Teaspoon formulas and stickies

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While a gram may be a gram, the 60's taught us that volume is different. You can put your preferred, powdered substance on a counter top and chop it up w/ the edge of a knife until it appears almost twice it's original volume. It won't look the same as when you started, but it will weigh the same.

I saw this done once on an old A-Team TV rerun. If I ever saw it done in person, and I didn't, then I was sleeping at the time.
 
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MattKing

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momus said:
If I ever saw it done in person, and I didn't, then I was sleeping at the time.
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It was probably baby powder anyways

FWIW, teaspoon formulas are most likely to be successful when all the ingredients in a recipe can be appropriately measured in something between 1 - 5 teaspoons. In other words, if everything is used in a size where measuring it with a teaspoon makes practical sense.
If instead 1/10 of a teaspoon is needed for one ingredient, and twelve teaspoons are needed for another, it isn't a good choice.
 

BobUK

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Sirius Glass said:
One needs to use US Standard Teaspoons and not just any "teaspoon" grabbed out of the drawer. There is a difference.
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I wonder if US Standard Teaspoons are any different in size to UK teaspoons?

I know that the US Gallon is larger than the UK Gallon, but that is a bit of a falsehood.

The US Gallon is actually the English Queen Anne wine gallon. Deliberately made a little larger than the standard English gallon to allow for seepage and evaporation of the wine from the wooden barrel. That way the customer actually receives the full volume they ordered and paid for.
In the whisky trade this loss through the wood to the atmosphere is quaintly called The Angels Share.
I believe the alcohol revenue men/women make an allowance in duty to be paid for the lost wine or spirit.

So, does anyone know if there is a difference between US and UK Teaspoons?
 
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eli griggs

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Thanks for the informative history lesson; it's nice to know.
 

MattKing

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BobUK said:
I know that the US Gallon is larger than the UK Gallon, but that is a bit of a falsehood.
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The so called Imperial gallon which I grew up with in Canada is 160 British ounces - certainly larger than the US version.
 

BobUK

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So the same car would get more miles to the gallon in Canada than when driven in the USA?


That's a car salesman's conundrum.
 

ic-racer

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I use little spoons like these. It is no big deal to measure their volume and use that for whatever calculation one needs. In this case I did the math ahead of time and labeled them with the amount of water needed.
 

MattKing

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BobUK said:
So the same car would get more miles to the gallon in Canada than when driven in the USA?


That's a car salesman's conundrum.
Click to expand...

Back then.
Nowadays "mileage" seems to be expressed in how many litres are needed to drive 100 kilometres - which actually is more useful, but still doesn't resonate.
I used to have 1/2 imperial gallon (80 ounce) glass carboys for some of my chemicals. Boy were they heavy!
 

Sirius Glass

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I believe that the two teaspoons are different.
 

Alan Johnson

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How Many Teaspoons in a Tablespoon?

How many teaspoons in a tablespoon? The answer might surprise you. Did you know this simple question plagues even the best home cooks? And yet it's an important measurement to remember, especially when it comes to baking.
downshiftology.com
Occasionally I have used UK teaspoons for tests, taking 1 LEVEL teaspoon as 5ml. I believe that the commonly available LEVEL teaspoons in the US and UK are both about 5ml.
 

Sirius Glass

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This is not a game of horseshoes. Close is not enough. Close produces an endless array of threads about problems. Use standard measurement devices. We are here to help others, not to hold hands with those that are purposely sloppy with their lab work.
 

john_s

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Those of us who cook and have many cookbooks (we've been acquiring them for over 50 years) know that US measures are different to Imperial measures and the Australian Tablespoon is uniquely and significantly different to all of them. I would trust wikipedia rather than just a general Google search for the actual numbers.

And as Doremus reminded us (above), we tend to measure things that are relatively easy to measure and forget about measurements that are more difficult, the prime example for mixing our chemicals is degree of unintended hydration changing the relative strength of ingredients.
 
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eli griggs

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BobUK said:
So the same car would get more miles to the gallon in Canada than when driven in the USA?


That's a car salesman's conundrum.
Click to expand...

Yes, the change in volume is what's important, up or down.
 

Alan Johnson

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I believe in the UK we used to use Imperial teaspoons but have largely transitioned to the 5ml metric spoon.
I don't have my Darkroom Cookbook to hand but IIRC their measure was the 5ml level spoon.

Metric or imperial: what measures do Britons use? | YouGov

While young Britons still tend to use imperial for height, temperature, speed and long distances, they now use metric for short distances and weight
yougov.co.uk
 

Sirius Glass

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foc said:
Also according to Google, one gram in the USA is equal to one gram in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica, etc.
Click to expand...

That is because metric is an international standard while a teaspoon is not . Furthermore teaspoons in serving sets are not standard sized in any country, it is what the designer chose.
 
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eli griggs

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The French are credited with the final interdiction of several Nations attempts at a international metric standard, and gave the World the Standardized Metric System we have used for many years, a situation which erked many Nations, because it was set up on a single, one kilogram cylinder, housed in a vault in France, for more than a hundred years.

The below link to an article on a proposed change gives more info on this topic.

 
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