Photos from first ONE gallon brew day...

Awesome project! I've been wanting to do this for a while now and you've inspired me.

Do you mind sharing your recipes for these 1 gallon batchs?

Did you use dried or liquid yeast? I've only ever used liquid, but shiver at the thought of dumping 6 bucks worth of yeast into 1 gallon....

I get protein powder in these 1.75 gallon containers and thought about drilling the tops out for an air lock.... it should work. They are food grade and they cleaned up really well. No trace of the original smell.

maltbarleyhops said:

dubbeldach: did your onies ferment out really fast? the blonde ale i did is 5 days into fermentation and is at 1.002!

Click to expand...

Yes, they were very fast, but I let them sit for 7 days before doing anything...

Nowuries said:

Awesome project! I've been wanting to do this for a while now and you've inspired me.

Do you mind sharing your recipes for these 1 gallon batchs?

Did you use dried or liquid yeast? I've only ever used liquid, but shiver at the thought of dumping 6 bucks worth of yeast into 1 gallon....

I get protein powder in these 1.75 gallon containers and thought about drilling the tops out for an air lock.... it should work. They are food grade and they cleaned up really well. No trace of the original smell.

Click to expand...

I bet the protein powder containers would be awesome... Great idea!

I used dry for the brown ale and liquid for the hefe... I can't bring myself to use dry for the wheat beers. I bit the bullet and dropped the $6.50 in the tiny bucket... Oh well!

Recipes... I did a 45 min mash and a 30 min boil for both:

MINI-Nut Brown Ale

1.6 lbs. American 2-row
0.2 lbs. Crystal Malt 60°L
0.1 lbs. American Victory
0.05 lbs. American Chocolate Malt
0.2 lbs. Oats Flaked
0.3 oz. Fuggle (Pellets, 4.75 %AA) boiled 30 min.
0.2 oz. East Kent Goldings (Pellets, 5.00 %AA) boiled 15 min.
Yeast : Danstar 3767 Nottingham

MINI-Hefeweizen

1 lbs. German 2-row Pils
1 lbs. German Wheat Malt Light
0.25 oz. Hallertau Mittelfruh (Pellets, 3.8 %AA) boiled 30 min.
Yeast : White Labs WLP300 Hefeweizen Ale

Another project I am doing involving smaller fermentors...

Stout Project 2011

One 5 gallon batch of stout, fermented and racked to five 1 gallon fermentors and assigned some juju,

Blueberry Stout:



Raspberry Stout:



Vanilla Stout:



Coffee Stout: (no pics... the coffee is still cold pressing)

Irish Dry Stout: (the control... nothing added)



Will bottle these in the next few weeks (just realized what a huge pain in the ass that's going to be!) and label them thusly:



All pics here.

DubbelDach, that's SO AWESOME...yet another great idea!

Great idea for something to do on the very bitter days when shop is too hard to heat. I think I'll use this to test my yeasts, got my mind scrambling now, I know I have a small round cooler somewhere, now what to use for fermentors . . . . .

glad I found this thread again...

DubbelDach said:

I bit the bullet and dropped the $6.50 in the tiny bucket... Oh well!

Click to expand...

Ouch, but worth it on something that's flavor is yeast driven!
At least you didn't have to make a starter! :rockin:
Oh, and thanks for the recipes.... You rock..

i wouldn't cut the normal mash times or boil times despite quantity. shorter mash times=more grain needed, not any big deal for a gallon. shorter boil times=less dms boiloff, = bitter beer. neat little setup, though

This is way cool, small batches means more variety in the refer
although i'd probably stick to extract but wondering too about boil times and hop utilization diferences in small batches

I've got a ton of 1g jugs leftover from an organic Apfelwein batch I did last year...and I've got a tiny cooler too. This'll be my next DIY project!

Seems like a great idea for test batches.

this was a great post. cheers to you brotha!

DubbelDach said:

Couple of quick and easy additions:

Bottling bucket...

With dip tube. Only leaves 3 ounces in the bucket...

And I built the mash tun a dedicated manifold, of that will stay together and doesn't make me cannibalize my big boy manifold. Only leaves 7 ounces in the bottom of the cooler.

Click to expand...

