How much water for 1 gallon brew

Here I go again. Asking a question at 5:30 pm local time in Hawai`i when you guys on the east coast are getting ready for bed.....

I'm going to do a 1 gallon brew using 1 lb DME and about 2 lbs of grains.

I've read using 1.5 qts/lb of grain. But since I'm only doing 1 gallon I could do all the liquid in one 8 qt. pot w/ease.

How much boil off do you think I'll get when the hops are added?

Mahalo in advance for answers and comments

You'll be fine with the 8 qt. pot (still have to watch for boilovers of course). I do one gallon batches often to test new recipes or ideas.

I mash in another pot of similar size then pour into a strainer over the boil kettle and sparge the grains from water in a third pot but you could probably get around that with BIAB or some one-pot method.

My preboil vol is about 1.5 gallons, but I also have a high evaporation rate in Arizona.

Good luck!

Krrazy said:

You'll be fine with the 8 qt. pot (still have to watch for boilovers of course). I do one gallon batches often to test new recipes or ideas.

I mash in another pot of similar size then pour into a strainer over the boil kettle and sparge the grains from water in a third pot but you could probably get around that with BIAB or some one-pot method.

My preboil vol is about 1.5 gallons, but I also have a high evaporation rate in Arizona.

Good luck!

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Aloha Krrazy! Thanks for the comments.
Yea, our air here is not quite as dry as yours and btw, are you getting smoked out from those fires?

1.5 gallons preboil sounds good. I plan to try BIAB soon, this one is 1 lb DME and 2 lbs grain. I guess I'll see what my boil off is when I pour into the fermenter. I have a 2 gallon bucket which I calibrated by adding 1/2 gallons of water at a time using 1/2 gallon bottles that use to hold apple jucie.

Just might do the brew tomorrow if my wife and her quilting friends free up the kitchen island where I plan to lay out the ingredients and work.

Just did a 1 gallon batch last night, I guessed about 1.5 gallons to start and ended up somewhere around 1 gallon final after dumping the trub in the kettle.

You'll have fun with the 1g batch I think. Especially if you really enjoy the whole process of brewing (which I think most of us do) as much as drinking the finished product. Some say that it takes just as much time and you don't get as much beer, but I really do think it's easier and more manageable since you can easily cool in an ice bath and clean up faster.

You can get a pretty good idea of your boil-off rate before you start by boiling a gallon of water and seeing how much you loose over a set time. I think it should be pretty linear so if you boil one gallon for half an hour and see how much you lost, double it and then determine what percentage you lost, you would have a pretty good idea of what you'll loose from your one hour wort boil...or you could just go with 1.5 gallons preboil.

Are you planning to mash your 2lb of grain and then drain, sparge, add DME and boil? I generally just do AG all the way so I'm not adding any extract but I don't think that would change the process.


Thanks for asking about the fires -- they're about an hour or so away from me so I don't detect any smoke...I'm hoping it stays that way. I'll be getting out of this dry weather next month and coming to your part of the world -- my fiance and I are going to Poipu for our honeymoon. Maybe I'll pick up some indigenous ingredients to bring back for brewing!

You should not bring anything back from Hawaii. The volcano goddess Pele will ensure you have bad luck forever.

Lol jk, you can bring back brewing ingredients. Just don't bring home any sand or volcanic rock. Leave the earth of Hawaii where it is. The wrath of Pele is great.

dancness said:

You should not bring anything back from Hawaii. The volcano goddess Pele will ensure you have bad luck forever.

Lol jk, you can bring back brewing ingredients. Just don't bring home any sand or volcanic rock. Leave the earth of Hawaii where it is. The wrath of Pele is great.

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+1

What kind of beer are you making? It sounds like it is going to have an awful high SG.

trying to get started brewing after I get back from my deployment and return to Hawaii, C-Rider, are there any local homebrew shops on the island? I live over on the Windward side. You can PM back if you want, I don't want to snipe your post. Just got excited to see someone on here from Hawaii.

brewit2it said:

What kind of beer are you making? It sounds like it is going to have an awful high SG.

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It's a Roggenbier. SG not high at all only about 1.050. Posted the recipe here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/roggenbier-extract-w-grains-249696/

I think I'm gonna be doing a partial mash instead of extract w/steeping grains.

I've never done one before so this should be an interesting experiment.

Might start later this afternoon or earl evening.