Scales!

[alwilson]

Hi Guys,

Can anyone recommend some 'good' scales, we're just upgrading to a 100l brewery and so will be measuring out about 15kg of grain and I dont fancy doing this in 1kg increments that will get boring quickly.

Obviously I dont want to pay huge amounts, but a 5kg scale seems to cost in excess of 80 quid !

Would a hanging fish scale work? I thought I would drill a couple of holes in an old brewing bucket to attach some line to hang it on the scales, tare it and start filling it up? Or would that be unreliable at this quantity? They're certainly cheaper!

Cheers
Alex

[crafty john]

Fishing scales aren't that accurate, I used to run an Angling club and I had to spend £250 on a pair of match scales to get a decent set, have a look here there's some real bargains http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_nos ... &x=18&y=23

[themadhippy]

how about a set of bathroom scales,about a tenner from wilkinson

[boingy]

My digital kitchen scales weigh up to 5 kg and cost about a tenner. Having said that, the biggest container I have that fits on the scales without obscuring the readout only holds about 2kg!

Measuring grain is not a amazingly precise art. Some folk measure out 1kg in a jug then just fill the jug x times to that level. Because my scales are digital I sometimes catch myself adding that extra teaspoon of grain to get closer to 2.000 kg. Quite ridiculous really....

[alwilson]

Thats the thing boingy, my scales now will do 5kg but will only hold 1kg in the bowl before covering the readout or just, falling off spectacularly over the floor.

scales with a remote readout would be perfect.

[alwilson]

and here we have one!

though a bit pricey..

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Soehnle-Disc-Di ... 650&sr=1-6

[crafty john]

These hand held digital scales look good uou could hang a bucket on them they weigh up to 40 kilos http://www.amazon.co.uk/Excess-Advanced ... 745&sr=1-5 Only a tenner.

[Kev888]

I just got some digital fishing scales from a local angling shop; nothing at all special - £20 and does 50lb in 10g increments and I can hang a fv on them to measure into. They probably aren't that accurate and after 50secs of inactivity they switch off and reset to zero if reactivated, but its still a major improvement.

My kitchen scales require numerous smaller batches - not only does that mean cumulative error but (me being me) I would inevitably miscount how many times I weighed. I'm not fussed about small inaccuracies myself, but it is nice not to over/under weigh by quite a few kg because I can't count.

Cheers
Kev

[alwilson]

Yeah, the miscounting the batches bothers me too, its bad enough with 5kg, let alone when i up to 15kg in the same size increments.

[crafty john]

I can only weigh 1 kilo of grain at a time cos my scales won't take a bigger bowl and allow me to see the screen, I use a digital kitchen timer and just press the minute button each time I weigh a kilo so I don't lose count.

[Kev888]

Ah modern technology! I used a pen and paper but the process was essentially the same as button pressing - astounding even myself though, I could still manage to forget to mark it each time. Premature old age probably, but at least with that system I could only make stronger rather than weaker brews than intended!

Cheers,
Kev

[Dr. Dextrin]

I use standard cheapo 5kg kitchen scales. I put a small round oven dish on them and then put a 3 gall fermenting bin on top of that. This lets you see the readout and you can easily weigh up to 5kg of crushed malt without it overflowing.

[WishboneBrewery]

How about something from here: http://www.dealextreme.com/search.dx/se ... k%20scales

[dean_wales]

Lots of scales help you to measure it. There are fishing scales, kitchen scales, hand held digital scales to weight KG's and grams. Check the best available sources to buy a scale and use according to your requirements. I'm sure digital scales will meet to your budget and weigh requirements.

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[orlando]

I went through all this at the end of last year. My criteria was wanting scales that weigh in 1g increments but went up to over 5k but couldn't find any at a reasonable price, like Boingy I find myself weighing a thimble full of grain to get it accurate when it obviously doesn't matter that much . In the end I decided that the occasions I weigh out more than 5kg of pale malt are fairly rare so went for the precision. I went for these. You will obviously have to weigh out 3 lots at a time for pale malt but when you wan 225 g of X you're in business and you can still see the scale reasonably well. The detachable screens are the ultimate but I just didn't see the financial justification for it.