Smaller Beer Kits

I have been thinking for a long time about getting into homebrewing. The problem I have is that I have no space (I rent a single carpeted room). I've seen that most kits seem to include 5 gallon fermenting buckets. I think that this might be too large for my situation. I've also seen the 3 gallons ones, and this is a one gallon kit:

My fear is that if I get a 1 gallon of even 3 gallon, I won't be able to find a wide variety of kits to fit in these smaller buckets. I assume that I will be using kits (extracts) for a while before I get comfortable with moving onto mashing grain.

Is getting a 1 or 3 gallon kit a good idea if I want to be able to make use of the variety of kits out there?

Thanks in advance!

Dan

You can buy a 5 gallon kit and make two 2.5 gallons batches. Or you could just buy the ingredients you need to make one batch of any size. For one gallon batches you could try the Brooklyn Brew Shop. I have not tried their kits because I personally think they are too expensive, so it wasn't worth it for me to experiment with their recipes. But, given your situation, it might be the way to go.

http://brooklynbrewshop.com/store/1-gallon-beer-mixes

blizzard - The one gallon kit is really attractive to me at this point. I am pretty picky with the styles of beer that I drink, and I don't want to be locked into just a few kits from one or two suppliers. You mention that I can just buy the amount of ingredients that I need for 1 gallon batches, and that sounds good to me. I think it is time for me to go and talk to my local homebrew supplier! Thanks a lot for your reply!

I would say do a recipe that is supposed to be 5 gallons and scale it down to 1g. A little DME/LME, small amount of specialty grain, and one type of hops. For the time involved though, I would say go for a 2.5g batch. For a 1g batch, here is my recipe for a tasty simple IPA:

1.75lb light DME
0.25lb Crystal 40L malt
0.6oz Centennial hops 90min
0.3oz Centennial hops 15min
0.1oz Centennial hops 5min

And some for of English style ale yeast, dry as liquid yeast is too much and too pricy for a 1g batch.

Thanks, Yotie! Sounds good.

brooklyn brew shop is the way to go if you are unsure. $40 for the whole kit. it got me hooked and i eventually upgraded.

Beersmith will take a 5 gallon batch and make it any size you want with one click. It will do all extract, partial extract and all grain. Also do a search for 3 gallon batch of beer on google, there are a couple website dedicated to less than 5 gallon batch size.

VB