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I have an old gas stove and the warm setting is about 160. As long as I have it on a rack and not sitting on the bottom it doesn't heat up too much. You could preheat to 170 and turn it off when you put the pot in and just use it as an insulated box.
 
divrguy said:
So for say a 152 mash, do you just open the door after its warmed up or warm up and turn it off?
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Mine goes to 160 with a 10 degree swing But really its all about thermal mass. You know how you cook a roast for 4 hours at 300 and the temp inside only hits 200 or so?
I assume its the same deal, once mine hits its target temp I turn it off, my oven hold heat well for about 30-45 mins so ill turn it on at 25 mins let it roll till it kicks off, and shut it off again.. pretty easy.
 
I'm going to mess with opening the door. I tried the closed door with it off and it would creep up pretty quickly
 
My oven is 170. since i do biab i take it off of burner and wtap a remnant piece of hot water heater cover over it. my neighbor uses a snuggie. works fine
 
huntingohio said:
Welcome to the addiction! Eventually one day you'll wonder into your fermentation room in your underwear, Looking at all the batches going, secondaries aging, and bottles conditioning, and suddendly wonder how you got here? It's a really dang good feeling
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Hah, I can't wait to have my closet full of carboys :ban:
 
BattleGoat said:
For my one-gallon brethren: How many of you utilize airlocks with your brews, and how many go the blow-off route? I'm going to buy my first set of gear this afternoon, and while price isn't necessarily an issue, storage space is. Neither airlocks or blow-off tubes are exactly massive, but I'd like to have to store as little as possible.

On a related note - are there particular recipes or styles that are known to be more...energetic than others in regards to fermentation? I'm curious if there's anything I should be on the lookout for as far as possible clean-up suprises go. :D
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I fill my 1 gallon bottle to about .8 of a gallon. I then use a 3 piece airlock. About 10% of the time I end up with krausen in the airlock. Since I've never had much more of a mess then an airlock I needed to clean out, I'm happy with the setup.

As far as brews that tend to be really energetic, That seems to be more dependent on temperature. I find that if my brew gets to 85 or more it will almost certainly foam into the airlock.

Two things that do seem to make a difference, outside of temperature, are molasses and coffee. Either one seems to make the yeast go nuts.
 
Got my first order from northern brewer today. Picked up a caribou slobber, American wheat, both one gallon kits. Also scaled down the centennial blonde recipe to try my first BIAB. Looking to get a 2 gallon bucket, i have a 1 gallon glass carboy, but i want to brew these in order so i can have a nice supply. Will icing buckets from a doughnut shop work or to much grease to clean?
 
Mooglebass said:
Got my first order from northern brewer today. Picked up a caribou slobber, American wheat, both one gallon kits. Also scaled down the centennial blonde recipe to try my first BIAB. Looking to get a 2 gallon bucket, i have a 1 gallon glass carboy, but i want to brew these in order so i can have a nice supply. Will icing buckets from a doughnut shop work or to much grease to clean?
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They will work out, you just have to make absolutely sure they are clean first. Or you can order some online, not that this helps much now, but northern brewer has 2 gallon buckets as do a couple other places.
 
I just bookmarked your blog. It will be interesting to see how your black napalm comes out. :)
 
Leadgolem said:
I just bookmarked your blog. It will be interesting to see how your black napalm comes out. :)
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Awesome, thanks. Yeah luckily I have ready access to a bunch of stuff that should help me, but I'm worried I may have to blend that down a bunch to get something good.
 
Calichusetts said:
Wow...I take three days off and there is like 200 posts. I bought the 2 gallon bottling bucket from smallbatchbrewing (I think thats the site) and it works great. It can hold a little over 2 gallons so I can bottle a double batch if I do one, which does happen from time to time. It leaves like 4-6 ozs in the bucket but I like it.

I'll be brewing my Pomona Ale next week and will take pics. I figure with one last tweak I should really have this one nailed down...its a hop bomb folks.
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Calichusetts- just curious, how do you do double batches? brew 2 1 gallons in one day?
 
ninkasi2012 said:
Calichusetts- just curious, how do you do double batches? brew 2 1 gallons in one day?
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Yup...start at 8 am...once the boil is going, I clean up and get the grains and everything ready for batch #2 (I do two hour boils). I get the strike heated and mash in with about 30 minutes left in the boil. I like the overlap so I can chill and pitch the first batch then go directly to sparging #2. Clean everything up during the second boil. Done with two batches by 3 and thats with 4 hours of boiling!

Sometimes its the same batch...sometimes two different brews. If you are doing 1 hour boils, you could be done by 1 easily
 
Have to say I am a bit impressed with the caribou slobber kit from nb. Came with fizz drops, not sure how well they will work, lme, grains, hops and a steeping bag. I think ill do my wheat first, now if I can find a easy recipe for a stout, that's easily scaled down ill be happy.

