It sounds like a simple math problem. You go to the farmers' market, you see a basket of apples, and you wonder how many gallons of cider that might actually make. Or maybe you're measuring out grain for livestock. You Google how many gallons to a bushel, expecting a single, clean number.
But it's not that simple. Honestly, it's a bit of a headache.
Depending on where you are standing and what you are measuring, the answer changes. If you are in the United States, one US bushel is roughly equal to 9.309 gallons. But wait. That is for "liquid" gallons, which we don't even usually use for bushels because bushels are a dry measure. If you use the less common "dry gallon," the answer is exactly 8 gallons.
Confused yet? You should be. The history of measurement is a chaotic story of kings, tax collectors, and international disagreements that still affect how we buy corn and apples today.
Why the answer to how many gallons to a bushel depends on your map
If you cross the Atlantic, everything changes. The British, in their infinite wisdom, decided back in 1824 to toss out their old systems and adopt the Imperial system.
In the UK, a bushel is exactly 8 Imperial gallons. That sounds cleaner, right? But an Imperial gallon is larger than a US gallon. An Imperial gallon is about 4.54 liters, while our US gallon is about 3.78 liters.
So, a British bushel is about 36.37 liters.
A US bushel is about 35.24 liters.
It’s a small difference on paper. A liter here, a liter there. But if you are shipping thousands of tons of grain across the ocean, that "small" discrepancy becomes a massive financial nightmare. This is why international trade almost exclusively uses metric tonnes or kilograms now. They just got tired of arguing about whose bucket was bigger.
The Winchester Bushel
In the States, we still use what is called the Winchester Bushel. It’s old. Like, "King Edgar the Peaceful in the 10th century" old. It was named after the city of Winchester in England, where the original physical standard was kept. We kept it after the Revolution because, well, changing things is hard.
A Winchester bushel is defined as a cylinder 18.5 inches in diameter and 8 inches deep. If you do the geometry—and please don't feel like you have to—you get a volume of about 2,150.42 cubic inches.
The Dry Gallon vs. Liquid Gallon Trap
Most people don't realize that the US technically has two different gallons. There is the one you put in your car or your milk fridge—the liquid gallon. Then there is the dry gallon.
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We almost never use the dry gallon anymore. It's like a ghost in the American measurement system. But it's the key to understanding how many gallons to a bushel without losing your mind.
By definition, a bushel is 8 dry gallons.
If you are at a feed store and someone says "8 gallons to a bushel," they are being technically correct in a dry-volume sense. But if you take an 8-gallon aquarium and try to dump a bushel of oats into it, it's going to overflow. That's because the aquarium is measured in liquid gallons. To fit that bushel, you’d actually need a 9.3-gallon container.
It’s a quirk of history that makes DIY projects and farming math way more complicated than it needs to be.
Weight vs. Volume: The Real-World Problem
Here is where it gets actually useful. Farmers don't really care about the "volume" of a bushel as much as they care about the weight.
If you buy a bushel of feathers and a bushel of lead shot, you have the same volume, but your truck is going to feel very different. Because of this, the USDA and various state departments of agriculture have "legal weights" for a bushel of different commodities.
This isn't just trivia; it's how people get paid.
What a bushel actually weighs (it varies!)
- Corn (Shelled): 56 pounds.
- Wheat and Soybeans: 60 pounds.
- Oats: 32 pounds.
- Barley: 48 pounds.
- Apples: Usually 42 to 48 pounds depending on the state.
Imagine you're a truck driver. You're told you have 500 bushels of grain. If that grain is oats, you're carrying 16,000 pounds. If it's wheat, you're carrying 30,000 pounds. That is a massive difference in fuel consumption and wear and tear.
The "Heaped" Bushel Mystery
Have you ever seen someone at a fruit stand pile the peaches up so high they're falling off the top? That’s a "heaped" bushel.
Standard calculations for how many gallons to a bushel assume a "struck" bushel—meaning the top is scraped flat. But for things like bulky fruits or charcoal, a heaped bushel is the industry standard. A heaped bushel is generally considered to be about 1.25 times the volume of a struck bushel.
