I float the canister in a large measuring cup and use the amount of water displaced (final volume - initial volume) to determine the weight. That tells me (from the intial weight on the bottom of the canister) how much I have used. If you do not have a measuring cup that large you can use your technique, put the canister in a pot, fill with a measured amount of water to the top, subtract that from the capacity of the pot & have your weight. Another way would be to put the canister in the pot and fill it with water, take the canister out then measure the amount of water required to fill the pot again. There are, I'm sure, other methods of using displacement to weigh anything that floats, just remember that the weight of water displaced is equal to the weight of the object.
Ah, I get it. Nice. With your technique, you can make much better estimate of how much fuel you have left.
When you get home, do you weigh the canister again? Are your water based estimates pretty close to your scale-based weights? I imagine they'd be pretty close.
The one advantage of my technique is that you can get a rough estimate at a glance, much like the fuel gauge on a car, without having to do any calculations, but your technique is quite a bit more precise.
HJ
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