When I started all grain, it was with 2.5-3 gal batches. It made the expense low and allowed me to experiment a lot as I was brewing very often at that time. I had a different schedule back then, now with a bigger family and working a different schedule I made the jump to 6 gal batches when I started kegging about 3 yrs ago. Some of them smaller batches were my best ever. I brew less often now, but concentrate on quality. Most of my beer is consumed by guests or given out to friends. I have only a couple beers a week, sometimes none at all. I brew because I love everyting about it, start to finish. Taking an idea and creating something from scratch that I invisioned. I would brew even if I couldn’t drink the beer I made.
Another option for variety would be to brew split batches. You could produce your usual 5-6 gallons of wort and split it between fermenters with different yeasts, fruit, dry hops, etc. You could get twice as many batches as brewdays with a little planning.
That is a fabulous suggestion! I have been wanting to branch out with more yeasts lately and that would be a great way to do it.
This is why I am exploring the blended Parti-gyle method. Twice as much beer off of one grain bill and if blended pre-boil, you can add dissimilar sugars, hops, etc. and get some variety. I’ve got my daughter coming at the end of the month and I’ll be on the 2 child crazy train for a while. When I come back to brewing though it will be with a blended Parti-gyle BDSA/Dubbel.
I moved to 3G batches (2.5G in keg) this summer. I like it so much I sold my Speidel 30L and bought a 5G big mouth bubbler. I just bought two 2.5G kegs. I love those. I am about to sell my 5G cornies.
For a long time I was hesitant to do the same work for less beer. In the end, that is a mental barrier I am very happy to have gotten over. I brew about every 3-4 weeks now.
The only time that I disassemble a keg is when I am experiencing a problem. I do disassemble my picnic faucets from time-to-time, but my cleaning process takes care of any build up. After rinsing out the precipitate that settles during aging and serving, I fill the keg with hot water, oxygen bleach, and unscented liquid dishwashing detergent. I then depress the poppet on the liquid connector, which causes the liquid tube to fill. I top off the keg with hot water, and let it soak for about thirty minutes with the lid dangling in the keg with the lid o-ring loose. I then seal the lid, attach the picnic faucet assembly, pressurize the keg, and let cleaning solution purge the CO2 and beer than remains in the line. The entire setup is allowed to soak for another thirty minutes before emptying all but about a gallon of the cleaning solution from the keg. The lid is re-installed and CO2 is used to push the remaining cleaning solution through the picnic assembly that is still attached to keg. The keg is then rinsed thoroughly with hot water before being filled with about a gallon of hot water that is used to flush the residual cleaning solution from the liquid tube and picnic faucet assembly using CO2. The process sounds complex, but I can do it in my sleep. My picnic faucets remain squeaky clean because the faucet that is assigned to a keg gets cleaned every time the keg gets cleaned. I sanitize my kegs with iodophor.
+1. I just made this decision as well, moving to smaller 2.5 gallon batches. I think that it frees me up to do more experimental beers too. Dumping 2 gallons vs. 4.5 is more palatable to me in the case that I may not like the beer. I can still brew the 5 gallon batches of seasonals that I know my friends will drink at parties.
This is a neat idea I’d like to explore as well. I just need a those 2.5 gallon kegs. Be great to be able to ferment each half in a 5 gallon keg and close-transfer them to their serving kegs and get two beers out of 1 brew session.
Thanks for the feedback guys. The split batch idea seems like the best option for my situation so I will probably start experimenting with after the next batches that I already have scheduled. I might up my normal batch size a bit so I could get 6 gallons of wort into the fermenters.
I split my batches every time I brew. I brewed 16 gallons of Saison 3 weeks ago. I used 3 different yeasts. I just pulled gravity samples for the first time and I have 3 amazingly different Saison beers. What I like is the opportunity to try so many different yeasts. I think the split batches for you is a great idea. I’ve been using yeasts from other suppliers too, other than WL and WY. If I didn’t have so many people drinking my beer, I would go to smaller batches for sure.
