Firkin

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Firkin

A Firkin is an old English unit of volume. The name is derived from the Middle Dutch

Middle Dutch

Middle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects which were spoken and written between 1150 and 1500. There was at that time as yet no overarching standard language, but they were all mutually intelligible....
word vierdekijn, which means fourth, i.e. a fourth of a full-size barrel.

Nor need you mind the serial ordeal
Of being watched from forty cellar holes
As if by eye pairs out of forty firkins.
— Robert Frost
Robert Frost

Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech....
, "Directive"

For beer

Beer

Beer is the world's oldest and most widely consumed alcoholic beverage and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and Fermentation of starches, mainly derived from cereal?the most common of which is malted barley, although wheat, maize , and rice are widely used....
and ale

Ale

Ale is a type of beer brewed from malted barley using a top-fermenting yeast brewers' yeast. This yeast Fermentation the beer quickly, giving it a sweet, full bodied and fruity taste....
a firkin is equal to nine imperial

Imperial unit

Imperial units or the imperial system is a system of units, first defined in the British Weights and Measures Act of 1824, later refined and reduced....
gallon

Gallon

A gallon is a measure of volume of approximately four litres. Historically it has had many different definitions, but there are three definitions in current use....
s or a quarter of a barrel

Barrel (unit)

The barrel is the name of several units of measurement of volume, generally in the range of about 100-200 L ....
(40.91481 litre

Litre

The litre or liter is a unit of volume. There are two official symbols: the Latin letter L in lower and upper case . The lower case L is often written as a cursive l to avoid confusion with the number 1 in antiqua fonts....
s).

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Encyclopedia

A Firkin is an old English unit of volume. The name is derived from the Middle Dutch

Middle Dutch

Nor need you mind the serial ordeal
Of being watched from forty cellar holes
As if by eye pairs out of forty firkins.
— Robert Frost
Robert Frost

Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech....
, "Directive"

For beer

Beer

Ale

Imperial unit

Imperial units or the imperial system is a system of units, first defined in the British Weights and Measures Act of 1824, later refined and reduced....
gallon

Gallon

A gallon is a measure of volume of approximately four litres. Historically it has had many different definitions, but there are three definitions in current use....
s or a quarter of a barrel

Barrel (unit)

The barrel is the name of several units of measurement of volume, generally in the range of about 100-200 L ....
(40.91481 litre

Litre

Cask ale

Cask ale or cask-conditioned beer is the term for filtration and pasteurization beer which is conditioned and served from a cask without additional nitrogen or carbon dioxide pressure....
.

For wine

Wine

Wine is an alcoholic beverage often made of fermentation grape juice. The natural chemical balance of grapes is such that they can ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes or other nutrients....
the firkin had a larger size, namely a third of a tun

Tun (unit)

The tun is an old English unit of wine cask volume, holding about 1 E-1 m?, almost a cubic metre. Etymologically it is identical to the ton, a unit of mass or weight....
. A tun being 210 gallons in the UK and 252 fluid gallons in the US, thus a wine firkin is about 318 L (318.226 or 317.975). It is also called tertian or, preferably, puncheon

Puncheon

----__FORCETOC__...
(in the US also shortened to pon).

Butter

Butter

Butter is a dairy product made by churning fresh or fermentation cream or milk. It is generally used as a spread and a condiment, as well as in cooking applications such as baking, sauce making, and frying....
and soap

SOAP

SOAP, originally defined as Simple Object Access Protocol, is a protocol specification for exchanging structured information in the implementation of Web Services in computer networks....
used to be sold by the firkin, too. In these cases it was rather a measure of mass, 56 lb

Pound (mass)

The pound or pound-mass is a Units of measurement of massused in the Imperial unit, United States customary units and other systems of measurement....
(25.4 kg

Kilogram

The kilogram or kilogrammeThe spelling kilogram is used by the International Committee for Weights and Measures and the U.S....
) and 64 lb (29.0 kg) respectively.

The term firkin is currently used to refer to antique wooden buckets, usually with wood handle and lid, about 10 inches (250 mm) high and 10 inches in diameter (about 10L or 2-3 dry gallons in capacity), formerly used to store sugar and other items.

The firkin (a firkin of water) is the base unit of mass in the humorous FFF System

FFF System

The Furlong/Firkin/Fortnight system is a set of units that uses impractical and outdated measurements. It is a List of strange units of measurement#FFF units and is not used in practice....
.