Pitfalls of scaling down?

I have read so many books on AG brewing it is starting to get frightening. But, one topic that I do not come across is scaling down the recipies for (obviously) smaller batches.

Since my storage area for beer is fixed, the only way to have more variety is to brew smaller batches.

SO, THE QUESTION:

Assuming accurate measurement of ingredients, does brewing small batches, say 2 gallon, present any unique problem?

Only problem I have read about is having less of the beer if it turns out to be a really good beer,other than that I don't believe so.

No unique problems, other than what brewerbear just said - having less beer. When I started brewing AG, I had to scale back to 3 gallon batches because of equipment, and did this for a long time.

Also, you can read as far into the science as you want, but AG brewing really isn't that complicated. If you use the correct amounts of water at the correct temperatures, it's actually pretty hard to screw up. I was shocked at how easy it was to make really good beer!

Remember to scale down the yeast as well. Consult Mr. Malty. BIAB makes it even easier! I brew stove top 3 gallon batches which means I get to brew more often.

This is my setup. Dead simple, and was zero additional cost. (made my first brew bag out of a thin curtain)
http://woodlandbrew.blogspot.com/2012/09/biab.html

This is exactly how I learned to do AG. Scaled down recipes are easy to make on the stovetop, it's cheap and easy to experiment, mistakes are only 28 or so bottles. As noted above, the downside is there's less beer if it's a good batch. Solution? Brew more often!

Oh, and everything scales. WAnt to make a 2.5 gallon batch? Take a 5 gal recipe and cut all measurements exactly in half.

If you use brewing software (tasty brew for instance, an online calculator that is free) it's a fairly simple process. First, poke in the original recipie, including the batch size ( probably 5 gallons) and the original hops schedule and grain bill. Make note of the output values for SRM(color) IBU( bitterness) and OG(gravity) Now adjust the recipie values, entering your planned batch size, and if you're doing a 3 gallon batch, start with 3/5 of each component. Note the revised output values for bitterness, color and gravity. Adjust the base malt to hit your OG. Adjust the 60 minute hops addition to hit your bitterness, and adjust the specialty grains to hit your color. There you are.

I use excel because the math is not that complicated

The only real scaling issue is equipment. If you do BIAB, that isn't an issue either. A bag is a bag.

If you are using a modified cooler, then you end up with proportionally more dead space and way more head space. eg making a 1 gallon batch in a 10 gallon cooler would present some challenges in temps and would be pretty inefficient in terms of wort collection.

JonM said:

Oh, and everything scales. WAnt to make a 2.5 gallon batch? Take a 5 gal recipe and cut all measurements exactly in half.

Click to expand...

I don't think that's necessarily true. If you're using the same equipment, then you have to account for certain things that remain the same, regardless of batch size.

For example, if you're mashing a 2.5 gallon batch in the same mash tun you use for your 5 gallon batches, your mash tun "dead space" isn't halved - it stays the same. So if you have 0.5 gallons of dead space, you have to keep using the full 0.5 gallon figure in your measurements.

Likewise for boil rate in your boil kettle. If your kettle boils off 1 gallon/hour, it doesn't matter whether you're boiling 6.5 gallons or 4 gallons. You don't halve the figure.

I don't mean to nitpick, I'm just saying re-run your numbers when scaling a batch size.