How to Practice/Experiment

I've got my first two all-grain brews resting comfortably in their primaries, and despite a few snafus, they both seem well on their way to being nice beers. But there is certainly room for improvement in my process, and I am eager to earn from my mistakes. Aye, but there's the rub: Brewing even five gallons is pretty expensive, not so much in cash but in time and space occupied while waiting for results. The answers to this question are probably inherently limited, but has anyone devised any procedures for focusing in on and honing particular parts of the brewing process without all of the time and resource consumption of brewing a full batch? For what it's worth, the weak area I'm most interested in working on is sparging.

Jay

You can brew anysized batch you want. I do a lot of 2.5 gallon recipe test batches. You can even do 1 gallon AG brews. The basic brewing guys call that the six pack brew.

See i want to do smaller batches as test batches... BUT, i dont think my mash tun will support only one gallon... seems like it wouldnt siphon well. What do you guys use for mash that are all grain?

I use my normal 5 gallon mash tun for most of them, but I do a lot of Experiments, test recipes, or beers that I know I won't need/want more than a case of.

I sometimes use an unmodified 2 gallon cooler for a lot of my small btaches it holds up to 4 pounds of grain.

I just us a folding steamer in the bottom along with a grain bag. Just break off or unscrew the center post.



One of these, it helps to lift the grain bag above the spigot to keep the drainig from getting stuck.







I posted a lot of info in the mr beer thread that you may find helpful.

I posted some all grain small batchrecipes here, https://www.homebrewtalk.com/785533-post702.html

ANd a bit of a primer on AG with pics here https://www.homebrewtalk.com/738927-post659.html

But I mostly use my regular 5 gallon cooler mash tun which holds 14 pounds of grains...and 14 pounds of grain for a 2.5 gallon batch can be a mighty big beer.....


One of our memebers chubbykid had plans for a minikeg mashtun http://www.chubbykidhomebrew.com/Home/equipment



THe basic brewing radio guys are big fans of tiny batch brewing...3/4 gallon (1 6pack) in a 1 gallon winejug fermenter.

They demo the 6-pack IPA here

[ame]http://en.sevenload.com/shows/Basic-Brewing/episodes/PERGFAJ-01-12-06-Basic-Brewing-Video-A-Six-Pack-of-IPA[/ame]

and they also have done barleywines as well.

I ferment my 2.5 gallon batches in all manner of things, I have a 3 gallon better bottle, I also use 3 gallon water jugs, AND my old Mr Beer keg (it's perfect because you can even lager in your own fridge with it when you are starting out.)

You can even ferment a 2.5 gallon batch in a 5 gallon carboy if you want, though I would say a 6.5 gallon carboy is a little too much headspace for my confort.

Hope this helps....any more questions feel free to ask...

Also you can do a small scale brew in a bag as well. Right in your small boil pot.

very nice.

To practice sparging you can just collect the wort from your third runnings. You'll definitely want to beef it up with a pound or two of DME if you intend to use it to make beer.

Oops the chubbykid link has change. http://sites.google.com/site/chubbykidhomebrew/Home/equipment/mini-keg-lauter-tun

I just threw away one of those kegs . It was a mess inside because it had been sitting for a few years and I couldn't think of anything to use it for if I popped the top.

When I redid my equipment and process several years ago I did 4 batches of a Scottish 60/- back to back. Low cost as little hops, low grain bill and just repitch the yeast. This allowed me to dial in the process, get the numbers I needed for calculating recipes and efficiencies etc.

GT