What size hole saw did you use to drill the hole for the bottling bucket? What size stopper are you using? I am assuming the dip tube is made from a racking cane?

DubbelDach said:

Bottled my brown and hefe almost a week ago... I'll tell you... The one flaw in the system is that auto-siphons are too big for mini-buckets... They need to make a super small one. They do make a smaller one, but it's not THAT much smaller.

I used Carbtabs to bottle for the first time... Didn't feel like weighing out and boiling the sugar twice. We'll see how it goes! I got 6 bottles of the brown (had been racked and 2ndaried) and 10 bottles of the hefe (which I got more volume out of anyway...). maltbarleyhops: I think you're right, every measurement has to be more precise because there's not much wiggle room at these volumes!

Click to expand...

I have this one http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/mini-auto-siphon-3-8.html. I am going to use it to bottle some overflow beer that did not make it into the keg

I've got two, one gallon jugs fermenting right now (Left Hand Milk Stout clones). A few things I've thought about:
- Using a refractometer as their sample sizes are small enough not to worry about, even at this small quantity.
- I've had a bit of difficulty maintaining mash temperature as well, and thought about using the oven. The lowest temperature it goes is 170F, but I wonder if it would maintain a steadier level than the stove top.
- Fermentation temperature control, perhaps something involving a large igloo cooler?

zman said:

What size hole saw did you use to drill the hole for the bottling bucket? What size stopper are you using? I am assuming the dip tube is made from a racking cane?

Click to expand...

I got a set of hole saws from Harbor Freight... There's like 12 of them in a pack for like $6. Great purchase! I think it's the 7/8" one, but I am not sure... I picked the one that looked snug for the valve I had. Not sure about the stopper... It fits the neck of a bottle (attempted beer gun build) and I had it lying around. And that is a hacksawed racking cane. Wear safety glasses - those pieces chip off pretty nice. And saw it at a slight angle.

zman said:

I have this one http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/mini-auto-siphon-3-8.html. I am going to use it to bottle some overflow beer that did not make it into the keg

Click to expand...

I saw that at my LHBS but didn't feel like it was that much smaller than my large one... Will check it out again. Thanks!

beetlbumjl said:

- Using a refractometer as their sample sizes are small enough not to worry about, even at this small quantity.

Click to expand...

One of these days... $$$

a piece of advice based on recent experience: do not use cooper's yeast just because you're doing a one gallon batch and want to keep costs down, it tastes pretty bad in the end (imo, of course)

I have never used Coopers... Big Safale 04 and 05 fan though!

Sent from my DROIDX using Home Brew Talk

well opened a bottle from my first one gallon batch, a nice blonde ale.

WAAAAAAYYYY to much yeast! i introduced an entire 11 gr sachet.

it tastes like yeast water, with a light hint of malt. donated the other 3 bombers of it to the sink drain trolls....sad sad day

DoctorDuvel said:

a piece of advice based on recent experience: do not use cooper's yeast just because you're doing a one gallon batch and want to keep costs down, it tastes pretty bad in the end (imo, of course)

Click to expand...

Agreed, used cooper's once in an experiment and regretted it. I couldn't get the fg down past 1.025 from an og of 1.050.

Update on the Stout Project.... It's ready!

I added 1 lb of blueberries and 1 lb. of raspberries. The raspberry stout is perfect, the blueberry got lost. And I was going to add some blueberry extract that I had, but just forgot. Next time, I'd go 2 lbs blueberries/gallon and then see if it needed extract. The vanilla (2 split scraped beans) is wonderful. Going to try the coffee tonight.

Thats awesome.

What are you using to make those labels? (Both for the bottles & the six-pack carriers)

Brian

I used to use removable labels, but since I rarely bottle anymore, I don't bother with reusing bottles. So they are Avery full page labels, cut apart with a paper cutter.

Sent from my DROIDX using Home Brew Talk

Actually, I was thinking more of the software you used to lay them out rather than the label stock...

Brian

Oh, sorry..... Did the backgrounds with Photoshop and pulled them into Illustrator to do the copy and vector imagery.

Thanks!

Brian

Love the stout project! Great way to test a bunch of flavors at once! How'd the coffee stout turn out? If you like it; let me know your recipe. I'm looking at tackling a Schlafly Coffee Stout Clone. Again, great job!

