Small Batches?

Anyone know how hard it would be to brew maybe 1 gallon batches and ferment in milk jugs? I want to experiment with many different recipes before I know if I want to brew a full 5 gallon batch

You can brew anysized 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 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...

Oh, and you don't have to do anything with hops in terms of hop utilization, except scale it in the same proportion, as you do your grain. Nothing else.

I'd be afraid to ferment in a milk jug....course, i'm probably just paranoid.

I'd use these instead of a milk jug. http://www.letsdowine.com/1gagljug.html

I would think you could just cut a 5 gal recipe in 1/5 and get a gal

alright cool so you just divide the ingredients by the batch size? do i need anything special for all grain? i figure all grain will be easier than extract for small batches since you can buy exact amount of ingredients instead of having to buy a full jug of extract

I missed the part about milk jugs...probably not a good idea, I don't think they're all that strong for the co2 that gets generated by fermentation. I gallon wine jugs are the way to go.

sportscrazed2 said:

alright cool so you just divide the ingredients by the batch size? do i need anything special for all grain?

Click to expand...

I just posted about a million links in that answer above that would answer this question. Start reading.

and how many beers will a 1 gallon batch get you? i'm thinking of stopping using kits and moving over to formulating recipes and only using dry malt extract since i can use some and seal the rest up.

thanks everyone for your replies. i think i will be getting into small batches. not only will they take less time to brew i will have more variety of beer to drink.