were can I get 1 gallon recipes?

Ok so I recently got to try and for the most part enjoy my first batch of beer. I would like to be able to try making a lot of different batches though and being the only person in my home that drinks beer 5 gallons takes a long time to get rid of.

Is there any were I can get some good 1 gallon batch recipes to play around with?

Jakith

You can always scale a recipe down, but you want to keep in mind that any minor inaccuracies in your measurements will be amplified in a smaller batch, ie, 1 lb extra DME is more noticable in a 5 gal batch than a 20 gal batch. 5 gallons translates to roughly 2.5 cases of beer, which you won't have a problem getting rid of, especially if you have friends like mine, where they proceed to tell the world how good your stuff is and they really need to try it .

I'm in a similar situation. Hubby and I don't drink a whole lot of beer. We don't have a lot of friends who drink alcohol, , so the 5 gal batches I'm making will take us time to drink. 2.5 gal batches make sense to me, as it also allows me to test different recipes and not commit to the space, cost and time it takes to bottle and store a full 5 gal batch. Especially useful if a batch ends up being something neither of us likes.

What about the hops? Is the amount just halved for them too?

You folks should just brew the five gallon recipes and send 2.5 gallons to your good friends on Homebrewtalk.com.

There . . . . problem solved. You're welcome.

You really don't want to drink your whole batch anyway. I specifically stash at least a sixer of every batch so I can taste them as they age. Maybe I'll realize how much better my newer brews taste, who knows, but I certainly don't mind having a nice variety of homebrews sitting around. By the time you sample here and there, test gravity, bottle, test carbonation a couple times before it's really done, etc; you're gonna have a half case left to drink. A one gallon batch is a waste of time IMHO.

I totally agree. If you're really worried about doing 5 gallon batches, go with the 2.5 gallon batch. After a couple specific gravity tests, and loss when bottling or racking from one vessel to another, you'll have almost exactly one case. If you brew once or twice a month, that's really not that much.

Thanks, I think the 2.5 gal will work fine. If I'm using wyeast do I still put the whole dose in?

Yes, you should add all the yeast. It's almost impossible for homebrewers to overpitch.

Lorena

I am relatively new to homebrewing and would like to try all grain brewing. I dont have a lot of space or money and only have a five gallon boil kettle. I have a couple large pots and can heat about a gallon of sparge water and was going to use a large collander and grain bags. Will that be enough for me to do a 2.5 gallon batch?

A gallon would definitely not be enough to sparge a 2.5 gallon batch.

I do plenty of 1 gallon batches. They tend to be test batches of new recipes or cider/graff. I get 10-12 bottles out of it. It definitely lets you brew more often and cheaply develop a diverse pipeline but on the other hand it's a lot of work for a small amount of beer. It's better than getting multiple gallons of something you don't like though. If you just want to go the small batch route, 2.5-3 gallons makes more sense.

Beersmith is great for scaling down recipes to whatever you want. I currently use it to brew 1.5 gallon recipes for my home draft kegs.

+1 if you happen to have an iphone or ipod touch for brewing software. PAY the .99cents for brewpal, lets you scale down any recipe to anything you want. Best app I ever bought at any price. But yeah, 2.5 gallon batches or 2 gallon batches are the way to go, all that work and waiting for 1 gallon to me, isn't worth it.