1-Gallon Brewers UNITE!

I usually pitch 1/3 pack and have always had good results. US/05 and Notty is what I've been using in my batches.

Sweet thanks! I normally brew two gallon batches, but a one gallon would be a great way to try out new recipes.....

I've been brewing 5-gallon extract and PM batches and have wanted to make the switch to all-grain, but didn't have the equipment. I've also wanted to experiment with new recipes and ingredients. For my situation, this will be good way to go.

I've seen this thread before but never paid much attention to it. After reading (some of) it, I am very excited. This will allow me to do everything I want! And I can still brew 5-gallon batches when I want as well.

(posted twice)

I made a 1-gallon batch of IPA and used a whole packet of US-05. Fermented really clean and it is the best beer I have ever made.

Just wondering - for those who use less than a full pack of yeast, do you throw out the rest or save it for another batch? Add it to some wort to make up a starter?

I live in Canada, and a packet of US-05 is about $4 - not excessive, but adds up when doing lots of small batches. That being said, I would rather throw out half a packet of yeast than contaminate a batch.

I store it closed in the fridge and use it the next week, i have never tried to store it opened for more than a week. Since we are basically overpitching compared to a similar 1 pack per 5 gal recipe i thought even if some of my yeast dies during the week i will still have enough.

abrdnck said:

I made a 1-gallon batch of IPA and used a whole packet of US-05. Fermented really clean and it is the best beer I have ever made.

Just wondering - for those who use less than a full pack of yeast, do you throw out the rest or save it for another batch? Add it to some wort to make up a starter?

I live in Canada, and a packet of US-05 is about $4 - not excessive, but adds up when doing lots of small batches. That being said, I would rather throw out half a packet of yeast than contaminate a batch.

Click to expand...

I would be worried about getting a "yeasty" taste if I pitched a whole 11g packet into one gallon. Is that a valid concern?

I'm itching to brew. the summer heat in my apartment meant no brewing in the summerand I just moved. My next trip home I'll swing by the LHBS and get some ingredients and I'll be started again. I'm thinking of working on some different recipes than before. I'll probably pickup a vial of belgian yeast so I'm thinking a batch of belgian IPA and a tripel immediately

Looking at doing 1 gallon SMASH recipes. Don't want to drink lots of beer I don't like. I too can brew larger batches when I want.

JoBoo said:

I would be worried about getting a "yeasty" taste if I pitched a whole 11g packet into one gallon. Is that a valid concern?

Click to expand...

From what I've read, it is harder to overpitch than underpitch. The beer that I made had a SG of 1.071, so I wanted to make sure I had a healthy batch of yeast to put in there. A half-packet probably would have been plenty, but what to do with the rest of the packet? I decided to throw it all in. Not much yeasty flavour, but this is a pretty bold hop-forward beer so it could just be hidden.

When using a half pack, I fold the pack in half before cutting open. After pitching, I squeeze out any air and tape closed. Then refrigerate. It keeps.

JohnSand said:

When using a half pack, I fold the pack in half before cutting open. After pitching, I squeeze out any air and tape closed. Then refrigerate. It keeps.

Click to expand...

Same here.

Made my first 1 gallon batch over the weekend. I used the 5 gallon Dead Ringer IPA recipe from Northern Brewer, divided it by 5 and then bought the ingredients at the LHBS. First time I've had to use a blowoff tube as I usually brew 2.5 gallons in a 6 gallon tub. Also the first time I actually get to watch the beer ferment. Fun!

And I found a gallo wine jug at the dump so now I've got another fermentor to fill with something. Mwa ha!

This thread is too awesome to be stuck back a few pages.

New brewer, read through every one of these 300+ pages, and a ton more through out the rest of the forum.

With all the help in here, a successful 1.5gal SMaSH was made and is fermenting happily.

Process was super smooth; mashed out in a 1.5gal pot BIAB in the oven and worked awesome, dunk sparged in the BK (3gal) at 168 for ten, then removed/squeezed and ran it up to boil in under 10min. Cool down in an icebath (a sink with a bunch of reusable KoolBags) dropped to 95deg in about 10min, and from there it was easy to rack out to the bucket and put it in the garage (52deg) to drop it to pitch temps.