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So, if a flat bushel is roughly 9.3 liquid gallons, a heaped bushel is closer to 11.6 gallons.
If you're buying at a roadside stand, look at the basket. If it’s flat, you’re getting the minimum. If it’s heaped, the farmer is being generous. Or they just have a lot of peaches they need to get rid of before they go soft.
Kitchen Conversions: From the Field to the Pot
Maybe you aren't a farmer. Maybe you just bought a bushel of tomatoes because they were on sale and now you’re panicking because you need to know how many jars of sauce you're going to be canning until 3:00 AM.
A bushel of tomatoes weighs about 53 pounds.
That translates to roughly 18 to 22 quarts of canned tomatoes.
Since there are 4 quarts in a gallon, a bushel of tomatoes gives you about 5 gallons of finished, canned product. This is a great example of how volume "shrinks" during processing. You start with nearly 10 gallons of raw, whole tomatoes (by volume) and end up with about 5 gallons of sauce.
Quick Cheat Sheet for Home Use
If you're trying to figure out container sizes for storage, use these rough estimates:
- A Peck: This is a quarter of a bushel. It’s about 2.3 liquid gallons. Think of those small paper bags at the apple orchard.
- Half-Bushel: About 4.6 gallons. These are usually the round wooden baskets with the wire handles.
- The Full Bushel: About 9.3 gallons. If you have a 10-gallon Rubbermaid tote, a bushel will fit inside it with a little room to spare at the top.
Why Don't We Just Use Metric?
Every time I look into this, I wonder why we still do it this way.
The metric system uses liters. A liter of water weighs exactly one kilogram. It's beautiful. It's logical. 1,000 liters is a cubic meter.
In the US, we're stuck with "how many gallons to a bushel" because our entire infrastructure is built on it. Grain elevators, semi-truck trailers, and even international futures markets like the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) still trade in bushels.
If we changed to metric tomorrow, every grain elevator in the Midwest would need to recalibrate their software, their scales, and their brains. It’s a classic case of path dependency. We use it because we’ve always used it, and because the cost of changing is higher than the annoyance of doing the math.
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Real-World Example: The Garden Bed
I once tried to calculate how much compost I needed for a raised garden bed. The bags were sold in "cubic feet," but the bulk delivery guy sold by the "bushel" (mostly for smaller truckloads), and my neighbor told me I needed "about 50 gallons."
Here is the math I had to do:
- 1 cubic foot is about 7.48 liquid gallons.
- 1 bushel is about 1.24 cubic feet.
- 1 bushel is about 9.3 liquid gallons.
I ended up just ordering a "yard" (27 cubic feet) because at least that's a standard unit most trucks use. But it goes to show that these old units still pop up in the weirdest places, usually when you’re standing in a hardware store parking lot feeling confused.
Actionable Steps for Using Bushels Today
If you find yourself needing to convert these units, don't just wing it. You'll end up with too much or too little, and both outcomes suck.
1. Identify your gallon. Are you using a standard liquid bucket (like a 5-gallon Homer bucket from Home Depot)? If yes, remember that a bushel is 9.3 of those gallons. Two 5-gallon buckets will almost perfectly hold one bushel of material.
2. Check the "Test Weight."
If you are buying grain for animals, ask for the test weight. A bushel of "heavy" oats is better value than a bushel of "light" oats, even though the volume is the same. The heavy oats have more nutrients and less hull.
3. Use the "Rule of Two."
For most practical, non-scientific purposes, just remember that one bushel equals two 5-gallon buckets. It's not perfectly precise—you'll have a little gap at the top—but for gardening, feeding horses, or collecting apples, it’s the most useful "real world" conversion you can have.
4. Account for "Settling."
If you measure out a bushel of grain and then drive twenty miles down a bumpy dirt road, it won't look like a bushel anymore. It will have settled. The volume decreases, but the weight stays the same. Always measure at the point of sale.
Understanding how many gallons to a bushel isn't just about a number. It's about knowing that our measurement system is a collection of historical accidents. Whether you’re canning tomatoes or buying corn, keep your bucket size in mind and always check if you're dealing with liquid or dry volume.