I’ve got a 2 gallon cooler with a SS braid that I use for making 1 gallon batches. It works no problem.
I used a 2-gallon Coleman drink cooler back when I used to Partial Mash. Pulled out the spout and replaced with an SS braid - worked great.
I see this 2 gallon Coleman at the Dollar General by my house- for $12… A good price?
Hokerer did you use a bung when you removed the spout? Please esplain! 
Anyway, I’m transitioning to smaller batches. Doing 2 gallons at a time seems to me more fun and less time consuming. Quite frankly all the joy has gone out of the 9+ hour brew days and ending up with 12 gallons of so-so beer. I want to fine-tune my recipes and do some experimenting.
Cap’s idea of the coffee-urn sounds interesting. With a thermostat controller it might be a good solution for some folks. The coffee pot approach seems a little iffy but OK if you only want two beers- which might be good for some flavor experimentation.
I left the spout in and just attached the ss screen to it. It doesn’t hold on too great, but well enough for a batch. $12 seems like a good deal, I’m pretty sure mine was $20.
I have the 2gal cooler, removed the spout, put a drilled stopper in there, put a piece of copper thru it and attached the screen to it and a hose on the outside, works like a champ.
Thanks Tom. I’ve persuaded myself to buy it for the season. What do you use on the outlet side?
That’s a great idea!
I don’t use anything, just run it out into a little pot that I then dump in to a big pot for boiling. I like the stopper idea though, that’s a good one.
but Rickeeeeeeeyyyy No, I used two hose barb fittings back to back. They have female threads so I stuck a union? (the thingy with male threads on both ends) in between. One barb to the inside for the braid, one barb to the outside for the hose. Oh, and I re-used the washers from the spout.
That’s another great idea!
I’ve got a 3 gal Rubbermaid tun that I got from Midwest that I use to mini-mash. Easily handles 4-5 lbs of grain, so you could even use it for all-grain if you’re only doing a couple gallon batch. I like the tun way more than messing with grain bags.
I started mashing 2 years ago in a two-gallon cooler with a SS braid. When I moved up to 5 gallons, I just unbolted the parts and moved it over to the new cooler; I could easily use the smaller cooler again if I felt like it. Parts list here, with illustrations. The only sketchy part is I still need fender washers to prevent a slight wobble. Ok, the second sketchy part is the coolers aren’t blue. Life ain’t perfect!
I have a similar igloo 2 gallon cooler. Bought it last weekend. Drilled the plastic tap out with a 1/2" bit and then slid a section of 1/2" OD vinyl tubing through the tap. It leaked a little but some teflon tape took care of that. Might use a dab of silicon to finish it off but meh. Not something to worry me overmuch.
Looking forward to brewing some small experimental batches.
Merry xmas!
It does! My setup, which I actually use mostly for 3-gallon batches, has almost all those parts at this point, just to fit smaller brews, deck brewing, and a 6-foot bookcase in a city apartment (though the banjo burner fits under my printer table). Sort of like “The Borrowers Homebrew,” if you remember that children’s series.
Awesome dude! That looks like a cool setup for small batches! I used to do 3 gallon batches, thinking about going back to them, for kicks. I started off with a 3 gallon cooler with a ball valve setup, then got a 5 gallon cooler and moved the ball valve over. I boiled in a 5 gallon kettle on a gas stove. I pushed the envelope sometimes getting 4 1/2 gallons in the kettle and managing not to boil over…it was precarious. But it worked! And I made some of the best beer of my brewing career with that little setup. Bottle it up and get about 30 bottles of beer, pretty neat really. If I move and have to live in an apartment, I will likely go back to doing this.
I use a 5 gallon igloo cooler with a bazooka screen and ball valve. I do 2.5 gallon batches, so the extra space in the tun allows me to do all-grain, even for high gravity beers. I’m also experimenting with no-sparge methods.
I did a few partial mash batches using the BIB method, and quickly found it very tedious and messy. Getting the cooler setup was just about the best money I’ve spent on equipment.
the issue to me isn’t the brewing. it is getting a smaller fermentation chamber, and most importantly kegging. i have found a 2.5 gallon hdpe carboy that may work, for 12 bucks but also interested in those 6 liter pet bottles from tap a draft. anyone use these
Does a smaller vessel brew faster or does it take just as long to reach complete fermentation? I’ve got a 1 gallon and a 5 gallon going and the 1 started slower (it was my starter jug) and seemed to finish quicker but I haven’t taken a final gravity yet. If it does, I may go to more little fermenters. Just can’t be patient.
my guess is that if you assume the same gravity at onset then it would likely depend on starter size. 1 million cells would polish off 1 gallon before it could polish off 5 gallons. 5 million cells would probably get the job done as fast. roughly, i am sure that you have to take in to account thermal loss changes in the volume to surface area as well as oxygen, nutrients etc. and how these play in to the sugar consumption
I just did 9L batch on the stove top.
It’s so easy I don’t know why anyone would want to complicate it.