Newbies-don't trust the markings on your bucket!

After my first 4 batches, I started to wonder why all of my beers were coming in at a higher OG than I expected by around 5-7 points. I started out brewing by doing 3.5 gallon boils and topping off to 5 gallons, using the 5 gallon mark that was on the bucket I bought.

One day, I measured the water and put it into my primary fermenter, and realized how far off it really was. What do you know, my 5th batch, using my new accurate markings, hit my target OG spot on.

See the picture below to see how far off the markings were on my assumed good bucket were.

Is that a Northern Brewer bucket?

Sure is. I have two of those.

They're both currently full of beer, so I can't check their calibration right now. But I've found mine to be dead-on (within 1/10th gallon) when compared to my calibrated keggle sight glass.

I think you might have been a little aggressive with your markings. I've found that first shelf to be 5.5 gallons exactly, but will confirm next time they're empty.

Edit: my notepad says first shelf is 6.0 gal. Ill try to keg up the contents and update tomorrow.

How do you know you measured the water correctly to check the bucket?

I just checked my gear a couple of weeks ago. My 8 gallon bucket is spot on all the way up, but I put new markings on my kettle dipstick.

It is, in fact, a Northern Brewer Bucket.

I recently bought a scale, since I started doing partial mash recipes that weren't from kits. I put a large plastic bowl on my scale (accurate to 0.05 oz) and zeroed it. Then I filled the bowl with cold tap water while it was on the scale with 32 oz of water at a time and put it in, stopping after each gallon, where I used a (blue) sharpie to mark the water level. I had a flashlight on the inside so I could see where the water level was on the outside.

I can see some markings being a tad off, but nowhere near as far off as your markings.....I'm calling bull sheet

backhousebrewer said:

It is, in fact, a Northern Brewer Bucket.

I recently bought a scale, since I started doing partial mash recipes that weren't from kits. I put a large plastic bowl on my scale (accurate to 0.05 oz) and zeroed it. Then I filled the bowl with cold tap water while it was on the scale with 32 oz of water at a time and put it in, stopping after each gallon, where I used a (blue) sharpie to mark the water level. I had a flashlight on the inside so I could see where the water level was on the outside.

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Whoa. Hold on a sec. Did you put 32oz by weight of water in that bowl on the scale and use that to measure? If so, your measurements will be way off. You want 32oz by volume for a quart, x4 for a gallon.

backhousebrewer said:

It is, in fact, a Northern Brewer Bucket.

I recently bought a scale, since I started doing partial mash recipes that weren't from kits. I put a large plastic bowl on my scale (accurate to 0.05 oz) and zeroed it. Then I filled the bowl with cold tap water while it was on the scale with 32 oz of water at a time and put it in, stopping after each gallon, where I used a (blue) sharpie to mark the water level. I had a flashlight on the inside so I could see where the water level was on the outside.

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Well, that is your problem then. A gallon of water is a measure of volume, not weight. that would explain the large difference.

Yeah, unfortunately ounces don't follow the same convenient rules for water that metric measurements do.

In metric, 1mL (volume) of water = 1g (mass) of water (at standard temperature/pressure yadda yadda yadda).

But in imperial measurements (e.g. ounces), 1oz (volume) water does not equal 1oz (mass aka weight for this purpose).

1 oz (weight) of water is 0.96 oz (volume).

It's close, but not exact. The mo' water, the mo' difference.

Good point not to always trust the printed levels on buckets, but...

BigFloyd said:

]Whoa. Hold on a sec. Did you put 32oz by weight of water in that bowl on the scale and use that to measure? If so, your measurements will be way off. You want 32oz by volume for a quart, x4 for a gallon.

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Agreed. Weighing it will get your close if you assume 2.086 lbs per quart. You assumed 32 oz weight per 32 oz volume, which would make the measurements off about 5 percent.

I calibrated the buckets and kettle using measuring cups or a pitcher I trust to be accurate. Of course, first I had to calibrate the pitchers with molded in lettering and found they were off.

1 gallon of water=128 fluid oz.
1 gallon of water=8.35 lb or 133.6 oz.

So yes you are measuring incorrectly, however from the marking shown on your bucket it would be off even if you had measured correctly.

Yeah, there's still a huge variance in the pic.

One gallon (128oz by volume) is 133.6 oz by weight. Only 4.3% difference from the OP's measurement method.

Do you happen to have extremely light water? Or do you live in a low-gravity area such as a moon base, or some kind of semi-vacuum?

I have 2 buckets, a 6.5-gal carboy, and a 5-gal carboy. All came with no markings. I got a 1-gal pitcher at Walmart and marked it as I filled it with a 2-cup measuring cup. Then I filled and marked one of the buckets, one gallon at a time using the calibrated pitcher. Those marks transferred directly over to the other bucket of course. Then, using the water in the bucket, I filled and marked one of the carboys, one gallon at a time, using the calibrated pitcher, then did the same for the other carboy. It took awhile to do, but now I'm confident I have accurate measurements. DO NOT TRUST GALLON MILK OR JUICE CONTAINERS! The ones I tried came up less than a gallon.

