Dear Harry,
I recall visiting a brewery in Colorado where one of the beer vats had
a sign facing the public that read, '52,840 gallons'. Everyone who
worked in the factory knew this quite naturally as 200 000 litres
(200 cubic metres or 200 kilolitres). I call this process 'hidden
metric' because the product is prepared in metric units and then these
metric units are hidden by being dumbed down for the public by
converting the metric units using old pre-metric measuring words..
Brewery calculations are quite difficult to do using any of the old
pre-metric measures and so simple to do using metric units that I
don't know of any brewer in the world who does not use the metric
system inside the brewery (or the winery or distillery). Only in the
USA and the UK are these internal calculations then dumbed down to
things like bottles' or 'cans' or 'pints' of various sizes.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, that you can obtain
from http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has
helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the
modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they
now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for
their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many
different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial
and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA.
Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST,
and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com
for more metrication information, contact Pat at [email protected]
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On 2009/11/26, at 14:37 , Harry Wyeth wrote:
I was visiting a small local winery recently and noticed a large
stainless steel vat in the work area. On the side was a vertical
measurement guide in cm and mm, and it topped out at around 1.3 m.
At the very top was a "1000" label. The cask looked to be around 1 m
in diameter. I asked the winemaker where it came from, and he said
Italy.
The volume of this cask must have been exactly 1 cubic meter/1000 L,
according to the formula for the volume of a cylinder. The cask
visually appeared big, and it gave a good impression of just how
much volume is in a cubic meter, and how much larger it is than a
cubic yard.
Another example of the beauty and simplicity of the metric system!
But go figure why the wineries produce wine in liters, bottle in
liters, and the wine industry supplies statistics in gallons.
HARRY WYETH
