What's your favorite way to measure stuff?
 

I'd prefer not to take a real measuring cup with me. In the past I've cooked oatmeal just fine by eyeballing it. I put two fists worth of stone ground oats and then an individual sized soy milk in the pot and cook it. But this time I'll also be cooking stuff like quinoa and that seems to want better measuring if you want fluffy vs. mushy.

I've thought of drawing calibration marks on a clear water bottle. But I don't recall seeing those at my LBS and I'm leaving for the mountains Saturday morning.

The bottom cover of my Jetboil is a graduated measuring cup. It's great for a coffee press or instant oatmeal. I don't think I could make rice with it, though, because it doesn't really throttle worth crap. I've burned chili and stew. I've had it a few years, I wonder if they've improved the valve?

My pot has measuring lines...

My favorite way to measure things is in metric with a nice set of calipers. I fail to see how that will help you here.

Not sure if it will help you but I always carry at least one old Performance water bottle with me that is clear and that I have marked up. Also the black umbrella like cap holds exactly 1/2 cup in volume. Convenient.

http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/m...g?t=1410445900

I use this. It's also my bowl and I can use it to dip water out of shallow springs or streams. It's basically a plastic version of the old Sierra cup.

That was going to be my response.

I figure more water will not hurt. You would need to drink it anyway. You are not baking a cake, so leeway is okay. So I am in the, "meh, close enough" house of on the road/trail measuring.

Simple, one liter pop bottle marked on the side of it. Works great as a water bottle and as a measuring cup. One other side benefit, it's free. You get the pop and then save the bottle.

Okay before you slam me with your BPA BS, remember this...man is not perfect and anything man makes is not perfect either. It'll all give you cancer. Look at the BPS in all paper products...it's far worse for you then BPA.

You've got a coffee mug, right? Just check it before you go to find out exactly how much it holds ... likely somewhere around 1.25 cups. Fill it with precisely the amount of quinoa you want to get a good idea of what that looks like. Fill it with the amount of water you need to get an idea of what that looks like.

I forgot when I was replying this morning...

Red Solo cups and their imitators are standard measurements at the trim lines. The lowest line is 1 oz. The 1/3 line is 5 oz. The lowest rib at the top is 12 oz. The full cup is 16 oz.

Starbucks cups and some Coke cups have marks on them. They're to show the level for various ingredients... fill ice to here, then soda to here. I did a quick Google for the lines on a Starbucks cup to see how much they were, but didn't find the answer I was looking for right off. I am sure it's out there, though.

Some/all of the Hammer Nutrition gel flasks I have have "servings" marks. I'm not sure what actual measurement they correspond with, but a person could figure that out quite easily.

I *could* take a coffee mug. Right now my coffee mug and my cooking pot are the same 20 oz stainless steel container. It's hard to visually remember what 8 oz looks like in that. It won't hurt to take a little plastic cup with lines on it though.

I inscribed lines denoting measurements in my pot.

Does no one bring triple beam balances and graduated cylinders?

I also us an inscribed metal cup.

Too thick = add more water

Too thin = cook more AND use less water next time

I apparently am unique in that I bring a plastic measuring cup. I used to use a water bottle with volumes marked on it with a magic marker, but I often found that the bottle with the marks on it was in use for some other purpose.

So use a measuring cup at home to put 8 oz. of water in it and then scratch a little line at that level. I've done that with my cooking pot so it has lines at .5, 1, 1.5, 2, and 3 cup levels.

Stanley adventure cup has graduations....which is the cup for my stove kit.

Eyeballing works pretty good for me, but I really don't cook anything that requires any sort of precision. I had my coffee cup marked out for 1/2 and 1 cup, but never used it once, I mean for measuring not for drinking coffee. I do plenty of that.

Yeah, that's what I do. I've got a semi transparent plastic mug with a scratch mark for my rice ration.

I'm useless at measuring different types of pasta and spaghetti 'tho :/

My butler does all my measuring for me, so I'll ask him . . . he said the cook does it.