Question about a very small Mini Mash

Hello,

Due to my apartment size/implausibility of doing full grain at school, would it be feasible to make an english IPA only steeping a pound of something like biscuit malt?

I would do the brew in a bag method for this, then finish the rest of the recipe doing a steeping of caramalt, and using DME.

Thoughts?

There's a ton of threads on here for small batch brewing.

You can brew any sized batch you want. I do a lot of 2.5 gallon recipe test batches. You can even do 1 gallon AG brews. The basic brewing guys call that the six pack brew.

A recipe is scalable, so a 1 gallon recipe is 1/5th of a 5 gallon one....a 2.5 gallon one is half the ingredients.

2.5 gallons is one case of beer.

I use my normal 5 gallon mash tun for most of them, but I do a lot of Experiments, test recipes, or beers that I know I won't need/want more than a case of.

I sometimes use an unmodified 2 gallon cooler for a lot of my small btaches it holds up to 4 pounds of grain.

I just us a folding steamer in the bottom along with a grain bag. Just break off or unscrew the center post.



One of these, it helps to lift the grain bag above the spigot to keep the drainig from getting stuck.







I have also taken my braid from my regular mash tun and usng a rubber stopper mounted it on occasion on my baby one.



I posted a lot of info in the mr beer thread that you may find helpful.

I posted some all grain small batchrecipes here, https://www.homebrewtalk.com/785533-post702.html

ANd a bit of a primer on AG with pics here https://www.homebrewtalk.com/738927-post659.html

But I mostly use my regular 5 gallon cooler mash tun which holds 14 pounds of grains...and 14 pounds of grain for a 2.5 gallon batch can be a mighty big beer.....


One of our memebers chubbykid had plans for a minikeg mashtun http://sites.google.com/site/chubbykidhomebrew/Home/equipment/mini-keg-lauter-tun



THe basic brewing radio guys are big fans of tiny batch brewing...3/4 gallon (1 6pack) in a 1 gallon winejug fermenter.

They demo the 6-pack IPA here

[ame]http://en.sevenload.com/shows/Basic-Brewing/episodes/PERGFAJ-01-12-06-Basic-Brewing-Video-A-Six-Pack-of-IPA[/ame]

and they also have done barleywines as well.

I ferment my 2.5 gallon batches in all manner of things, I have a 3 gallon better bottle, I also use 3 gallon water jugs, AND my old Mr Beer keg (it's perfect because you can even lager in your own fridge with it when you are starting out.)

You can even ferment a 2.5 gallon batch in a 5 gallon carboy if you want, though I would say a 6.5 gallon carboy is a little too much headspace for my confort.

Hope this helps....any more questions feel free to ask...But look through ALL THE OTHER INFO first and I bet you, you won't HAVE any other questions. This has been thoroughly covered like just about everything else.

Look around for threads on apartment brewing and small batch brewing as well, there's a ton of them on here. Quite a few of us live in lofts or condos or apartments and have managed, even to turn out 5 gallon batches.

Hope this helps.

Revvy, Can you post a link of the Mr. Beer thread to which you refer? Thanks!

The link to the mr beer thread IS in my post.....

But it;s not hard to miss, it's the largest thread in here, Mr Beer or otherwise.

Oops... Sorry about that

The Mr. Beer thread currently has about 5600 replies in it. Has anyone managed to find the mini all-grain post within? I should have saved it when I first saw it about... 4 or 5 years ago, but alas...

I've never done all grain but was hoping to find that post to get started.

I'm trying to remember the main bullet points from memory. I kind of think it was:

1. Mash 1/2 batch of grains in a 2 gallon igloo with strainer at bottom for 60 minutes @ (150?)
2. extract wort out and boil down to ... 1 gal? or for certain length of time? adding hops, etc. along the way.
3. cool and add to Mr. Beer (or carboy) which will have another 1.5 gallons of cold water awaiting.
4. pitch yeast, etc.

Does that sound close?

Again, apologies, I've been trying to find that post for a while now and until now have only done extract brewing.