3hrs total including clean up, and that could have been cut down now that I have times marked out for heating waits, prepping while mashing/boiling instead of before hand. Looking at the charts I made I could probably shave off another 20-30min so long as I can keep one sink open for dish washing.

Cleared 1.45 gal or there abouts (need better measurements on the bucket).

Tricks learned that worked awesome:
- Spray bottle trick should be in bold, caps, everywhere you read about brewing. It's. Awesome. And keeps the Mrs. happy!
- Have all additions prepped and labeled, two count down timers work great.
- A shallow rubbermaid container (like what you'd slide under the bed) holds 2gal of sanitizer about half full, and is super handy to toss spoons/syringes/tubing/you name it into it. Fits great on the counter too, so there's never an excuse to not have something in the sanitizer ready to remove/use/return.

For anyone saying you can't get into AG Brewing on the cheap, you're wrong. BK, bags, 2gal bucket and lid, couple chunks of hose, a cheap airlock, and a cut down racking cane. Most expensive thing I bought was a HF grains scale for accurate measurements on hops/yeast, and even that was only 14 bucks.


Things I need to figure out a better way to deal with - LOTS of particulate from the BIAB in both the initial mash and the sparge. I tried using a milk filter in the colander to catch it, but they were too fine a filter, and just got bogged down (they're supposed to be used as part of a pressurized system).

My home made "syphon" (big ol' syringe+tube+racking cane) worked, but not as "clean" as it could be. I need to find a way to use this better, and not suck all the crap out of the bottom of the BK as I'm syphoning.

Things I don't really need but am dying to try out:

- A mini IC system, see how fast I can get the wort down.
- Oyxgen infusion for yeasties!
- Trading out buckets from the HD white 2gal's to something with some gradations on it - saw some 8qt food containers online I need to chase down.

Must purchase items within the next few brews:
- An accurate, reliable thermometer (ala Thermoworks). The meat thermometer puts me in the ball park, but I want a home run.
- A refractometer. Not that the hydrometer is bad, but it uses more product than I want to put in it. I'll do the math conversions. I'm good at math.


Already have another recipe lined up (another SMASH) courtasy of BrewTARGET and some help from the softwareware forum. Hope to get the grains/hop/yeast this week for the upcomming weekend.

Thanks again, gang. 1G Brewers have a new soldier. :rockin:

SumBrewinDude

Awesome dude.

Great! Good for you. I use a fabric paint strainer to get the last of the wort out of the pot. It also clogs, but I slosh it around a bit, then put it back in the kettle to weep for a few minutes. Costs about a buck at the paint store.

JohnSand - which paint bag are you using? For me BIAB side I used the 5gal one from HomeDepot which worked awesome (maybe too awesome) so the particulate that was in the wort was incredibly fine.

I did double mill the grain (per experiences on the BIAB forum), so I'm sure that had an effect on it.

I wonder if I get one of those metal coffee filters and pour through that? That should be finer than my paint bag, but no where near as fine as the inline milk filters.

I thought I saw a post on here too about biodesiel filters...

Keeping in mind, I fully under stand I'm never going to reach the level of clarity I see in an AB product (eg, water), but I don't want an ale to look like a hefe either. I'm only one batch in, but dang it I'm already planning ahead like a mad man.

I use the same ones that I use for BIAB. I don't use hop bags, so with the hot and cold break, there is plenty of gunk. Using the strainer still leaves the last of the wort a little cloudy, but strains out plenty too. You can improve clarity several other ways though. Cold crash your fermenter before bottling, or add clarity ferm or gelatin to clear it. It will clear up in the fermenter anyway, and you can be careful not to transfer trub into your bottles. I always leave the last bit in the bottle anyway, so I don't sweat it much.
Planning is fun, isn't it?

I going to brew my first BIAB and first small batch (1.5 gallons) on Friday - a dry stout! I've done several extract and partial mash 5-gallon batches but am finally making the switch. This forum has given me so much information... Sounds silly, but I'm actually really excited about this! Thanks, everyone - I'll let you all know how it turns out.

Cool.

HopsterMacBrew said:

Sounds silly, but I'm actually really excited about this! Thanks, everyone - I'll let you all know how it turns out.

Click to expand...

I don't think any of us would be here if we weren't excited about out first brew. Welcome to the obsession!

