Measuring brewing salts

[MrTwalky]

Hey guys,

I played around with the water on my last brew. I quickly realised that my scales are nowhere near accurate enough to measure small amounts of brewing salts. My next step would probably be to buy a jewellery scale or something with mg increments.

What do other people use and could you recommend a scale?
Cheers.

 

[mstrelan]

Not sure how many decimals you need and I'm sure others have better recommendations, but I use these for dosing espresso shots.

American Weigh Scales AMW-SC-2KG Digital Pocket Scale

 

[eldertaco]

I bought some cheapies from ebay. Cost me about $15 for two sets of 0.01g/200g capacity scales. Didn't expect them to be terribly accurate but to my absolute surprise they're pretty much bang on, but maybe I was just lucky. They're a bit crap down below about 0.5g but definitely seem accurate to 0.01 once you're above that, probably the load cells take a little bit of weight to actually start to move.

If I had to buy again I'd probably go for a little bit more capacity as depending on what container you want to weigh in 200g sometimes doesn't leave you a lot of capacity left.

 

[kaiserben]

I bought these (LINK) about a year ago off eBay.

At the time, including postage, they cost me $8.94

They seem to do the job. The plastic cover has since broken, but the cover doesn't play a part in weighing stuff.

 

[mofox1]

As an alternate solution (lol..), you can make up stock solutions by diluting in distilled water to a known concentration.

Will work for CaCl and MgSO4 but not that well for CaSO4 (gypsum) due to its low solubility.

 

[welly2]

I got this from Victoria's Basement:

http://www.victoriasbasement.com.au/Product/Details/87775/d-line-pocket-digital-scale-02g-200g-black

Accurate to 0.02g (so they say). It's pretty tiny and seems to be about right when weighed up (ha ha!) against my bigger scales.

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

I bought some cheapies from ebay. <snip>. to my absolute surprise they're pretty much bang on, but maybe I was just lucky.


They're a bit crap down below about 0.5g but definitely seem accurate to 0.01 once you're above that, probably the load cells take a little bit of weight to actually start to move.

Similar experience with Ebay cheapies: I did a calibration at a place I was working using their NATA certified weight set and it was dead on through the range. Maybe we were both lucky.

The problem with the low level readings is usually caused by the noise reduction in the electronics which by design cancels out small fluctuations. It can usually be resolved by deliberately loading and unloading the cell, which should then settle to the correct value. I do this by the highly scientific method of poking it with my finger.

 

[moonhead]

Similar experience with Ebay cheapies: I did a calibration at a place I was working using their NATA certified weight set and it was dead on through the range. Maybe we were both lucky.

The problem with the low level readings is usually caused by the noise reduction in the electronics which by design cancels out small fluctuations. It can usually be resolved by deliberately loading and unloading the cell, which should then settle to the correct value. I do this by the highly scientific method of poking it with my finger.

I had the same deal. I've bought 2 el-cheapos now, along with a "certified" calibrated weight to test/calibrate them with. Both have been spot on, +/-0.01g, good enough for me.