How are the fizz drops? If any one has used them.
 
@Mooglebass: I'm planning to do a scaled-down version of this mint-chocolate stout in the next few days. I posted the original recipe a few pages back, and @cheesecake was kind enough to post a scaled-down version that he worked up in Beersmith. Lemme know if you decide to brew it, we'll compare notes!
 
Mooglebass said:
Have to say I am a bit impressed with the caribou slobber kit from nb. Came with fizz drops, not sure how well they will work, lme, grains, hops and a steeping bag. I think ill do my wheat first, now if I can find a easy recipe for a stout, that's easily scaled down ill be happy.

How are the fizz drops? If any one has used them.
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I have the conditioning tablets that Brewers Best puts out, but I just started using them yesterday. I checked my bottles and they are dissolved, but I will post back in 2 weeks with how they carbed.
 
bleme said:
I keep a sensor in my mash, with alarms set to tell me if it gets a degree too high or too low. If it gets too high, I just turn it off for a while. Never open the door.
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What's your sensor... I need one. Is it a thermometer with alarms?
 
divrguy said:
What's your sensor... I need one. Is it a thermometer with alarms?
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Yup. I got mine at Bed Bath and Beyond about 3 years ago. IIRC, it was $15 after the $5 off coupon. They also had an upgraded model with a wireless receiver that you could clip on your belt for about $30.

I originally got it because I was going to tackle the family's Thanksgiving turkey but it has gotten a LOT more use since I started brewing!
 
Mooglebass said:
How are the fizz drops? If any one has used them.
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I've used the Cooper's tabs before, and they always came out a little sweeter than straight corn sugar. It carbed up, but I wonder if they have some unfermentable sugar in them as part of their processing.
 
Another recipe conversion question for y'all - I downloaded the trial version of Beersmith, and ran this recipe through it to scale it to one gallon.

What I wonder is, how essential is the not-even-a-quarter-tab of whirlfloc to the final product? Is there something else I could use (besides gelatin or isinglass, please) to handle the clarification? Or, could I just secondary it and avoid adding a clarifiying agent altogether?
 
BattleGoat said:
Another recipe conversion question for y'all - I downloaded the trial version of Beersmith, and ran this recipe through it to scale it to one gallon.

What I wonder is, how essential is the not-even-a-quarter-tab of whirlfloc to the final product? Is there something else I could use (besides gelatin or isinglass, please) to handle the clarification? Or, could I just secondary it and avoid adding a clarifiying agent altogether?
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My opinion is that time is the best clarifier. Just be gentle when moving fermenters and rack above the sediment.
 
BattleGoat said:
Another recipe conversion question for y'all - I downloaded the trial version of Beersmith, and ran this recipe through it to scale it to one gallon.

What I wonder is, how essential is the not-even-a-quarter-tab of whirlfloc to the final product? Is there something else I could use (besides gelatin or isinglass, please) to handle the clarification? Or, could I just secondary it and avoid adding a clarifiying agent altogether?
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I've done all of the above and have had differing results. I've used Irish Moss and a secondary and still had chill haze. I didn't use any and didn't secondary and my beer was clear. If you don't care/worry about chill haze, I wouldn't give a second thought.

Save the couple of dollars for other ingredients. IMHO
 
I normally use whirlfloc but for the one gallon batches I haven't been using anything. Mu citra smash has really bad chill haze but it will still taste like beer so I'm not concerned
 
@cheesecake: Good to know. I'd like it to look as clear as possible, but adding that much of a product just seems silly. Speaking of your citra SMaSh, did you get my PM? If not, I'd love to see the recipe.

EDIT: I see you did notice my PM. :D Thanks man!
 
Mooglebass said:
Have to say I am a bit impressed with the caribou slobber kit from nb. Came with fizz drops, not sure how well they will work, lme, grains, hops and a steeping bag. I think ill do my wheat first, now if I can find a easy recipe for a stout, that's easily scaled down ill be happy.

How are the fizz drops? If any one has used them.
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Yoopers Oatmeal stout is an easy scale down and very very good. This is one of those times I wish the fermenter was a little bigger.
 
I brewed the northern brewer black ipa kit. I was really impressed with the packaging and everything. They put a lot into there 1 gallon kits as far as instructions and packaging and the small details
 
Bottled my first gallon batch. I'm pretty sure I undershot the volume though. I got 7 bottles out of the batch. Would have been 8 but I fat armed one and somehow broke a bottle. Wow are my abs sore after that though, Don't think capping bottles fell under my weight restriction. Brewing up my 1 gallon Irish red tomorrow with SWMBO's help.
 
Well my 1 gallon brewing has stepped up a bit.....I just bought all the parts for a 2 gallon mash tun. I'll be assembling it tonight and probably posting some pictures.
 