HopsterMacBrew said:

I going to brew my first BIAB and first small batch (1.5 gallons) on Friday - a dry stout! I've done several extract and partial mash 5-gallon batches but am finally making the switch. This forum has given me so much information... Sounds silly, but I'm actually really excited about this! Thanks, everyone - I'll let you all know how it turns out.

Click to expand...

Awesome, let us know how it goes!

Going shopping for grains and another fermenter tonight - I need to brew again soon. Must. Build. Pipeline. :rockin:

Ripped through a shrunk down version of Cream of Three Crops tonight. Total grain bill was under 3#, hop bill under .42oz (going to dry hop over the original).

New toys this time - 5gal cooler and a better thermometer.

Instead of mashing in the oven this time, I preheated the cooler with hot tap water, then lined it with two 5gal paint strainer bags (read about on here in something called a "Tea Bagging" thread - don't kill me, I just read the thread and wanted to try it, I didn't name it). Then mashed as normal, but in the cooler.

Mash time was the same as the recipe, but it was much easier to deal with and the grains strained out perfectly with the sparge. First running was slightly cloudy, second runnings were clear. Hit my 2.3gal boil mark perfectly and cleanup of the cooler was a snap.

Boil was relatively uneventful - a LOT more proteins in this one over my last batch. Hot flash was pretty vicious, but it settled down immediately.

In and done.

Man, if it's going to be this easy I'll do this every week (or until I get my pipeline full).

Next week, Yooper's House Amber I think...

Ok. So I just brewed my first BIAB. I made a 1.5 gallon Irish Stout recipe that I found on beertools.com and scaled down. Generally, I really like this method and I'll definitely be brewing more BIAB batches in the future. Being my first all-grain brew, I was way off on my mash temp (165!). I also overestimated my water loss calculations so now I have more post-boil wort than anticipated. As a result of these gaffe, my OG reading is extremely low. Instead of 1.047 it is 1.032 My immediate thought is to add some dark DME to increase the fermentable sugar without thinning out the body.

My question is this: Is there an easy way to calculate/estimate roughly how much DME I should add to bring approximately 2 gallons of wort from 1.032 to 1.047?

HopsterMacBrew said:

Ok. So I just brewed my first BIAB. I made a 1.5 gallon Irish Stout recipe that I found on beertools.com and scaled down. Generally, I really like this method and I'll definitely be brewing more BIAB batches in the future. Being my first all-grain brew, I was way off on my mash temp (165!). I also overestimated my water loss calculations so now I have more post-boil wort than anticipated. As a result of these gaffe, my OG reading is extremely low. Instead of 1.047 it is 1.032 My immediate thought is to add some dark DME to increase the fermentable sugar without thinning out the body.

My question is this: Is there an easy way to calculate/estimate roughly how much DME I should add to bring approximately 2 gallons of wort from 1.032 to 1.047?

Click to expand...

Not my equation, I found it reading the BeerSmith forums from Merfizle:

This assumes that your typical DME has 44 points of potential yield.

n=number of gravity points to raise
v=current wort volume
w=lbs of DME needed to raise wort (n) gravity points

w = n * (1 / (44/v))

Example: Let's say current wort volume is 7.5 gallons. Current gravity is 1.048 and you want to increase to 1.052. So,
v= 7.5 gallons
n = 52 - 48 = 4

w = 4 * (1/(44/7.5))
= 4 * (1/5.87)
= 4 * .17
= .68 lbs or 308 grams

This should get you in the ballpark!


Man, is it wrong I want to brew again? I need to started converting Yooper's House amber and running it through BrewTarget.

Thanks 'dude. I appreciate it. I'll give that a shot!

Brewed my first one gallon batch this weekend. Loved it. It was also my first BIAB. I have only done a few 5 gallon extracts prior.

I brewed a zombie dust IPA clone recipe and used a 3 gallon kettle I had sitting around. I used the BIABCalculator from homebrewfinds and boiled off some water the day before to calculate my boil off rate. Then I scaled down the recipe with Beersmith.

For the most part everything went smoothly. I did leave a lot of wort in the kettle with the break material. Need to do a better job siphoning...

Fermentation was pretty active by the 12 hour mark. Looking forward to getting it in bottles.

