An impuslive experiment

General Homebrew Discussion
1

So in a fit of randomness i just drove down to my LHBS and bought the following
4 1 gallon clear jugs with caps and 3pc airlocks
10 lbs of maris otter
2 oz cascade pellets
2 oz willemetta pellets
3 oz simcoe leaf hops
2 oz citra pellets
1 packet of US-05
Plan: To make 4 1 gallon SMASH beers at a time using the same base malt and yeast, with 4 different hops.

Has anyone ever done anything like this in such a small scale?  Im hoping by doing this it will help me shore up my recipes, pallet and brewing science techniques.

2

I still do this to test out new ingredients. Here are the results of my last single-hop test batches:

http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=13485.msg171180#msg171180

I find it easier to use DME instead of all-grain for trialing hops, because you don’t need an extended boil. I can get 6 or 7 one-gallon batches done in the amount of time it takes for one all-grain brewday. I highly recommend doing SMaSH or something similar to learn about ingredients.

3

+1.  Takes some of the learning curve out of blending hops, for sure.

4

couple reasons why i didnt choose extract.

  1. I wasnt sure which extract i would want to try, or about how much i would need to do what im trying to do, so i just grabbed a few 5lb sacks of grain.
  2. I would like to eventaully open my own nanobrewery.  Like most of us im sure we all aspire to this, but my current job is just complete crap and im sick of it, so id like to further my brewing education, so grain was the way to go.  in the end i will also be doing this with different base malts as well.

gonna try and pick up the gear i need from my brew buddues house so i can do this this weekend.

5

I made a mini-mashtun out of a 2 gallon cylindrical cooler. Great for those experimental batches.

6

seems like the way to go for the hops experiment would be to mash all the grain together and run it off into one container to start so you can mix thoroughly then split it into your 4 1.5-2 gallon kettles and boil them all simultaneously (or stagger them a little so you don’t have to add hops to all 4 at the same moment). You should be able to do them all in the same time as a single batch.

7

that was my thought as well, but i wont have thge brew space or equipment im accustomed too, so i think im gonna go buy a smaller cooler and a piece of steel braid ala Denny and have a very small setup at my house.  hopefully i wont stink my folks out.

8

So for about 50 dollars i managed to get what i need to do all this at my home augmented with previously owned items.

5 Gallon Igloo Drink Cooler with Braid
4 1 Gallon Clear Glass jars with Stoppers and airlocks

So now the question is, if i am using a 1 gallon fermenting vessel, what is the safe limit to how much liquid i can put in it without the yeast head blowing out of the airlock?

9

.75 gallons tops. if you use anti-foam probably more like .85.

10

Cool, i think i put about 14 cups in it, and it will take 18.  i also left the jug inside a big stainless pot in case i get a squirter.

11

Brew 1

Ingredients
2 Lbs Maris Otter
2 Ozs Willametta Pellets

Process
Heated Mash Water to 168F.  Preheated Mash tun with hot tap water.
Doughed in and mash got to ~156 Degrees. Decided to mash for 30 minutes since it was such a small amount of grain.  Batch Sparged with 1 gallon of water at 175F.  Collected a total of 2.1 Gallons to Boil for 90 minutes

Hop Bill
.33 OZ @ 0 minutes 27 IBUs
.25 OZ @ 45 Minutes 22 IBU’s
.42 OZ @ 90 Minutes

Cooled to 70F and pitched 1/4 packet of US05 Dry Yeast
Gonna dry hop it with either all or some of that other OZ of pellets and see whats happens:)
Im pretty sure my math is right but if someone could doublecheck em and walk me threw it that would be great.
Id also like to try and figure out my Eff, which i think is something like
100% eff OG 1.072
my OG 1.048
so my eff is 67%?  and this would be brewhouse eff, correct?