Platform scales

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Perhaps not optimal from a process point of view, but:

  1. Stand on bathroom scales, record your weight
  2. Step off bathroom scales, pick up grain bill in whatever convenient container you have it in
  3. Step back on bathroom scales, record new weight
  4. Subtract new weight from old weight to find weight of grain
  5. Top up or reduce grain in container
  6. Repeat steps 3 to 5 until desired weight in container

I like your plan but what if you discover that the original convenient container you have chosen isn't big enough to hold the amount of grain you need?

Which step would I need to go back to?

Also can you recommend a suitable set of bathroom scales?
 
I like your plan but what if you discover that the original convenient container you have chosen isn't big enough to hold the amount of grain you need?

Which step would I need to go back to?

Also can you recommend a suitable set of bathroom scales?
Have you been at that rubbing alcohol again? athumb..:laugh8:
 
I get my base malt bagged in 5kg. As all my brews have less than 5kg base malt I weigh out the malt I DON'T need,tip what I do into one of those plastic storage boxes then put the smaller amount back in the bag and write the weight on the bag. This way I can use my standard kitchen scales. My 5 litre jug has been tared and has had 4kg of water marked with a permanent marker.
 
I got these 15kg scales a few months back, no complaints so far and they're a bit more compact than the speak your weight machine

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07HDTYR4X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Big enough to do all my grain bills, but they wouldn't handle a full keg obviously.
I’ve got those - I use them for filling 5l minikegs as it’s a bit tricky to see the level mounting. But they regularly give up in mid task for some reason - I’ll do a couple of kegs just fine and then half way through the next they just switch off and are a pain to switch back on. It may just be mine that are faulty.
 
I got these 15kg scales a few months back, no complaints so far and they're a bit more compact than the speak your weight machine

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07HDTYR4X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Big enough to do all my grain bills, but they wouldn't handle a full keg obviously.
I recently bought some similar for posting eBay stuff, and I'm very pleased with them.

ABCON do many versions of this scale in the same housing, to cope with differing weights and accuracies. Would deffo recommend.
 
I’ve got those - I use them for filling 5l minikegs as it’s a bit tricky to see the level mounting. But they regularly give up in mid task for some reason - I’ll do a couple of kegs just fine and then half way through the next they just switch off and are a pain to switch back on. It may just be mine that are faulty.
They have an auto-off setting. Have you checked that?
 
They have an auto-off setting. Have you checked that?
would that involve me having read the instructions? Whoops! However, I’d expect the auto-off to work when they are not used for x minutes, not when the weight on them is changing. Can the auto-off be disabled do you know?
 
I’ve got those - I use them for filling 5l minikegs as it’s a bit tricky to see the level mounting. But they regularly give up in mid task for some reason - I’ll do a couple of kegs just fine and then half way through the next they just switch off and are a pain to switch back on. It may just be mine that are faulty.
They do look very neat :-)
 
I use a 2 litre calibrated jug for measuring water but also use it when measuring my pale malt, with my digital kitchen scales.

I simply “tare” the scales with the empty jug, then scoop a full container from my 25kg bag. I weigh each scoop (about 900g) and empty it into my grain bag, keeping a tally until I’ve got the right amount.
 
Yes, it can be disabled, but lord knows how. I've never needed to.
I found the instructions, but there is no way to disable auto-off that I can see. It apparently kicks in after a minute if the weight is stable, which is a bit quick maybe if you are trying to tilt a fermenter with your non-existent third hand while also preventing beer from spraying round the kitchen with the other two.
 
I do all my grains in Lb and oz - as that's what our kitchen scales do. For pale malt though - I weighed a Lb of grain and tipped it into a 1 litre plastic jug. It came to about half an inch from the top of the jug. So now I just use the jug; it's quick, easy and accurate enough for country folks.
 
I found the instructions, but there is no way to disable auto-off that I can see. It apparently kicks in after a minute if the weight is stable, which is a bit quick maybe if you are trying to tilt a fermenter with your non-existent third hand while also preventing beer from spraying round the kitchen with the other two.
Dunno if this helps

 
Mrs Clint recently needed a new set of counter top scales for her emporium as the "price per kg" function had stopped working but they weigh things ok.
So new set purchased,old set now part of my brew kit...weigh up to 5kg in 1g increment.
 
I got these ones in the end - blooming good value for £26.95 I think.
100kg x 100g

C97A415F-1D44-494B-93F6-11E55B39DFB8.jpeg
 

Latest posts

Back
Top