Brew day:http://imgur.com/a/NdbSg

amd133mhz said:

I have been brewing partial extract kits 5 gallons,and I want to make a 1 gallon batch but have no idea how to either cut ingredients from a 5 gallon kit,which I wouldn't really wanna do anyways.

Click to expand...

The way i just found out how to scale down my recipies is you take your grains, or hops and everything else, and multiply by what volume you want and divide by the volume of the recipe. So if you have 9 lbs of pale malt and you want a 3 gallon recipe but the recipe is for 5 gallons this is the equation: 9 X 3 / 5 = 5.4 pounds of pale malt.

HopsterMacBrew said:

Ok. So I just brewed my first BIAB. I made a 1.5 gallon Irish Stout recipe that I found on beertools.com and scaled down. Generally, I really like this method and I'll definitely be brewing more BIAB batches in the future. Being my first all-grain brew, I was way off on my mash temp (165!). I also overestimated my water loss calculations so now I have more post-boil wort than anticipated. As a result of these gaffe, my OG reading is extremely low. Instead of 1.047 it is 1.032 My immediate thought is to add some dark DME to increase the fermentable sugar without thinning out the body. My question is this: Is there an easy way to calculate/estimate roughly how much DME I should add to bring approximately 2 gallons of wort from 1.032 to 1.047?

Click to expand...

So this calculator is pretty handy:

http://merrycuss.com/calc/gravityadjustmentextract.html

hi guys... it's been a long time

looks like i will be home for a while now, so likely will be starting up the brewing cycles next week.

anyone still around from last year?

leesmith said:

So this calculator is pretty handy: http://merrycuss.com/calc/gravityadjustmentextract.html

Click to expand...

The new beersmith 2.2 update also has a gravity adjustment calculator.

dadshomebrewing said:

hi guys... it's been a long time

looks like i will be home for a while now, so likely will be starting up the brewing cycles next week.

anyone still around from last year?

Click to expand...

Hey dads....I'm still here. Good to see ya back.

dadshomebrewing said:

hi guys... it's been a long time looks like i will be home for a while now, so likely will be starting up the brewing cycles next week. anyone still around from last year?

Click to expand...

BigRock947 said:

Hey dads....I'm still here. Good to see ya back.

Click to expand...

Gents, how have you been! I still stop by and read this thread almost every week. Took on a life of its own.. Lol. Been experimenting with some small batch meads, wines, ciders, metheglins cysers etc. I promised the wife and daughter that I would try to find something they would like and in the mean time, I'm finding some of them aren't so bad.

Hello fellow one galloners! Been reading this thread for a while, very good info. Took some time to read it through (6 brews, I think). Anyway, I have been struggling with head retention, or the lack of it, and as a cure I am trying to get less trub to my primary. I'm doing 5 liter BIAB brews and previously I have just dumped everything in, break material and all, just sieving the hops out. After reading a BYO article "Fabulous Foam!" I decided to try to get rid of the trub as well. The big boys seem to be fond of whirlpooling but I have not managed to get any kind of success with it. So my question is, do you people whirlpool and have success with it? I'm trying to decide if I should try to improve my technique or just give up and try to figure another method of trub removal.

So I am still very new to home brew and this 1 gallon batch is very in enticing for me.

Been search and reading around and a little confused on the starting volume of water. I have read you start at 2 gallons and the grains will absorb 1/2 gallon and boil off will take another 1/2 so you end up with 1 gallon.

This will be All-grain

Then there is another set of instruction I read that you start with 1.5 gallons and grains will absorb 1/4 gallon and the boil will take 1/4 gallon, you end up with 1 gallon.

Then there's boil time, I have also read 45 minute boil and 1 hour boil.

Can anyone help to clarify this for me. Thanks!

Komodo_brewer said:

So I am still very new to home brew and this 1 gallon batch is very in enticing for me. Been search and reading around and a little confused on the starting volume of water. I have read you start at 2 gallons and the grains will absorb 1/2 gallon and boil off will take another 1/2 so you end up with 1 gallon. This will be All-grain Then there is another set of instruction I read that you start with 1.5 gallons and grains will absorb 1/4 gallon and the boil will take 1/4 gallon, you end up with 1 gallon. Then there's boil time, I have also read 45 minute boil and 1 hour boil. Can anyone help to clarify this for me. Thanks!

