oceanbrew
Well-Known Member
I occasionally brew one gallon batches, but never beer, usually wine, braggot, or mead.
having a rough time siphoning alone while holdong the wand and making sure the bottle doesnt overflow, all the while also making sure that the siphon doesnt hit the trub as i try and do all those things one handed,
Why not just use a bottling bucket, just like you do with 5 gallon batches?
I got a little 2.5 gallon plastic tub from the bakery at the grocery store (the cake frosting comes in them, they'll give them away for free when empty since they just recycle them anyway). I attached a simple spigot from my LHBS and built a little wooden jig to prop up the rear of the bucket (to help me get every last drop), I stick the bottling wand in the spigot and fill bottles with no headaches.
So, without reading this entire thread, here's a question: when adapting a larger volume recipe to a 1 gallon batch, do I also adjust times? That seems a little silly but, you could potentially lose a lot of volume but to get hop utilization don't boiling times have to remain at least an hour?
Thanks. I'm trying to get all the details worked out so that I can start brewing small batches for experimentation and it was a little unclear. I'm pretty stoked to start a batch of framboise for my wife.
Why not just use a bottling bucket, just like you do with 5 gallon batches?
I got a little 2.5 gallon plastic tub from the bakery at the grocery store (the cake frosting comes in them, they'll give them away for free when empty since they just recycle them anyway). I attached a simple spigot from my LHBS and built a little wooden jig to prop up the rear of the bucket (to help me get every last drop), I stick the bottling wand in the spigot and fill bottles with no headaches.
This....
Or you could go to your home improvement store to get a 2 gallon bucket. Either way....
Or just use the bottling bucket most already have for 5 gallon batches.
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For those of you using 1 gallon carboys, how do you dry hop?
Just throw the pellets straight in? Can you cold crash to keep them from being an issue during racking?
Or use a hop sack? But isn't it a pain to fish the sock out?
Novice here, but I do ~2 gallons BIAB, all grain and after the 60 minute mash at ~152 I raise it to ~168 for 10 minutes, then drain (squeeze if you wish) and begin the boilI did a one-gallon batch as a test of my BIAB technique and my equipment. I must say I wasn't really happy with the results. I'd like to develop this technique further but I have a couple questions for those of you who have been doing these small batches for a while:
- Do you scale your recipe strictly? i.e. -Do you divide a 5 gal. recipe exactly by 5 for all ingredients?
Do you use BIAB, 3 vessel or extract for your 1 gallon batches?
- If using BIAB, do you do a mash out step? Sparge? Just boil the first runnings?
I'm looking forward to learning from your experiences and your opinions on this.
Cheers!
I did a one-gallon batch as a test of my BIAB technique and my equipment. I must say I wasn't really happy with the results. I'd like to develop this technique further but I have a couple questions for those of you who have been doing these small batches for a while:
- Do you scale your recipe strictly? i.e. -Do you divide a 5 gal. recipe exactly by 5 for all ingredients?
Do you use BIAB, 3 vessel or extract for your 1 gallon batches?
- If using BIAB, do you do a mash out step? Sparge? Just boil the first runnings?
I'm looking forward to learning from your experiences and your opinions on this.
Cheers!
I decided to retire my carboys.
I used a Mr Beer little brown keg for the first time, and bottled from it yesterday in a breeze. I also had another 1-gal batch in a carboy i had to bottle right after, and that was uber annoying to do alone.
So, between having to use a blow off tube, then an airlock, then cleaning all the necessary gear like autosiphon, tube, bottling wand, then having a rough time siphoning alone while holdong the wand and making sure the bottle doesnt overflow, all the while also making sure that the siphon doesnt hit the trub as i try and do all those things one handed, THEN having to clean it all including the krausen off the carboy and the dripping mess on the floor, i said screw it.
Bought a second little brown keg online. I bottle straight out of the spigot and thats that.
Hats off to you guys for sticking to 1-gal carboys, i just cant handle the headache.. It almost turns me off when i should instead be thrilled.
Thanks for your comments, guys. How is your boil-off rate working out?
I typically loose about a gallon to boil-off with 5 gallon batches (60 min. boil). I have heard that proportionately you can expect to loose more on smaller batches. How much wort are you looking for at the beginning of your boil?
On the kitchen stove (NG) I have about 0.75 gallon boil-off in 60min.
So many ways that work and no wrong answers.
Still a novice as well.
I scale with beer smith to 1 gallon and make minor adjustments to meet my scales limitations. Using a 3 gallon pot so I have plenty of room for the hot break and after cooling using a siphon to leave the trub and cold break behind (after whirlpool). I have been skipping mashing out and sparging in favor of squeezing the bag like a turnip. I was sparging but had some funny things happening with volume and gravity on 3 gallon batches so I opted for simplicity for time being.
Hey puddlethumper and fuzzy - I use the sparge method outlined in the Beer Craft book, which has 1-gallon batches in mind. After you mash at whatever temp, you take the grain bag and dunk it in a separate 2-gallon pot of water with 165 degree temp...slosh it around a bit and let it sit for 15 mins. That's your "sparge" step for you. Hope it helps!
I'm having trouble following the math here. If you do a mash with 1 gallon +/- then sparge in another 2 gallons, don't you end up with 3 +/- gallons pre-boil? Are you doing 2 gallon batches? Or am I misunderstanding something?
I think he is saying that he uses a 2 gallon pot, not necessarily full all the way. There will be grain absorption from the 1 gallon mash so its not like its a full gallon anyway. I usually collect over 2 gallons of wort and do 90 minute boils. My 3 gallon pot boils about .6 gallons an hour
Hey puddlethumper and fuzzy - I use the sparge method outlined in the Beer Craft book, which has 1-gallon batches in mind. After you mash at whatever temp, you take the grain bag and dunk it in a separate 2-gallon pot of water with 165 degree temp...slosh it around a bit and let it sit for 15 mins. That's your "sparge" step for you. Hope it helps!
I'm having trouble following the math here. If you do a mash with 1 gallon +/- then sparge in another 2 gallons, don't you end up with 3 +/- gallons pre-boil? Are you doing 2 gallon batches? Or am I misunderstanding something?
A dunk sparge is what I was going to try on the next few brews. Have you compared how much gets extracted between the 2 methods?
I was doing a pour over sparge and getting inconsistent gravity results and the mess from the colanders we have (one is too big and the other is too small) did not help.
Hi there - sorry I wasn't clear. Exactly what Calichusetts said - I was using a 2-gallon pot, but not filled to the brim (otherwise sheer displacement alone would overflow). As long as you have roughly 2 gallons before boil, no problem. Depends on how much grain you use, but I sparge with roughly 3/4 gallon.
So you are finding that 2 gal +/- preboil is giving you a finished product at close to 1 gallon? That helps a lot as I am still trying to figure out the boil-off rate on these smaller size batches. (I have 5 gal. boils pretty well dialed in, but this is a whole new process.)
I'm coming to the conclusion that I'll probably need to invest the time and grain in another trial batch or two, monitoring and measuring everything pretty closely. I'm thinking it may be the best way to figure out how to do this with my set-up.
Thanks again!
I have stopped checking FG for the most part if I am confident in my yeast.
2 weeks generally, 3 tops and I am ready to bottle/keg and get another batch going.How do you know fermentation is done? Or are you just waiting a specific amount of time?
Use either or, not both.
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