The last few brews I've made have been sort of experimental in nature. Basically off-the-cuff recipes I threw together in beersmith. They turned out just fine, but the whole process of recipe writing left me thinking about how little I really know about how different ingredients and processes affect flavor. It's also a little expensive to "try something new" with a 5 or 6 gallon batch, SO, I'm starting to invest in a small batch all grain setup. I don't really need any new equipment aside from a hand full of 1 gallon jugs for fermenting, but i do want to build a mini mash tun from a 2 gallon cooler. The reason I want to do this is to begin to test different mash/sparge procedures to get better efficiency, and to learn the taste of different malts. For instance, i could do four 1 gallon mashes each with 1.5 lbs of pale malt, and .5 lbs of four different malts; maybe amber, biscuit, munich, and vienna.
Anyway, my question: Any of you experienced AG'ers see any problems with doing very small, but proportionate mashes? I'm most concerned about being able to scale up the results i get from my efficiency testing and have those numbers be applicable to full size batches. Before you ask, i decided to make a new 2g tun for a couple reasons: 1, because I already have most of the fittings laying around, and 2, I think the dead space in my 5g tun is just too much if you're mashing for a 1g batch.
Thanks for Humoring me in my ramblings!
Anyway, my question: Any of you experienced AG'ers see any problems with doing very small, but proportionate mashes? I'm most concerned about being able to scale up the results i get from my efficiency testing and have those numbers be applicable to full size batches. Before you ask, i decided to make a new 2g tun for a couple reasons: 1, because I already have most of the fittings laying around, and 2, I think the dead space in my 5g tun is just too much if you're mashing for a 1g batch.
Thanks for Humoring me in my ramblings!