quarts vs quarts vs cups?

I need some help.

I'm converting my grandmothers and great grandmothers recipes to be able to make some of them.  But they call for quarts (by volume).  

If I understand correctly, the quarts in my measuring jar are US quarts.  A US quart seems to be 4 cups Canadian or roughly 1 ltr.  

A US gallon is a smaller size than an Imperial gallon.  If one quart is one-quarter of a gallon...?  

How many (Canadian) cups is a UK quart?    

1 Gallon (US, Fluid) = 128 Ounces (US, Fluid)
1 Gallon (UK, Fluid) = 160 Ounces (UK, Fluid)

source: https://www.thecalculatorsite.com/forum/topics/gallons-and-ounces.php

If a gallon is different in each country,  wouldn't oz be too?

Most of my measuring devices are in Canadian cups. But I can manage litres.

In US measures of volume:
1 cup is 8 ounces
1pint is 16 ounce
1quart
1 gallon is 128 ounces

1 us cup equal 8 us oz.

But how many canadian cups does a uk quart equal?  

A us gallon, quart, and fl oz are considerably smaller than what we find in the rest of the world.

r ranson wrote:If a gallon is different in each country,  wouldn't oz be too?

1 US, Fluid ounce =1.04084 UK, Fluid ounce

Is a Canadian cup the same as a US cup, or a UK cup?

r ranson wrote:1 us cup equal 8 us oz.

But how many canadian cups does a uk quart equal?  

A us gallon, quart, and fl oz are considerably smaller than what we find in the rest of the world.

According to Google's conversion calculator {this link might work}.

1 UK cup = .25 UK quart

1 US cup = 0.21117 UK quart

So, a US cup is a bit over 1/5th of a UK quart.

Nicole Alderman wrote:

r ranson wrote:If a gallon is different in each country,  wouldn't oz be too?

Is a Canadian cup the same as a US cup, or a UK cup?

I went looking, and answered my own questions. Apparently US, Canada, and UK all have different-sized cups. US Cups Conversion Table:

Officially, a US Cup is 240ml (or 8.45 imperial fluid ounces.) This is slightly different from an Australian, Canadian and South African Cup which is 250ml. As long as you use the same cup for measuring out each of your ingredients, the proportions should work out the same.

1 Canadian cup = 250 ML

250ml = 0.219969 UK quart  

1136.52 ml = 1 UK quart

1136.52 ml  divided by 250ml will = 1 Canadian cup

4.54608 Canadian cup = 1 UK quart

So, just over 4 1/2 Canadian cups = 1 UK quart

The difference is in the pints, but since a quart(er of a gallon) is 2 pints...

US pint is 16 fl.oz., but a UK pint is 20 fl.oz.  So a GB pint/quart/gallon is 25% bigger.   Hence for example a US gallon is 3.78 liters, but a UK gallon is 4.54 litres.

Cups are a whole other thing.  I believe, however, that the fl.oz are the same regardless, and hence if you know how many fl.oz. are in a cup, it should work out.

In some ways (although as a Brit I don't like to admit it) the US pint is more sensible, since a pint of water weighs a pound (16 oz.), whereas in the UK it's a pound-and-a-quarter.

I have a gook from 1932 that talks about cups.

WHAT IS 'A CUP'
This is a question fairly asked. A cup is such a handy measure; everyone does not possess scales and in America they use the 'cup' measure in nearly all their recipes.
The American 'cup' measure used in American cookery books contains 8 fluid ounces which are marked off into 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and one cup; and into 1/3 and 2/3 of the cup. I have an aluminium one bought from america in 1924 and it is interesting and usefull to know that when filled to the brin this cup holds exactly half a pint (or 10 ounces) English measure; the American half pint being marked on the cup two liquid ounces lower down.
An English 'cup' therefore should contain 10 liquid ounces.
An American 'cup' therefore should contain 8 liquid onuces.

