With the “cool” weather coming back to North Florida, I’ve been inspired to start brewing again. Based on my lackluster results in the past, I want to start doing 1 gallons again. In part because I don’t want to pour out 4.5 gallons of beer because it’s not kick-ass and because of the general energy I expend doing the larger batches (cleaning, storage, etc.)…I’m lazy.
-Is anyone here doing solid one gallon batches?
-I’m considering using something other than 2 row, perhaps MO.
-Also considering doing the same damn recipe with small tweaks over and over until I’m happy
-Any thoughts on doing a partial mash similar to the way Brooklyn Brewshop instructs on their one gallon kits?
(Below is a link to one of their recipes, I think it’s considered partial mash) http://brooklynbrewshop.com/directions/Brooklyn%20Brew%20Shop%20-%20Everyday%20IPA%20Instructions.pdf
I did a lot of 1 and 3 gallon batches over the past two years since I was tight on time/space. It was actually pretty awesome because I could brew a few batches at the same time with minimal mess.
I do 1 gallon batches when I have my homegrown-home malted grain. But that’s mostly been experimentation, since I don’t have the space to grow too much grain. I basically BIAB on the stovetop.
Hopefully I can get this year’s crop malted soon & start again.
No one gallon batches for me, but I’ve done a couple of two gallons lately for blending with disappointing five gallon batches!
The Brooklyn recipes are actually all-grain, and very easy to do if you’ve got a decent sized strainer. I’d definitely go that route if you’re trying to change things up.
Subbing MO for American 2-row can make a difference, but it’s not necessarily the answer to lackluster beers. What is it you’re trying to change? What don’t you like about your last few batches? Maybe there’s an opportunity to make a procedural change instead.
One gallon would be a cool way to go when trying to perfect a recipe or process issue. I think I would go with a batch size that is well suited to a smack pack of yeast unstarted. That could be one gallon, or two or five I suppose. For bottling I think I would go with bombers just to limit the cleaning sanitizing work.
I can tell you dry hopping a 1 gallon batch sucks!! You lose so much beer to the trub and there’s so little to start. I did a 5 gallon batch and split it into 5 1 gallon jugs and dry hopped each separately.
The worst part was bottling…I had to empty all the equipment I had stored in my bottling bucket that I haven’t used in about 5 years.
I have a bunch of test recipes I want to do…beer, mead and cider. I do like the idea of checking out the recipe before moving up to 5 gallons.
If you have a big enough pot, consider doing a brew in a bag (BIAB) mash. Don’t need a ton of room for 1 gallon.
So perhaps I’m looking at doing all-grain or BIAB one gallon batches (based on the ease of the recipe I linked to above). Aside from 2-3 stockpots for all grain,can anyone recommend a strainer that would be appropriate for this size of brew?
TL:DR, BIAB or All grain for one gallon lazy batches?
Probably 90% of my brewing is one gallon batches these days. Next year I plan on doing more 2-3 gallon batches so I can peel off an extra gallon for souring or aging so I have a supply of beers to blend down the road. Don’t feel limited by the size of the batch. You can brew pretty much anything at a smaller size. I have done all kinds of fruit additions, dry hopping, wood aging, souring, etc. on small batches.
If you already have the equipment from doing partial boil extract batches (particularly a 2+ gallon kettle) then you are pretty close to having everything you need to brew small batches. You need an adequate fermentor and a place to mash. I use those five liter wine jugs as fermentors but there are other options out there. Many people brew smaller batches on the stove top as BIAB but I prefer using a two gallon cooler because I never had stable mash temperatures on the stove. Either way, you are $20 or less away from a full all grain set up.
Brewing a recipe over and over to perfect it is a better strategy than brewing it once or twice each year and hoping you remember what you wanted to change but don’t feel like you must perfect one recipe before you move on to the next. One gallon of beer will yield 10 bottles at most (if you tweak your system well you might get that 11th bottle) and often you will only get 8-9 after accounting for trub. That isn’t that much beer. You could easily work on 2-3 recipes at a time with some other stuff thrown in to keep it interesting. However, I’d say brew some good recipes to get acclimated to your set up and then start working on recipe development. Your technique will improve after a few batches and you may find that some of the early changes you made to a recipe were really about your technique.
You will definitely spend some time with your bottling equipment with one gallon batches unless you want to buy one gallon kegs (which run around $100 each) or burn a lot of CO2 filling three or five gallon kegs with one gallon of beer.
I used this bag quite a bit until I got a true purpose-made BIAB bag, and it works just fine. I’d either BIAB in the kettle in a preheated oven, or BIAB using a small cooler. The smaller the batch size, the less thermal mass and the easier it is to lose heat. I’m not a huge fan of heating the mash directly (I’m concerned about hot spots), but I do think you lose enough heat in smaller batches that you need a way to insulate the mash for BIAB.
