of (I think culinary students...) dish up two cups of flour.

all the weights were different, some not so much, some different by 20-25%

 

"A recipe I just used called for 1 tsp/5g of baking powder.:

hmmm, wonder if that was a brain-on-vacation thing . . . as 1 teaspoon is generally given as 5 ml, not 5 grams.

but baking powder has, if anything, a bigger fluff factor than flour, in my experience , , anyway...

 

my fav site-to-be-avoided gave this:

1 cup = 8 ounces = 227 grams

ah,,,, I'll look elsewhere . . . .

 

The recipe also suddenly changed from ml to g for liquids: the buttermilk and oil were given in ml and the cream for the ganache was given in g