The book goes on to say that it doesn't use cups as they are not used in England and are unreliable.
So "English cups" don't really exist I certainly have never heard of them if anyone says a cup in a English recipe they mean either an American cup or in earlier recipes a teacup which according to the same book is 10oz.. so that really doesn't help you as the answer to how much is in a English cup appears to be either 10 or 8oz!

I think I have some old Canadian pint and quart jars in the basement if you can't figure it out/want me to double check. Cups are typically the standard 250 ml cup - no change or no significant change.

Rounded to the nearest mL, because really....

Imperial Pints are 568 mL

Imperial Quarts are 1137 mL - 1.14 L

Imperial gallons are 4546- 4.55 L

To further complicate matters, modern canning jars sold in Canada, lots of people call quarts or pints, but are actually measured on a mL scale as well if you look on the box. So we truly have 500 ml, 250 ml etc jars.

I found in the Joy of Cooking the following.... if your family is from the UK, rather than Canada, I wonder if they used the English Breakfast cup?

Looks like a US (x) is fairly consistently 5/6 of a UK (x).  So 6 US = 5 UK.  And people wonder why I think I learned algebra from cookbooks.

Have I mentioned recently that I REALLY love metric?

my cup measures 1/4 litre.

There is a great phone app out there to answer questions of a calculation/ conversion from one unit to another called "Converter+".  It does exactly what you are wanting to do.  I have it on my phone so it is with me.  If putting it onto your phone, the easiest way is to go through your app store
Hope this helps.  We have my mother's and grand mother's recipe books and they have some really ancient measures.

Just as an aside, when you tell the kids you will be there in a jiffy or to wait a moment you are specifying a time event.  Physical Chemist Gilbert Newton Lewis, who incidentally came up with the word ‘photon’, suggested a ‘jiffy’ should be officially defined as the time it takes for light to travel one centimeter in a vacuum (about 33.3564 picoseconds). (https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2012/05/a-jiffy-is-used-as-an-actual-unit-of-time/). A moment (momentum) was a medieval unit of time. The movement of a shadow on a sundial covered 40 moments in a solar hour, a twelfth of the period between sunrise and sunset. The length of a solar hour depended on the length of the day, which, in turn, varied with the season.[1] Although the length of a moment in modern seconds was therefore not fixed, on average, a moment corresponded to 90 seconds. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_(time)).  So when the kids say "MUUUUUUUUM" and you say just a  ..............? You have more time if you say, just a moment

After determining that a us quart is the volume of 907.18464g of water, I came back and found that it doesn't answer your question. Then I copied:

r ranson wrote:How many (Canadian) cups is a UK quart?    

and pasted it into duckduckgo. The answer I found is 5 cups canadian. I got that here. (There was a table.)

Austin Shackles wrote:The difference is in the pints, but since a quart(er of a gallon) is 2 pints...

US pint is 16 fl.oz., but a UK pint is 20 fl.oz.  So a GB pint/quart/gallon is 25% bigger.   Hence for example a US gallon is 3.78 liters, but a UK gallon is 4.54 litres.

Cups are a whole other thing.  I believe, however, that the fl.oz are the same regardless, and hence if you know how many fl.oz. are in a cup, it should work out.

In some ways (although as a Brit I don't like to admit it) the US pint is more sensible, since a pint of water weighs a pound (16 oz.), whereas in the UK it's a pound-and-a-quarter.

Knowing a few metric conversions by heart, I saw 4.54 liters and my head spun!
so... 10 pounds of water = 1 Imperial gallon? that sort of makes sense... compared to U.S. gallon = 231 cubic inches? what?
The ounces are slightly different due to the divisions of pint = 16 or 20 ounces and the starting point in weights or volumes...
From Wikipedia:
An imperial fluid ounce is 1⁄20 of an imperial pint, 1⁄160 of an imperial gallon or approximately 28.41 ml.
A US fluid ounce is 1⁄16 of a US fluid pint and 1⁄128 of a US liquid gallon or approximately 29.57 ml, making it about 4.08% larger than the imperial fluid ounce.