I’m about to start doing 1-2 gallon batches. I won’t stop doing 5+ gallon batches but I’ve come to realize that I am not learning as fast as I want because I can only find the time to do a 5 gal AG batch about once/month. A small batch I can do on a weeknight, and cleanup is so much less. Also, I’ll actually making more beer because I’ll do it more often. I plan on doing BIAB on the kitchen stove, not sure about keeping mash temp in the oven or getting a small cooler.
How many gallons can you BIAB easily in a 5 gallon pot? I’m thinking at least 2.
Likewise…doing some further research and BIAB sounds like where I’m heading. Putting hot liquids in a cooler still freaks me out for some reason. Although at the rate that I brew and drink homebrews, I shouldn’t be worried about ingesting anything bad for me!
I like the idea of brewing a five gallon batch and then fermenting each gallon differently, with different dry hops and varying times in the fermentor, etc, to see which tweaks to the process work best for a particular recipe. I have not been able to do so yet but it is a goal for this winter.
There are a ton of advantages to brewing smaller batches. I only brew 1/3 size batches (1.67 gallons) these days. This gets me about 13-14 bottles, i.e., a little more than a couple 6-packs. A 1-gallon batch is way too small to be worth the effort IMHO, because you’ll only get about one 6-pack for all your efforts. But 14 bottles… that I can do.
You really need to just BIAB. You can easily do all-grain that way and have more control over the beer’s destiny. This way you can knock out a decent batch in 3 hours on brew day, or even less if you make that a goal. So the time savings is huge. Plus you can brew as often as you like and run more experiments. And there will be enough to enjoy more than 6 or 7 of them, but a full 12-pack and then some.
The last 3 batches we brewed were 5 gallons each. Down from the usual 10 gallons! These were all something a little different, somimdisn’t want to do 10 gallons. Old dog, new tricks.
I ferment small batches in 2 gallon buckets. I think I paid $6-7 each with lid and stopper. I’m considering ordering some mr beer fermenters. The spigot would make bottling much easier. They are only $10 each plus shipping.
Oh… but are you sure you really wanted to ask me that? Well, here goes…
I’m super ultra mega ghetto… even “worse” than Denny. It is a bragging point for me how simple my equipment and process is. I’ve used the same 5-gallon stainless kettle for 15 years, and still do. I usually BIAB in the kettle. For sparge water, I have a 2 gallon pot on the side, and I have a big colander and drain and quasi-“fly sparge” all the runnings into an old 6-gallon bucket, then pour it back into the kettle again. I do not own a turkey fryer burner or equivalent, and I do all my boils in the house on the stovetop. Always have, always will. Works great. I also do not own a chiller. Don’t need to. I chill in a bucket or the kettle in a tub sink with cold water. After 15 minutes, drain the cool water bath and fill it up again with fresh cold water. A few minutes later, you’re ready to pitch. I do not own an aeration stone or O2 or CO2 tanks. To aerate, I stir or shake the living crap out of the wort for 5 minutes. Works fine. I ferment in 3-gallon glass carboys. I used plastic buckets for many many years but they experienced contamination too often so now I have just a couple buckets for collecting runoff as explained previously but otherwise use solely glass for all fermentations. Exception is for small 1-gallon batches of cider where I ferment directly in the plastic milk jugs that the juice came in, or in cases where I juice my own apples, I sanitize milk jugs and for the most part keep them fermenting and stored in my refrigerator in the 40s Fahrenheit. Other than that I do not own a fermentation refrigerator, and I conduct all fermentations in one of several locations in my house, either at 68 F (upstairs closet), 74 F (on top of the computer desk), 62-64 F (basement in summer), or 52-55 F (basement in winter), garage (variable but very cold in fall thru spring). I also advocate the use of a wet t-shirt and fan to reduce fermentation temperature by approximately 5 degrees in any of the above locations. In doing so, I am able to perform good fermentations most any time of the year.
I do have a round orange cooler for bigger batches but I only use it once a year for my annual 4.5 to 6 gallon batch for the local brewfest. In these cases, I either borrow a turkey fryer burner and chiller, or I boil the wort on stovetop in 3 big pots and continue to chill in the tub sink. Usually I do the latter. It works fine. I do own one 5-gallon glass carboy, so rarely I will use that, but I can also just split the annual big batch into two 3-gallon carboys, in which case I have also experimented with different yeasts, different fermentation temperatures, etc.
I don’t mean to brag but merely to state a fact: I do make pretty great beer with these methods and equipment. Homebrewing is just so gosh darn cheap ‘n’ easy, cavemen can do it. We don’t NEED to turn it into the crazy science and engineering projects, we really truly don’t need to. Anyone with any very basic equipment can win Ninkasi. I’m positive of this. It’s not something I’m going for personally right now, although it might be the subject of the occasional daydream that makes me smile to think about.