BattleGoat said:
What I wonder is, how essential is the not-even-a-quarter-tab of whirlfloc to the final product?
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I brew for myself and ONLY care about taste so I never use clarifying agents. If clarity is something you look for, I've heard whirlfloc does a great job.
 
1/2 tsp of bentonite will clear a lot of things. 1 tsp will usually give you a crystal clear brew, but with subtly flavored stuff can leave a slightly metalic flavor behind.
 
Flatspin said:
I've done a few one gallon batches before, they are a great way to do side by side comparisons of different ingredients. So usually when I make a one gallon batch I will do 2 or 3 in a day, although once I did six - that was a long day of brewing, but I definitely got a system down. And it's great to have a variety pack so that you can choose what to drink on any given night.

Here's a neat trick that I have found. Go out and by a gallon jug of water (either distilled and add salts or just buy spring water), use that for the boil. After the boil is complete, you can pour the wort back into the jug. The amount of boil-off is about right for the head space during fermentation. Just drill a hole in the cap and fix a cheap aquarium tube with a few rubber bands as a blowoff tube.

If you have a large rectangular cooler that isn't being used as a mash tun, you can add a few inches of cool water and fit up to six jugs in there to ferment. This works really well for fermentation temp control.
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THAT'S an AWESOME suggestion! I've been trying to figure out the perfect recipe BEFORE I brew up a Peary for my Wifee so I don't waste all the time and ingredients on a batch-o-crap...Thanks for the Idea!
:)
 
One thing I also noticed with the small batches is my 5 gallon thin pot vs my bigger 8 gallon and 15 gallon pots is thermal mass of the pot. I noticed my bigger pots obviously held more heat so they would change a lot less over the mash when I BIAB. but the smaller pot is thinner and now that its colder is affected quite a bit more. I will try the oven trick when SWMBO ain't home but I will have to bring out the old mash tun to hold temps during this colder weather.
 
divrguy said:
One thing I also noticed with the small batches is my 5 gallon thin pot vs my bigger 8 gallon and 15 gallon pots is thermal mass of the pot. I noticed my bigger pots obviously held more heat so they would change a lot less over the mash when I BIAB. but the smaller pot is thinner and now that its colder is affected quite a bit more. I will try the oven trick when SWMBO ain't home but I will have to bring out the old mash tun to hold temps during this colder weather.
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I won't disagree that the thickness of the pot can contribute but the amount of water and pounds of grains of 5 gallons vs 1 gallons is probably a huge factor too.

EDIT: My first 1 gallon batch I had a brain fart moment. I tried to brew exactly like do 2.5 gallon or 5 gallon batches. I was having trouble figuring out why my temps weren't holding. Duh. Not the same amount of mass.
 
Speaking of holding temps and such, I did a test boil of 1.5 gallons in my 3 gallon pot (the $9 one from Walmart) yesterday, and noticed that the boil I was able to achieve was pretty weak. According to my digital thermometer the temp was 1-2 degrees shy of boiling for the entire thirty-minute test. How much of a concern is this gonna be, and what (if anything) do I need to do to compensate for it when I actually have wort in the pot? Do I boil longer? Somehow split the boil into two batches and blend afterwards? RDWHAHB? Inquiring minds want to know!
 
BattleGoat said:
Speaking of holding temps and such, I did a test boil of 1.5 gallons in my 3 gallon pot (the $9 one from Walmart) yesterday, and noticed that the boil I was able to achieve was pretty weak. According to my digital thermometer the temp was 1-2 degrees shy of boiling for the entire thirty-minute test. How much of a concern is this gonna be, and what (if anything) do I need to do to compensate for it when I actually have wort in the pot? Do I boil longer? Somehow split the boil into two batches and blend afterwards? RDWHAHB? Inquiring minds want to know!
Click to expand...

There is another thread on here called "stovetop brewing tips" or something like that. They have all sorts of tips to make sure you get a boil going...such as wrapping the sides with insulation or tin foil. Try keeping the lid on until you get the boil going. Then take it off
 
BattleGoat said:
Speaking of holding temps and such, I did a test boil of 1.5 gallons in my 3 gallon pot (the $9 one from Walmart) yesterday, and noticed that the boil I was able to achieve was pretty weak. According to my digital thermometer the temp was 1-2 degrees shy of boiling for the entire thirty-minute test. How much of a concern is this gonna be, and what (if anything) do I need to do to compensate for it when I actually have wort in the pot? Do I boil longer? Somehow split the boil into two batches and blend afterwards? RDWHAHB? Inquiring minds want to know!
Click to expand...

Calichusetts said:
There is another thread on here called "stovetop brewing tips" or something like that. They have all sorts of tips to make sure you get a boil going...such as wrapping the sides with insulation or tin foil. Try keeping the lid on until you get the boil going. Then take it off
Click to expand...

These tips will help. I subscribe to the Charlie Papazian theory of beer making " A good rolling boil would be best but a weak boil will still make beer so RDWHAHB"
 

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