Click to expand...

So, no expert here, but I've done both extract kits and BIAB kits. Best I can tell is that boil-off is an amount specific to individual setups. How tall the pot is and how many BTUs per hour of energy you add. To determine this for your setup, try a test boil--you add a gallon and a half of water, boil for an hour and measure what's left. If you've lost half a gallon, then that would be an estimate of how much you'd boil off for a 60-min. boil. For a 45-min boil, you'd only expect 1-1/2 quarts to boil off.

Grain absorption is probably more standard, but will depend on how much grain you have in the mash. If you add 2-pounds of grain, it would absorb less total than three pounds of grain, but the amount per pound should be the same.

riha - I've tried "whirlpooling" and gotten so-so results. Most of my trub ends up sort of in the center of the pot, but I also siphon from the BK into the bucket. That lets me leave as much of the break/trub in the pot that I can, usually propping up the pot with a spoon or potholder as I drain slowly. I figure that I'll loose 0.1gal or so doing this, and it's usually the case, but the wort has been much cleaner. Takes longer, though.

Komodo - First things first, do a test run and collect the data. That was singularly the one great thing I did before I dove head first into brewing. With knowledge of how much water you lose during a 60min boil, in addition to taking times and temps (how long does it take to hit ambient to 161F (strike temp), 170F (Sparge), and from 168 to 212F (boil), you can start to make a chart to use your time effeciently.

After playing around with trying to calculate the correct water volumes for my boils (I need 2.342gal to end at 1.50gal or there abouts), I was talking with a brewing friend that's got a LOT more hours into AG than I did, and he basically said don't sweat it; the only thing that matters is the boil volume, not the water you sparge to get there.

Get a cooler (5gal or whatever) and a couple paint strainer bags - mash in the volume of water you need as calculated by one of the many web-brewing calcs out there, then give yourself a little extra sparge water. When you go to drain the cooler, just fill until you hit your boil amount, and go from there.

Right or wrong, I did it this way the last time I brewed, and it was WAY simplier than working out the absorption rates/etc. Unless I see something else to sway me away from it, I'll keep it as it's just plain easy to deal with and makes the brewday better.

Also, while I'm thinking about it - anyone have any major glaring issues with the cheap refractometers from Amazon/Fleabay? Was looking at a RSG100ATC, I'm okay with BRIX. Would be nice to get OG/FG without losing so much wort (not a lot there to play with!)

riha said:

Hello fellow one galloners! Been reading this thread for a while, very good info. Took some time to read it through (6 brews, I think). Anyway, I have been struggling with head retention, or the lack of it, and as a cure I am trying to get less trub to my primary. I'm doing 5 liter BIAB brews and previously I have just dumped everything in, break material and all, just sieving the hops out. After reading a BYO article "Fabulous Foam!" I decided to try to get rid of the trub as well. The big boys seem to be fond of whirlpooling but I have not managed to get any kind of success with it. So my question is, do you people whirlpool and have success with it? I'm trying to decide if I should try to improve my technique or just give up and try to figure another method of trub removal.

Click to expand...

I can get a good whirlpool going with my spoon, let it settle and siphon off the edge leaving a fairly good cone in the middle. But, you have to get it going good and wait long enough for that to happen. Now I just dump into a strainer and strain off as much as I can.... And I switched to 2 gallon buckets for my 1 gallon brews so I can leave space for trub. If I rack, I rack into the glass.

sumbrewindude said:

Also, while I'm thinking about it - anyone have any major glaring issues with the cheap refractometers from Amazon/Fleabay? Was looking at a RSG100ATC, I'm okay with BRIX. Would be nice to get OG/FG without losing so much wort (not a lot there to play with!)

Click to expand...

I bought the dual scale from morebeer on deal of the day for $45 and I love it. But, you have to keep you're eye out for it. Sometimes homebrewfinds has the same one for that price or better as well.

Thanks Divrguy.

I think Bobby(?) over at BrewHardware.com has one for on a BlackFriday sale for 30.00, shipping's cheap enough that it's making me hesitate on the Fleabay 20 buck cheapie. I know it's a sixpack of good beer, but it's supporting a vendor and I at least have a person/name I can send a million stupid questions too in the event I have issues.

I may pony up the extra bit just for those two reasons alone...