How much faster?

I've heard of people doing smaller batches for many reasons. One reason that I heard about recently was so that this person could brew more batches without taking shortcuts on his process.

At first, this made no sense to me. How could someone brew more batches by going smaller? How does *that* save time? Then it hit me - the time is saved by quicker heating and cooling. Strike water can be heated quicker, runnings can be brought to a boil quicker, and the hot wort can be chilled quicker. Transfers are quicker too.

Interesting idea, especially if your goal is to make a wider variety of beers.

I currently do all 5 gallon batches. This person does 2 gallon batches. So here is my question:

Assuming all other process steps are the same, does anyone have a good estimate for how much time would be saved by doing a 2 gallon batch compared to a 5 gallon batch?

the answer varies, it can take some people 6 hrs to brew 5 gallons and others can crank it out in 4 by prepping as much as they can the day before, extract will probably be quicker than all grain. i brew 5 gallons at a time every weekend or every other weekend and that keeps my pipeline very full so if i take a break for a few weeks it does not mean running out of beer.

I take it another way- most brewers agree cleaning is the worst part. How much are you reducing cleaning time by doing a smaller batch- very little unless you have a special kettle for that small batch. I enjoy watching the mash tun, with a good burner heating time is not that long overall.

Depends on your equipment and process. Going to 2 gal batch won't save much time at all if you have a strong burner and a wort chiller.

for my regular AG setup, I can knock out a 5 gal batch on my propane burner outside in roughly 4-4.5 hours depending on recipe. for small 1 gallon batches, I can do them BIAB no sparge on the stove inside in less than 3, and cleanup is super easy. not a huge time savings, per se, but the effort required is a lot less (much easier to move 1-2gal of liquid around than 6-8, less grain, etc). it also keeps me from freezing my ass off in our cold detached garage. and, there's a time savings when you go to bottle, as you only have a 12-pack or so to do.

that said, I don't do small batches very often, usually only for experimental stuff. I really should do more.

I haven't noticed much difference in brew time since I dropped down from 5gl to 2.5gl, maybe a little less time in chilling and cleanup. Fermentation seems a little quicker with smaller batches.

I can say BIAB has dropped my brew time from a 3 vessel system by about an hour.

Making BIAB 1 gallon batches on my 'pilot system' (3 gallon pot and a paint strainer bag, oven mash) is pretty appreciably faster than doing my usual10 gallon batches. However, it is not 10 times faster, that being said what it is great for is testing some of my more 'creative' concepts.

I do All Grain and my time spent per gallon produced is only 30 minutes per gallon!

I do 11 gallon batches every time now because it saves me time! Prepping my gear and cleaning up takes the most actual time in brewing for me...the rest of the time is just watching my timer for each step.

I can make 11 gallons of all-grain beer from prep to cleaning in 5 hours flat. I can make 5.5 gallons of the same beer in 4.5 hours so I only spend another 30 minutes of time to make twice as much product. The only way smaller batches would save time per gallon produced is if I did all extract on my kitchen stove with much less equipment to clean.

I don't think there is a noticable time savings just doing smaller batches. I haven't seen it. Most of the times I've reduced time on brew day were when I shifted some of my prep time to the night before. I ddin't really save time. I just moved it around.

I usually do double batches to save time. It adds an extra hour or so to my day, but I can do 2 types of beer. All I need is an extra mash tun and pot. I usually do a big beer and a session beer.

It does not save much in the way of time. The reason they say they can brew more batches is because there is less room taken up by bottles. When I was doing 5 gal extract batches from start to finish brew time was ~3 hours from "I'm going to brew today let me grab my stuff( assuming I had a kit on hand)" and 1.5 gal AG was ~3 hour( about 30 minutes longer for 3 gal batches). So really no time saved by going smaller. But with the 1.5 gal batches I get 14 beers per batch, with 5 gal I get 48. I can have 3.5 time more types of beer in the fridge. And the best part is I get to brew more often.

Don't forget, it takes more time for 5 gallons, or 2.5 gallons of water to boil, than it does 1 gallon....same with cooling.

My biggest reason for never doing less than 5 gallon batches:

"What if it turns out awesome and I only have 1 gallon of awesome?!"


Also if you have a known good recipe that always turns out great why not make as much of it as possible at one time?

Revvy said:

Don't forget, it takes more time for 5 gallons, or 2.5 gallons of water to boil, than it does 1 gallon....same with cooling.

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Yeah, and this is the area I was thinking that I would hear about some bigger savings.

However, the consensus so far seems to indicate that one might be able to cut off only about 30 minutes from the total process when dropping from 5 gallons to 2.

mb82 said:

... But with the 1.5 gal batches I get 14 beers per batch, with 5 gal I get 48. I can have 3.5 time more types of beer in the fridge. And the best part is I get to brew more often.

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Good point. I hadn't thought about that.

having never done 5 gallon batches I cant speak with complete truth, but I would imagine you might save 1-1.5 hrs with smaller batches depending on equipment and what you're brewing. like others have mentioned, time spent heating/cooling would differ, as well as time spent to vorlauf and draining your mash tun, time spent bottling/siphoning, time spent sanitizing and cleaning up, and even the time to crush grain. I do all 1 gallon all grain batches and often see the irony of being able to brew more but ending up with small batches of sometimes awesome beer.

my usual brew day for an all grain batch with 60 min boil is 3.5 hrs. 90 mins is a little over 4 hrs- i can start at 730 crushing grains and have yeast pitched around 1145 and equipment cleaned. just yesterday I spent 5 hours for a 1 gallon batch of stone's imperial russian stout. now that just doesnt seem as worthwhile, but I REALLY wanted to brew it anyway. 2-2.5 gallons seems like it would be a happy medium for batch size/time/brewing-space constraints, but thats just my .02

BrewerDon said:

I've heard of people doing smaller batches for many reasons. One reason that I heard about recently was so that this person could brew more batches without taking shortcuts on his process.

At first, this made no sense to me. How could someone brew more batches by going smaller? How does *that* save time?

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It doesn't save time. It saves drinking. You can brew more if you go through your batches quicker. You can go through your batches quicker if they're smaller.

Jayhem said:

My biggest reason for never doing less than 5 gallon batches:

"What if it turns out awesome and I only have 1 gallon of awesome?!"

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Sadly, even 5 gallon batches are approaching this level around my house.

I really like your quote though.

Jayhem said:

My biggest reason for never doing less than 5 gallon batches:

"What if it turns out awesome and I only have 1 gallon of awesome?!"


Also if you have a known good recipe that always turns out great why not make as much of it as possible at one time?

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That sentiment right there is why I have kept a detailed bench log of every single brew I have ever done. My first partial mash recipe I ever formulated was a high gravity 3-gallon spiced winter warmer. I ended up bottling 30 beers that I was extremely disappointed with. The worst part was that I realized that I had 29 bottles of beer that I didn't particularly feel like drinking. Had I just started with a 1 gallon test batch, I could have given away half of them to a less-discerning friend and moved on to the next batch.

On the other hand, if you record every detail of your brew day, and the result is magical, you should have no trouble scaling it up to 5 or 10 gallons with consistent results.

I started AG at 2.5 gal, but am now scaling up to 3-5 gallons at a time, and also doing double batches in one day at 2-4 gallons each. It takes a little longer, but same prep time.