I really want to branch out with yeast. Right now I mainly use dry yeast so the opportunity to use more liquid yeast without needing to make a starter is very appealing. I have not done any direct comparisons so it would be cool for me to do basic things like comparing a lager yeast to US05 or something. That will really help me dial in my recipes because right now I just kind of have default yeasts that I use because they are convenient. When I visited White Labs a few months ago it was pretty interesting to taste the same beer with 4 different yeasts.
Its mainly my wife and I that I brew for, and she really just drinks hoppy beers. We don’t drink every night so 5 gallons tends to become a chore to drink if it isn’t something we both love, especially if its something only I am drinking. I bought the 3 gallon pin lock kegs from adventures in homebrewing when they were on sale. I got them to make smaller batches and to have more variety. I have a small kegerator with only have two taps. I have been really happy with them. I have ball locks on all my 5 gallon kegs, but I have flared fittings so switching out isn’t a problem. If it is something I know we both will want, I brew 5 gallons, if not, I do 3 gallons. I like the flexibility. The main problem is a good beer goes twice as fast in a keg half the size. Twice the amount of disappointing times of blowing foam. I have split batches using different yeasts which is pretty cool. It takes less time for me, I can do everything in my kitchen, and there is definitely more variety. For my next batch I plan on splitting it and trying different hops and maybe different yeasts.
Moving to liquid yeast will really change the way you look at your beers. I had to go to canning wort because all the starters for larger batches ate up too much time. That will be a huge advantage to smaller batches. Direct pitch would be fantastic!
A huge +1 to the idea of split batch brewing. It is very informative (and fun) to compare the impact of yeast on the exact same wort and it gives you two beers to drink from one brewing session. I’ve done this a lot with saison yeasts and really enjoy the results. The only downside I can see is if you end up with two yeast strains that perform more or less similarly - then you really only have one beer to drink (but twice as much I suppose!).
As this thread has shown, there are lots of ways to scale down. It’s interesting to hear how many people have scaled back for various reasons. When I got into this hobby, I explicitly wanted to avoid early burnout and thus smaller batches that are all bottle conditioned has helped me do that by keeping things simple. Whatever works for you!
I enjoy reading that some brewers enjoy bottling and have no desire to keg. That’s neat. If I brewed smaller than 2.5 gallon batches, I’d probably also bottle. I do like to do a lot of lagers and I feel kegging really helps with those styles.
I’m still experimenting with how to bottle west coast IPA and maintain freshness for any length of time. I tried the ascorbic acid trick (adding a small amount at bottling) and did not like the results at all. The beer ended up with a weird twangy off flavor and I don’t think it really helped maintain the hop aroma/flavor at all.
I wonder how many of you small batch brewers do BIAB? It’s a method that lends itself particularly well to smaller batches. With my 3 gallon BIAB system, I can do batches in 3 hours, and only about 45 minutes of that is active time. the rest is mashing and boiling. For cleanup, scrub the kettle and hose off the bag and immersion chiller. Just as easy as an extract batch. Maybe the OP should look into BIAB.
I enjoy the learning and brewing process at least as much, if not more, than drinking the finished product, and that’s why small batches make sense for me. When I’m not making 3 gallon batches, I’m doing 4 or 5 gallons and splitting it between different yeast.
I thought about BIAB for a while but settled on my 2 gallon Coleman cooler for a mash tun because it was cheaper than the bag. I do 1-1.5 gallon batches. Definitely easier to manage on the stove and some of the peripheral activities are just easier with batch sizes that small.
There are a lot of options out there for someone looking to go small, and like it was mentioned earlier, once you get over the mental block of producing less beer you’re good.
Yeah, that is the biggest challenge of exclusively bottling. IPA and lagers don’t lend themselves well to bottling, hoppy styles especially, in my opinion.
Another option could be to brew your regular 5 gallons and keg it like normal, then once it is all carbed up, bottle a portion of it.