I'm amused that a Canadian cup = 250ml (1/4 liter) instead of 1/4 of a quart.

Kenneth Elwell wrote:
I'm amused that a Canadian cup = 250ml (1/4 liter) instead of 1/4 of a quart.

I'm not so sure that it is anymore. Apparently, an Australian cup = 250 ml. But, some sources (like the one T Melville used, and when I search "how many ml is a  Canadian cup") says that a Canadian cup is 227.30 mL. WHAT?! Why are all these cups different?!

To make matters worse, if wikipedia is to be believed:

wikipedia wrote:Canada now usually employs the metric cup of 250 mL, but its conventional cup was somewhat smaller than both American and imperial units.[8]

1 Canadian cup = 8 imperial fluid ounces = 1/20 imperial gallon = 227.3045 mL

1 tablespoon = 1⁄2 imperial fluid ounce (14.2065 mL)

1 teaspoon = 1⁄6 imperial fluid ounce (4.7355 mL)

So, I think at this point, it might be wise to take the measuring cup and find out how many millilitres (ml) that cup actually measures. If it's an old Canadian cup, it might measure 227.30ml. If it's newer, it might measure 250ml. If someone bought the thing across the boarder in the US, it might measure 24 ml. I think we just have to measure the measurement!

Then take your cup millilitre measurement, and divide that into 1136.52.

So 1136.52 divided by however many milliters your cup is, and that's how many of your cups equal a UK quart.

In equation form: R = the measurement of Raven's cup

1136.52 / R = how many of Raven's cups to use to get a UK quart

I think the question of the day for me is: How many millilitres is R's cup?

Ops, I was wrong.

My current cups are 240ml... different than the ones I had as a kid.

My head hurts.   Maybe I will just write 1 ltr plus a splash... or maybe a glug?

This is all fascinating. The measurements I have been familiar with all my life are based around the litre as a unit of measurement.

There are four 250mL cups in a litre, and four litres in a gallon. We have 3 x 1.333... L sleeves in a 4 L bag of milk, where we don't use 4 L gallons.

Teaspoons are 5 mL, Tablespoons are 15 mL. All my canning jars are listed in mL, and the ones I use are 250 mL, 500 mL, and 1000 mL.

Honestly, I feel that if you're using a single measurement throughout, it doesn't matter whether it's Canadian or from anywhere else. The ratios will be the same if you're using the same relative measurements.

Just don't use american measures interchangeably with Canadian and the other other commonwealth nations' measures, because then the differences will matter.

-CK

My grandmother's recipes don't use a single unit throughout.  Most old handwritten recipes don't,  they seem to use what was local to them.

Knowing that my grandmother used a spoon for tea when she writes teaspoon,  and her spoon is a smidge over half a teaspoon...  her cup was a Wedgwood tea cup, which is a touch larger than my cup today,  but on par with the cup measurements used in our house as a kid...

So the names may be the same -cup and teaspoon- but the ratios don't equate to modern understanding of the word.   So I am attempting to translate the recipes into modern measurements so the ratios can be perceived.

What we have are

UK gallon is larger than US gallon
UK gallon divides into a different number of OZ than the US gallon.  
...

So we have the same names, but very different actual sizes.  If we have a recipe in US gallons and oz, it's going to be a different ratio of ingredients to UK gallons and oz...

Apples/oranges - nope, apples and mars.

and then oz by weight is different again...

All this has caused several plane crashes and although not officially recognized, I know from people involved at the time, that this is one of the big reasons why Canada and the UK switched to metric.

1 UK quart is 1136.52ml
divided by 240ml (per cup)
=======
4 and 3/4 cups

That's what I'm going with.

any objections?  

