Need to Convert Grams to Milliliters? Know your Substance!
One thing you need to know is this kind of conversion depends on the substance. Not all substances were created equal, some are heavier than others. For example, corn syrup is heavy, one milliliter of it weighs almost 1.5 grams. Cake flour is light, one milliliter of it weighs about 0.4 grams. There are substances even heavier than corn syrup or lighter than cake flour.
Does it mean the conversion is always cumbersome and there is no easy answer? No, it does not! Read on.
What is The Most Typical Substance? It is Water. And it's Easy.
Water is probably the most typical substance on Earth. What's good about it? The conversion from grams to ml for water is extremely easy. One gram of pure water is exactly one milliliter. Nice, huh?
The second good thing is many if not most liquid things we use in our everyday life are water-based. That means they weigh close to water and unless we care about high precision, we can use the same conversion. For example, one ml of sea water weighs 1.02 grams, one ml of milk weighs 1.03 grams. Not exactly one gram, but do you always care about such a small difference?
Simple Conversion Chart for Water-Based Substances
Please don't forget, this chart is exactly correct for pure water. It your substance is close to water, e.g. a water-based solution, the chart will be also applicable, but the actual result might be a bit off. Do not use this table for substances that are not water-based.
| Unit | Equals to |
|---|---|
| 1 gram | 1 milliliter or 0.001 liters |
| 1 kilogram | 1000 milliliters or 1 liter |
| 1 milligram | 0.001 milliliters or 0.000001 liters |
| 1 milliliter | 1 gram or 0.001 kilograms |
| 1 liter | 1000 grams or 1 kilogram |
What if my substance is different?
For substances that are not water-based the table above does not work. There is another easy solution though. We have two special online conversion pages where you pick your substance, type the amount you have, and it gets instantly converted to other units. Try these out:
- Cooking Ingredients Converter. This converter covers most typical cooking ingredients.
- Weight to Volume Converter. This one covers many other substances that are not food.