Dry Stout Base Recipe

8 lbs. American 2-row
.5 lbs. American Chocolate Malt
.5 lbs. American Black Patent
.5 lbs. Roasted Barley
1 lbs. Oats Flaked

.85 oz. Centennial (Whole, 10.00 %AA) boiled 60 min.

Safale S-04

For the coffee addition, I cold (French) pressed Guatemalan coffee and added that to secondary. I wish I remembered amounts and such.... I have an 8 cup press and it was about half full. And then I just poured it in and my gut told me when to stop. Not very scientific, I know...

And my wife called the Coffee Stout my best beer ever (that only took 70-some batches, lol), Going so far as to say that it's blows away Troegs JavaHead (really?!?). I think it's pretty good, but her reaction to it surprised me, guess I struck a chord. Needless to say, I will be making a full 5 gallons of it in the future!

In pairing up with her, I really "outkicked my coverage", so to speak. So if she thinks that I'm the best guy in the world, then this *might* not truly be the best beer ever, haha....

Man, I'm liking this idea. And the mini-mash tun is great, but I'm wondering (being a noob interested in this sort of mini-batch) wouldn't it be fairly suitable to do stovetop full-volume-mash BIAB on this scale? It seems like that would be pretty easy. In my limited experience, it can be somewhat difficult to maintain uniform mash temp with so little water, but full volume with no sparge would eliminate that issue, wouldn't it? Anyone see a potential problem with doing that?

Ghost - I've started doing one gallon BIAB stove-top and can confirm that it's really difficult to maintain mash temperature. I've even tried sticking it in the oven set at 170 and the door slightly ajar. After take it out and stir, the temperature drops like a rock (tens of degrees). Once I get it back up to 160-ish, the oven does an OK job maintaining that temp (of course the lid of the pot is probably doing most of the work by insulating). I'm curious to know what other people might be doing to mitigate this.

beetlbumjl, how about if you very gently and carefully swirl the pot while holding the lid on instead of taking the lid off? It does seem like stirring is the biggest issue (perhaps moreso with a small volume like this?), and it reminds me of boiling pasta - i.e. tradition said you need to stir a few times throughout to keep it from sticking together, but in reality if you just give it a decent stir right at the start it does fine. I wonder if the mash might work similarly (I notice in Deathbrewer's stickied BIAB posts he only stirs a couple times.) That is my completely uninformed, speculative opinion.

DubbelDach said:

Bottled my brown and hefe almost a week ago... I'll tell you... The one flaw in the system is that auto-siphons are too big for mini-buckets... They need to make a super small one. They do make a smaller one, but it's not THAT much smaller.

I used Carbtabs to bottle for the first time... Didn't feel like weighing out and boiling the sugar twice. We'll see how it goes! I got 6 bottles of the brown (had been racked and 2ndaried) and 10 bottles of the hefe (which I got more volume out of anyway...). maltbarleyhops: I think you're right, every measurement has to be more precise because there's not much wiggle room at these volumes!

Click to expand...

Northern Brewer makes an auto siphon just for gallon jugs.
http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewi...pment/racking-canes/mini-auto-siphon-3-8.html

very cool idea... i need to look into this has anyone ever used glass gallon wine jugs with carboy bungs added?

lex990 said:

very cool idea... i need to look into this has anyone ever used glass gallon wine jugs with carboy bungs added?

Click to expand...

Yup. I brew hard cider in Carlo Rossi bottles. A number 6 stopper fits perfect.

you may want to think twice about using rubber bungs on the one-gallon jug - for some reason on these one-gallon jugs the rubber odor can be quite powerful...some have reported that it ends up tainting the beer - i believe it...i just use foil or parchment with a few pin holes to let the gas escape, secured by a rubber band

For the one gallon BIAB. I just put my 2gallong pot in the oven without turning it on. I only lose about two degrees across an hour. There's no need to stir if your not heating. Have made several good beers this way.

guess42, brilliant!

Gotta admit, wasn't originally my idea. But thank you

+1

I love it.. Its giving me some ideas about brewing in my tiny 3rd floor apartment. Smaller batches isn't exactly a bad thing,,, Brilliant! thanks