Kenneth Elwell wrote:

Austin Shackles wrote:The difference is in the pints, but since a quart(er of a gallon) is 2 pints...

                   I'm amused that a Canadian cup = 250ml (1/4 liter) instead of 1/4 of a quart.

The difference between metric which is Universal and the imperial system is that metric is base 10 which means that every thing is in 10s or 10ths. It is a standard based on the standard set by the International Bureau of weights and measures.  (SI units). Not only are the weights an measures a constant but the notation is standardised universally so 1 Kilogram is internationally recognised as 1 Kg and a constant weight irrespective of volume.
The imperial system is a non-standard system and there are only 3 countries in the world that are not metricised; the USA, Liberia and Myanmar.
The UK uses the metric system as a result of being in the EU.  The USA currency is Base 10 ie. 100 cents = 1 dollar.  The GB pound used to be base 12 so 12penies = 1 shilling but with metrication, they converted to Base 10 currency.
The inherited imperial system is a tangled mess of medieval measurements which was never standardised so a cup was a relative measure and not a precise measure.  When each jurisdiction standardised measures in the imperial system they standardised it within their own realm.

So the best way to interpret old recipes is to have a proportional relationship so a cup, 1/2 cup, 2 cups etc are a value of the first cup you pick up, big, small or indifferent.  My grandmother had a china cup with a broken handle and my grandfather made her a number of scoops out of tins and soldered handles onto them.  We have some of them in our pantry so we use standardised (to us) measures based on what my grandmother used but scales for jam making and the like.

Good luck with it all.  So Kenneth, to answer your amusement,  rest of the world is amused but not surprised at the USA is doing it the hard way.  Base 10 is much quicker and easier to calculate.

I miss base 12 maths.

r ranson wrote:I miss base 12 maths.

Base 12 is so much more sensible than base 10.  Divisible by 2,3,4,6... who divides by 5 for anything useful?

That said, I am a product of my culture and can't think in base 12, sadly.

This is such necessary basic info. As I opened this thread, my hubby hollers, "how many ounces in a quart".  He is working on the swimming pool.
If you don't know the basics by heart, make a cheat sheet for the fridge.

billie boyd wrote:This is such necessary basic info. As I opened this thread, my hubby hollers, "how many ounces in a quart".  He is working on the swimming pool.
If you don't know the basics by heart, make a cheat sheet for the fridge.

In the UK there are 20 oz to the pint.
In the US there is 16 oz to the pint.

Both oz and pints are different sizes because the us gallon is so much smaller.

The answer depends on where the recipe is written.

if a pint is 20 oz in one country and 16 oz in another , that would mean it is not a standardized measure.  Whaaaat?

billie boyd wrote:if a pint is 20 oz in one country and 16 oz in another , that would mean it is not a standardized measure.  Whaaaat?

Exactly!

Thus my question when converting old family recipes to modern cooking equivalents.

r ranson wrote:1 us cup equal 8 us oz.

But how many Canadian cups does a UK quart equal?  

A US gallon, quart, and fl oz are considerably smaller than what we find in the rest of the world.

These days most cookbook authors or cooking bloggers recognize this issue and will say something in the forward or elsewhere as to which country's "cups" they are using or give you the standard measure they are using. If it doesn't, then look to where the book was published and assume that it's those country's volume measurements. If that doesn't float your boat, then call the publisher or blogger and ask.

There is a companion issue with weight. A large onion in the US is about twice the size of a large onion in Japan. Now that there are so many cooking and recipe blogs, I always write to the ones I use and respectfully ask them to also include the weight in grams for any recipe item that is described as large, medium, small, pinch, or other indeterminate measures. Mark Bittman https://www.markbittman.com/, for example, has been receptive to making sure his recipes are able to be duplicated in every country.  As for your family recipes, figure out where your Gram was when she wrote them, then use that country's measurement.

