equipment for 2.5 gallon batches

Do I need any other equipment for half batches? Do I need a smaller tun? My set up is for five to six gallon batches. I have a five gallon carboy.

No, that should work unless you're fly sparging. With fly sparging, you may not have enough grainbed thickness to set up a good filtering bed. With batch sparging, it doesn't matter.

Awesome! I will be batch sparging. On trying some of my own recipes and get them down so half batches make sense.

One more question, when pitching the yeast I usually pitch it all, would. I pitch it half the pack/vial? And save the rest?

jdutton24 said:

One more question, when pitching the yeast I usually pitch it all, would. I pitch it half the pack/vial? And save the rest?

Click to expand...

No, not generally. First, once a package of dry yeast is opened, it doesn't stay good for long after it's been exposed to air. Secondly, one vial of liquid yeast is usually UNDERpitching for 5 gallons, so one vial may actually be right for 2.5 gallons! Check out mrmalty.com, and go to the "yeast pitching calculator" to see the optimum amount of yeast to pitch for each batch. It's a surprise, trust me!

I actually primarily do 2.5gal batches. I had efficiency issues when I first started with my 10gal Igloo mash tun, so I eventually moved to a 5gal and have been very happy with it. I don't know if my issues were with the mash tun itself or other parts of my process, but I can tell you that doing a beer thats less than OG1.050 with a full size mash tun is kind of a *****.

You could just pitch a single vial/smack pack and the rate would be correct for most beers, but I usually like doing a pint starter about a day beforehand to wake the yeast up and be sure I have as close to 100% viability as possible.

Cool. I was kinda worried that my tun would mess with my efficiency some. I guess ill do some test batches to see how it goes. Sure would be sweet if it works like a charm. Save money on trial and error

I just finished doing 2 half batches and they worked out great. I used the same equipment and had no problems , although I would double check your mash tun to be sure it maintained your mash temps with so little liquid. The crazy thing is that I actually got better efficiency, if only slightly when I split the recipe in half. I find this works great when you just want a case of a non session type beer.
good luck!