"Small Beer", Extract with steeped grains recipe for 5l mini-keg

A little while ago, I began brewing 1g batches of sodas like ginger beer, using whatever fruit i had around, some sugar, and an ambient yeast starter, and bottling them in cleaned up seltzer bottles. Later i threw in for a mini-keg thinking it'd be easier than bottling, but to keep a long explanation short, it just didn't work out as well as i thought.

So now I have this keg, and I was think a small beer made from mostly extract wouldn't take that much longer than the soda to brew, and would be cool to "cask condition" in the keg.

Now, making 5l at a time probably seems crazy, however it would be so easy on such a small scale it almost makes up for it. This seems like it'd be pretty simple, and something i could easily do while i'm doing other things around the house on an off day, unlike say, brewing a full size AG batch of the same beer (which is what i'd normally do). However, I'm open to other suggestions.

Anyway, here's the recipe, adapted from this

Small Beer

Batch size 5liters
- .5lb DME
- 4oz Munich
- 2oz Cara-Pils
- 1.5oz Chocolate
- 1/8th oz Willamette at 60min
- 1/8th oz Willamette at 10min
- 1/4 pack Safale 04

Estimated ABV: 3.1%

I'm debating about the need for a 1hr boil, but i kept it in for hop bitterness. I guess sacrificing that, I could probably get away with boiling for just 10-20 minutes.

If you don't do the hour long boil on the hops you won't get any bitterness - only hop flavor and aroma.

i figured as much. i could do 60. i just need to try this once and see how much active time it takes to decide if it's worth it.

it would be so easy on such a small scale it almost makes up for it. This seems like it'd be pretty simple, and something i could easily do while i'm doing other things around the house on an off day, unlike say, brewing a full size AG batch of the same beer (which is what i'd normally do).

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There's not really any good reason that a 5 liter batch would take any less time or effort to brew than a 5 gallon batch or a 100 gallon batch. Scale doesn't change the steps, procedure, or the time, assuming it's the same relatively scaled equipment.

You aren't all the sudden going to have a bunch of extra time just because you are brewing 5 liters instead of 5 gallons. If you have a 5 hour brew day now, expect to have pretty close to a 5 day brew day for the small batch.

Time? Sure. Effort? Not exactly. Ever shovel out a 7b mash tun? I have. It's a lot more effort than pulling a muslin bag out of a pot. And that's just the point. On Ag brew days, I spend at least an hour cleaning things. With this method that would be minutes. Plus with this process I save a half hour at least by doing a partial mash.
So for me I'm thinking 4ish hours total, minimal effort, vs 6-7 hours, and a decent bit more effort.

killsurfcity said:

Time? Sure. Effort? Not exactly. Ever shovel out a 7b mash tun? I have. It's a lot more effort than pulling a muslin bag out of a pot. And that's just the point. On Ag brew days, I spend at least an hour cleaning things. With this method that would be minutes. Plus with this process I save a half hour at least by doing a partial mash.
So for me I'm thinking 4ish hours total, minimal effort, vs 6-7 hours, and a decent bit more effort.

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"shoveling" 7lbs out of a mash tun takes a lot of effort? Am I missing something here or was that a joke?

I think he meant a 7bbl mash tun, so more like 440 lbs of grain. I've cleaned a 4bbl mash tun before and it isn't much fun, but it sure does smell good!

My point was this guy isn't going to suddenly have time to get all of his chores done during his brew just because it is a 5 liter batch instead of 5 gallons. I clean used equipment during the mash, during the boil, and during the cool down, so it usually only takes me about 20-30 minutes after transferring to the primary to have all of my cleaning complete.

Doing a 5 liter batch vs. a 5 gallon batch would only save me the time it takes to heat up to strike temps and heat up to boil temps, then maybe 15 minutes in cleanup at the end, so I would probably only save about 45 minutes tops in my brew day due to the volume difference.

TopherM said:

I think he meant a 7bbl mash tun, so more like 440 lbs of grain. I've cleaned a 4bbl mash tun before and it isn't much fun, but it sure does smell good!

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Why are we even comparing a 7bbl batch to a 5L batch?

killsurfcity said:

Time? Sure. Effort? Not exactly. Ever shovel out a 7b mash tun? I have. It's a lot more effort than pulling a muslin bag out of a pot. And that's just the point. On Ag brew days, I spend at least an hour cleaning things. With this method that would be minutes. Plus with this process I save a half hour at least by doing a partial mash.
So for me I'm thinking 4ish hours total, minimal effort, vs 6-7 hours, and a decent bit more effort.

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if you don't like brewing beer you can always buy it in the grocery store

Eh, you're missing the point. I love brewing beer and do a lot of it, I was just thinking if I was brewing a minimal beer I might try to do it with minimal effort, you know, for fun. Just trying something new. (we still do that here right?)

essentially I was wondering if I could brew beer in a similar way to how I do sodas, which is quite easy to do on a whim and generally pretty rewarding for what little effort is expended.

perhaps such a small batch is a bit of a waste time wise (though the effort is still pretty small). Maybe I'll triple it and get a couple more mini kegs. Then I could just throw another in the fridge as needed.