Firkins to Liters (firkin to L)

1 firkin equals 40.91481 liters exactly.

1 firkin = 40.91481 liters

How to convert firkins to liters

To convert firkins to liters, multiply the number of firkins by 40.91481. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply liters by 0.02444102759 (rounded).

liters = firkins × 40.91481

Example: 10 firkins = 409.1481 liters.

Pints, quarts, gallons and fluid ounces differ between the US and the UK. Units are labeled 'US' or 'imperial' to avoid confusion.

About these units

Firkin (firkin)

Imperial (British)Traditional unit (still used in some regions)

9 imperial gallons (40.9 L), a quarter of a barrel. A traditional cask size for beer.

Probably from Middle English ferdekyn, which in turn likely comes from a Middle Dutch diminutive of vierde, fourth, the firkin is literally a little quarter: a quarter of a barrel. For beer in Britain that means 9 imperial gallons, about 41 liters (40.9 L here), or 72 imperial pints.

The word has been used for other goods too. A wine firkin was much bigger, at 70 imperial gallons by one reckoning, while British butter and cheese were sold by the firkin of 56 pounds, about 25 kilograms. An American dry firkin of 9 US gallons is only about 34 liters, and the word could also mean any small wooden tub for butter, lard or fish. Authors such as William Robinson in 1825 treated it as a recognised trade measure.

1 firkin = 40.91481 liters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Firkin (unit); Wikipedia: Barrel (unit); Wikipedia: Cask ale

Liter (L)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One cubic decimeter (1,000 cm³). The everyday metric unit of volume for drinks, fuel and cooking.

The liter was born in revolutionary France. In 1795 it was introduced as a republican unit and defined as one cubic decimeter, while the gram was tied to a cubic centimeter of water. The name comes from the older French litron, itself descended from a Byzantine Greek unit of weight, not volume. A small revision of the decimeter in 1798 left the first liter about 1.000974 of today's cubic decimeter, and in 1879 the international metric authorities adopted the liter with the symbol l.

The liter then took a strange detour. In 1901 it was redefined as the space taken up by one kilogram of pure water at its densest, which made it about 1.000028 cubic decimeters, and that muddled definition lasted until 1964, when it was restored to exactly one cubic decimeter. A capital L was added as an alternative symbol in 1979 because a lowercase l is easy to mistake for the digit 1, and NIST says L is the symbol to use in the United States. A liter of water is close to a kilogram, which is why a one-liter bottle feels like a kilo in the hand.

The liter is the reference unit for volume on this site.

Sources: Wikipedia: Litre; NIST Guide to the SI, Chapter 5: units outside the SI

Related conversions

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