I just measured the specific gravity and temperature of my tap water. It is 1.001 at 48 degrees F, and with the correction factor of my hydrometer to correct to 60 degrees F (subtract 0.0005 at 50 degrees F) it is extremely close to 1.0005 (neglecting the difference between 48 degrees F and 50 degrees F). This gets me the ratio of density of my tap water to pure water.

By definition, 1 oz mass of pure water at 62 degrees is equal to 1 oz volume of pure water at 62 degrees F. My trusty thermodynamics textbook tells me that the density of pure water at 60 degrees F is 62.364 lb/ft^3, while the density of water at 62 degrees F is 62.352 lb/ft^3. Therefore, the difference in density between the corrected 60 degree F water and 62 degree F water that the fluid oz is based off of is 0.02%.

I don't really feel like getting into doing calculations of instrument tolerances, but the hydrometer likely has around 1% error.

Correcting for the difference between my corrected specific gravity at 60 degrees F and 62 degrees F fluid oz, my 640 oz mass (~5 gallon) marking really is 639.56 fluid oz, plus/minus that approximately 1% error from the hydrometer. That is way off from the approximately 10% error that I found from the markings being about 0.5 gallons off.

By the way... Notice that the first gallon marking was off by almost 0.5 gallon, then the rest of the markings were only slightly different. The major issue was that the markings were shifted down by about 0.5 gallons. The delta for each gallon marking was pretty minor compared to the offset.

Call me simple but why not just get a gallon jug of water, fill it up and pour it in five times.... This is how I marked my carboy and it hit spot on my bucket marks when i tested... To each his own I guess, my method took 3 minutes though. Perhaps you should be measuring the opportunity cost of time spent on such a simple problem ;-) good luck!

Ps my OG and FG are generally very accurate per recipe

Switch to metric: 1 kg of water = 1 liter.

But all my buckets, I have two kinds, are accurate. One kind has a sticker, I don't like those. And the other kind is printed on.

Jlaw3000 said:

Call me simple but why not just get a gallon jug of water, fill it up and pour it in five times.... This is how I marked my carboy and it hit spot on my bucket marks when i tested... To each his own I guess, my method took 3 minutes though. Perhaps you should be measuring the opportunity cost of time spent on such a simple problem ;-) good luck!

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Thats how I mark my carboys. it seems to be close enough.

All three of my pre-marked buckets (different brands/vendors) were off as well, based of my measurements (adding 4 quarts of ~65* tap water for each gallon that I marked)

I have 5 bucket fermenters purchased over the years. A couple of months ago I calibrated them by measuring 1 gal. of water by weight into a gallon bottle, scribing a line at the gallon mark and pouring it into the first fermenter. Marked the level and transferred the water to the next fermenter, etc. I then added a second gallon to the 5th fermenter and worked my way back to the first one. Continued until I had them all marked at 5 gallons. Calibrated with 1/2 gallon more, as I shoot for 5.5 gal. in my batches.

When finished, all of my markings were within 1/8" of each other, but varied by as much as 3/4" from the original markings on the buckets. I noticed that some of the original labels were shifted up or down by 1/2" between buckets of the same manufacturer. Leads me to think that the buckets are quite uniform, only the printing job causes the variations.

I've checked a few of the plastic milk-jug style water bottles with a graduated cylinder and found them all to be an adequate measure of one gallon. On the style I have, one gallon is at or just slighly over the ring at the base of the neck of the jug - with the jug sitting on a hard surface.

On my Ale Pail the 1 gallon mark is maybe 1/8" high, 2 and 3 are pretty close, 4 gallon mark is maybe 1/8-3/16" low, and 5 gal mark is about 3/8" lower than actual. 5.25 gal is pretty much right at the first/lowest rib.

I didn't have a gallon jug in my house, so I would have had to go 2 cups at a time with my measuring cup. Doing it by weight was faster for me. The only thing that took longer was explaining mass and weight of water at different temperatures... Lol.

Btw, metric has the same issue with needing to correct the density based on temperature and impurities in the water.

ChuckO said:

the buckets are quite uniform, only the printing job causes the variations.

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I agree, seems the best explanation

looks like if you shift the printing up in the OP's pic, all the markings would line up

Aside from the interesting discussion regarding the density of water, looks to me like the bucket was mislabeled, some sort of alignment error. I'd contact the seller and request a replacement.