P.S. All of my gram's recipes called for one cup.  As her granddaughters got older and started cooking with her, we realized that she was using a broken teacup as her standard measure. We used the cup with flour, sugar, and lard to uncover the real volume and weight that we needed to preserve and duplicate her recipes.  In most cases, it worked.

Bonus recipe: Easter Soup as my grannie wrote it:  Boil a link or two of smoked pork sausage until the skins burst. Remove the sausage, save the water. Peel and boil a few potatoes and add a few eggs to the leftover water.  Remove the potatoes and eggs when they are done.  Add prepared horseradish, sour cream and vinegar to the water, to taste. Slice some of the sausage, peel and slice the eggs, slice the cooled potatoes and put a few slices of each in a bowl, pour the broth over them and serve.

Doesn't that sound easy (and delicious!)? I've worked on this recipe for all my adult life attempting to get back to the flavor profile that my Gram knew intuitively. I'm close, but it's no cigar. I can tell you that the broth is totally opaque, which I have to assume means there is more sour cream than prepared horseradish or vinegar. The only vinegar she used was white, and that I have to substitute commercial smoked sausage (Johnsonville smoked sausage) for the smoked Polish sausage she got from the butcher (who made his own).  There is no added salt or pepper. We called it Easter Soup because it was so rich and delicious (i.e. expensive) it was only served in celebration of the Lord's resurrection. It was probably the sausage that threw it over the edge. Oh, and she used white vinegar to make sour cream from the dregs in the milk cartons. Yeah. I know how to make sour cream, but I can't make it for less than what I can buy it.

Cheers! Barbara

r ranson wrote:My head hurts.   Maybe I will just write 1 ltr plus a splash... or maybe a glug?

If you have to rewrite them anyway, I would convert it all to metric measures and use millilitres or litres as needed. At least your grandchildren will understand and can skip the headache.

Wait, WHAT???
And I thought I was cool because I can convert Metric to Imperial and vice versa.
Canadian cup?! UK cup?! Australian cup?!  
I never even knew those measurements existed.  I assumed everything was done in gms/mls etc. except in the USA.
My sense of reality is disturbed ;)

Here is an excellent cooking converter: https://goodcalculators.com/cooking-conversion-calculator/
It converts almost anything to everything. Some one has done a huge amounts of work and if they were on Permies, there is no doubt they would never have to buy pie again.  I  would shout them at least one.

I had no idea there was a difference in cup size.  I'm always experimenting with different recipes from all over and this info will come in handy.  I need to write down measurements for some of my grandma's and great-grandma's recipes because I make them the same as they did-a pinch of this a glug of that.  One thing I was always amazed by as a kid looking at my great-grandmother's old cookbooks was the lack of cooking temperature,  only a medium or hot oven. Of course that would be a better discussion for another thread.

Paul Fookes wrote:Here is an excellent cooking converter: https://goodcalculators.com/cooking-conversion-calculator/
It converts almost anything to everything. Some one has done a huge amounts of work and if they were on Permies, there is no doubt they would never have to buy pie again.  I  would shout them at least one.

This is very cool.

Pitty it's missing Japanese cup size in the list.  I do a lot of cooking from Japanese cookbooks these days.  

Here is a neat little gadget that hangs on my fridge - with magnetic backing.
It is a very useful chart! Where I have problems converting is with grams to ounces or similar very small scale items.

r ranson wrote:Pitty it's missing Japanese cup size in the list.  I do a lot of cooking from Japanese cookbooks these days.  

Sorry, Best I can do at short notice: https://www.traditionaloven.com/culinary-arts/volume/convert-cup-jp-to-cup-us.html

L. Johnson may be the go to person,
Happy cooking.  You might have to do some cooking posts

Well I learned something new today. I had no idea pint, gallon, etc. are different sizes around the world.  

Many of my grandmother's recipes have no measurements, just ingredient lists. Sometimes I wonder if she couldn't estimate how much she used of something, or if she just wanted to keep her specialties a secret.