Maybe this seems like a triviel problem to you folks, but I am
struggling to get an efficient and accurate weight to weigh out larger
bilks of fruit. I tried several methods, small batches (lot of work
and fruit handling), the bathroom weight (not accurate, difficult
reading as the fruit baskets tend to cover the scale, and my wife hate
to get the berries stains on the weight).

What I am looking for is a good, but accurate spring weight, to hang
from the garage seiling and with some practical hooks for attaching
the load. It must of course be possble to adjust the tara (calibrate
out the basket weight).

Anyone who has got some good suggestions?

With out knowing how much fruit you are needing to weigh, you could try
using a large fish scale. Most go up to around 10-15 kg (with about 100g
resolution)and some even let you tare it. If the model does not have a tare
mode then you could always just do the old (total - pail/hook = fruit or
pail/hook + fruit = total) method.

What does everyone else use?

Hope this helps,

Rob




K.J.Kristiansen wrote:

> Maybe this seems like a triviel problem to you folks, but I am
> struggling to get an efficient and accurate weight to weigh out larger
> bilks of fruit. I tried several methods, small batches (lot of work
> and fruit handling), the bathroom weight (not accurate, difficult
> reading as the fruit baskets tend to cover the scale, and my wife hate
> to get the berries stains on the weight).
>
> What I am looking for is a good, but accurate spring weight, to hang
> from the garage seiling and with some practical hooks for attaching
> the load. It must of course be possble to adjust the tara (calibrate
> out the basket weight).
>
> Anyone who has got some good suggestions?

In article >, (K.J.Kristiansen) wrote:
>Maybe this seems like a triviel problem to you folks, but I am
>struggling to get an efficient and accurate weight to weigh out larger
>bilks of fruit. I tried several methods, small batches (lot of work
>and fruit handling), the bathroom weight (not accurate, difficult
>reading as the fruit baskets tend to cover the scale, and my wife hate
>to get the berries stains on the weight).
>
>What I am looking for is a good, but accurate spring weight, to hang
>from the garage seiling and with some practical hooks for attaching
>the load. It must of course be possble to adjust the tara (calibrate
>out the basket weight).
>
>Anyone who has got some good suggestions?

How precise are you looking to be? You could probably pick up a baby scale at a
garage sale for very little, simply calibrate the scale to compensate for the
container. Not sure just how high you're trying to go, though.

If you're looking for a large scale system with digital precision, that will be
very expensive, I'm sure.

Also, keep in mind that "precise" doesn't necessarily mean "accurate".

;-)


Woods

How much do you want to weigh ?? I use(ed) a bathroom scale till I
found out that every 5 gal bucket of apples weighed 30 lbs. Now I
don't need one for them. Once I used a big plastic tub I got from wall
mart to weigh them all at once (90 lb) using 2 2x4's to keep it up
enough to read it, but the 5 gal buckets work nicer. If your going to
want to weigh more than that, you should consider the headache of
lifting a bunch of weight up to a hanging scale & hooking to it or
having to hoist it up every time you want to weigh something. In
larger batches of wine as it appears you are into, accuracy to a pound
or 2 is all thats necessary. Don't sweat the small stuff, if you think
your close to what you want but not sure, throw in a coupla' more
pounds just for good measure. I've experimented with anywhere from 60
to 90 pounds of apples in a 60 gal. batch to see which would be better
& it was ALL good. Good luck.

Thanks for replying. I think the fish-weight may be what I should look
for. I usually weigh up some 15-20 kg in batches. Of course you are
right w.r.t. the no need for high precision (or accuracy?). Reason for
trying to be a bit careful here is that I use wild berries which
sometimes differ a lot in water content (even the same type of
berries). I also like to build up a datafile for the normal
content(and variation) of acids in these berries.


(PA-ter) wrote in message . com>...
> How much do you want to weigh ?? I use(ed) a bathroom scale till I
> found out that every 5 gal bucket of apples weighed 30 lbs. Now I
> don't need one for them. Once I used a big plastic tub I got from wall
> mart to weigh them all at once (90 lb) using 2 2x4's to keep it up
> enough to read it, but the 5 gal buckets work nicer. If your going to
> want to weigh more than that, you should consider the headache of
> lifting a bunch of weight up to a hanging scale & hooking to it or
> having to hoist it up every time you want to weigh something. In
> larger batches of wine as it appears you are into, accuracy to a pound
> or 2 is all thats necessary. Don't sweat the small stuff, if you think
> your close to what you want but not sure, throw in a coupla' more
> pounds just for good measure. I've experimented with anywhere from 60
> to 90 pounds of apples in a 60 gal. batch to see which would be better
> & it was ALL good. Good luck.

"K.J.Kristiansen" > wrote in message
om...
> Maybe this seems like a triviel problem to you folks, but I am
> struggling to get an efficient and accurate weight to weigh out larger
> bilks of fruit. I tried several methods, small batches (lot of work
> and fruit handling), the bathroom weight (not accurate, difficult
> reading as the fruit baskets tend to cover the scale, and my wife hate
> to get the berries stains on the weight).
>
> What I am looking for is a good, but accurate spring weight, to hang
> from the garage seiling and with some practical hooks for attaching
> the load. It must of course be possble to adjust the tara (calibrate
> out the basket weight).
>
> Anyone who has got some good suggestions?

K.J.,

Sounds like you'd like to have a grocers produce scale! I don't know
exactly what you mean by 'larger', but I use a Duralit scale that measures
to 8.5lbs. It's called simply (and somewhat presumptuously) The Scale. I
find that for many 5/6 gallon musts I need to weigh the fruit in portions,
as 8.5lbs just doesn't go high enough. Not too much of a problem, or at
least not enough of one to urge me to upgrade. The scale does come in handy
for both beer and meads though, and it's reasonably compact, which is
important for me since I brew in the kitchen and don't have a dedicated
brewing area I can just leave the equipment set up (or hung from the
ceiling) in.


--
Cheers,
Ken