Jlaw3000 said:

Call me simple but why not just get a gallon jug of water, fill it up and pour it in five times.... This is how I marked my carboy and it hit spot on my bucket marks when i tested... To each his own I guess, my method took 3 minutes though. Perhaps you should be measuring the opportunity cost of time spent on such a simple problem ;-) good luck!

Ps my OG and FG are generally very accurate per recipe

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That's what I did, only I verified the gallon jug by filing it with a 2-cup measuring cup first. Given that we could be off by a quart and not make a significant difference in our beer, I see no need to be a measurebator. One of the first lessons in my chemistry and physics courses was to keep the end goal in sight; too many decimal places give a false sense of accuracy. A gallon jug of water approximately equals a gallon of wort in your bucket, close enough for our purposes anyway. K.I.S.S.

I've found the gallon jugs of water I buy at the store are closer to 1 gal and about another quarter quart, at least. That explained why I was consistently a half gallon over my target.

^^
Using what as the standard?

I used the same 250 ml graduated cylinder that I use for checking specific gravity. Filled it up 15 times plus an additional 35 ml for one gallon. Poured all that into a 1 gallon jug and then marked the level. Now I have a calibrated 1 gallon jug because as others mentioned, a "gallon" jug may not be a true gallon. I found that most of the lines on my brew buckets were off by around 1/4 to 1/2". Mine were TrueBrew brand.

backhousebrewer said:

By definition, 1 oz mass of pure water at 62 degrees is equal to 1 oz volume of pure water at 62 degrees F.

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I'm sorry, but your definition is wrong.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_ounce and don't assume you are using the Imperial system. You are using the US system.

-a.

Like others have said, not sure why you don't just measure it out using a measure cup or buying a gallon jug of water.

I can't verify my buckets since they are full but i just measured them both and there is 1/2 inch difference between the 2. Both are BB ale pales.... I was wondering why I got 2 to 3 more bottles out of the new one

I challenge anyone on this site to tell me the difference in a taste test between a 5-gal batch of beer brewed and fermented with exactly 5 gallons of water versus one with an extra quart. There are so many other variables involved that having your bucket markings off by a half inch is very unlikely to make a noticeable difference. After all, we're making this stuff to drink, not send to the lab.

Keith66 said:

I challenge anyone on this site to tell me the difference in a taste test between a 5-gal batch of beer brewed and fermented with exactly 5 gallons of water versus one with an extra quart.

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Challenge accepted! Send me, say, 24 bottles of each. I'll report back with my conclusions.

(Sweet avatar.)

Keith66 said:

I challenge anyone on this site to tell me the difference in a taste test between a 5-gal batch of beer brewed and fermented with exactly 5 gallons of water versus one with an extra quart. There are so many other variables involved that having your bucket markings off by a half inch is very unlikely to make a noticeable difference. After all, we're making this stuff to drink, not send to the lab.

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Agreed, sort of. I think it is important to have all of your equipment calibrated to each other, so you know that what goes in to one whirlygig is the same as what comes out the other thingamabob, but only for self sanity so your not looking for that missing half-gallon. But trying to get it down to an oz. seems a bit excessive. After all, an oz. over or under, I bet you're still going to drink all of it.

Although I am a math nerd so I can understand the appeal.

Many of you are right, my mistake. I got misled by the difference between the Imperial and US units.

So, it appears that my markings are slightly high, so my sharpie'd 5 gallon marking is actually about 5.2 US gallons.

This would explain why the difference between my measured line and the printed graduations on the bucket get bigger with each gallon. It looks like the difference between the graduations is correct, just offset almost 1/2 inch, like many of you, and I have pointed out. Oh well. Like you guys say, it doesn't matter much anyway, my first 4 batches still turned out awesome. The only difference is they got you more drunk faster, and there were a few less to drink overall.

Anyway, the purpose of my original post still stands. Make sure you check the calibration on your bucket markings (by volume, damn US vs. Imperial fluid oz!).

SilverZero said:

Challenge accepted! Send me, say, 24 bottles of each. I'll report back with my conclusions.

(Sweet avatar.)

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I knew that was coming! Glad you like the avatar!

Another point, OP said he had a flashlight in the bucket. Was it in the water? That would add volume to your measurements too.

The flashlight was just so I could see where the surface of the water was on the outside of my opaque bucket.

Keith66 said:

I challenge anyone on this site to tell me the difference in a taste test between a 5-gal batch of beer brewed and fermented with exactly 5 gallons of water versus one with an extra quart. There are so many other variables involved that having your bucket markings off by a half inch is very unlikely to make a noticeable difference. After all, we're making this stuff to drink, not send to the lab.

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A quart usually isn't an issue, but when my kegs hold 5.25 gal (or whatever), and I end up with 5.75 gal (or whatever), that's just wasted beer. Because I'm not going to prime and bottle 6 bottles. Or whatever.

whoaru99 said:

^^
Using what as the standard?

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A calibrated 1-gal measuring bucket.