Moving to 1 gallon batches

I need to move to one gallon batches. I have been brewing 5 or 10 gallon batches for the last year or so and have come to the conclusion I just can't drink that much beer by myself. I obviously have all of the equipment to make up to 10 gallons at a time can I use all of that gear to make 1 or 1.5 gallons at a time instead? 2-6.5 gallons better bottles, 1-5 gallon better bottle and 1-6 gallon glass carboy. Also a converted boil keggle (probably wont use that) I am thinking 12 quart stainless pot and fine mesh strainer for BIAB. What do you think? Should I buy a couple 3 gallon carboys or will the bigger ones work the same?

I think it would be really difficult to rack out of the large fermentors. I've done 1 gal test batches before, and I used a 12 qt stockpot and 1 gallon glass jugs I got from my LHBS. The jugs would be much cheaper than new carboys.

If I used a 1 gallon glass jug wouldn't I end up with much less then 1 gallon of beer?

You could make 1.5G batches and split it between 2 1G glass jugs. And use the mini autosiphon for racking. If it were me, I would try to trade or sell one of my carboys for a 3G carboy/bb (if you plan to continue doing this).

Yeah, I just picked up a 12 quart stainless stockpot from Walmart for $9.68 and a 4L jug of Carlo Rossi wine for $12.99. I have leftover voile from my 10 gallon BIAB bag. Looks like its time to try out the 1 gallon brew size. I may bump it up to 2.5 gallons if 1 gallon doesn't seem like quite enough. All I need to do is swing by the LHBS for a mini auto siphon.

One question for you all. Obviously at 1 gallon the most yeast I'll ever need is probably 70billion cells. What do you all do with the leftovers from a smack pack, vial, or dry yeast sack?

Dry yeast: calculate what you need (11.5 g Safale = 5-6 gal) and measure it out on a scale. Store the rest in the fridge. Keeps for a couple months at least. There have been discussions about yeast theoretically getting compromised once you open the packet, but my experience has shown this to be the merest remote possibility, like winning the lottery while riding a unicorn that gets stuck by lightning during a total eclipse.

Wet yeast: pitch the whole thing. On racking/bottling/kegging day (1 gallon keg? er - why not.), wash the yeast or pour the next brew onto the yeast cake. This is what I've been doing. It beats spending $6.99 on each gallon's worth of yeast. I have yet to hear of a reliable, non-infection-prone way to partition & save the wet yeast on the day you first crack open the pack. I suppose you could just pitch a little bit of what's in a smack pack, but there's really no way to save the rest of it for later use.

Prymal said:

Obviously at 1 gallon the most yeast I'll ever need is probably 70billion cells. What do you all do with the leftovers from a smack pack, vial, or dry yeast sack?

Click to expand...

I try to do double batch brews whenever possible, I tend to do higher gravity beers and it usually calculates out to using 8 grams out of a dry yeast packet. I'm okay with the loss of the leftovers

Prymal said:

One question for you all. Obviously at 1 gallon the most yeast I'll ever need is probably 70billion cells. What do you all do with the leftovers from a smack pack, vial, or dry yeast sack?

Click to expand...

That's easy. Make a starter. Split it in half. Use half for the current brew and save the other half in a mason jar in the fridge for a future brew.

evrose said:

That's easy. Make a starter. Split it in half. Use half for the current brew and save the other half in a mason jar in the fridge for a future brew.

Click to expand...

Make a full on starter or just a small 1 quart starter to wake the yeast up? Well actually I tend to use dry yeast 80% of the time, except saisons and the occasional BDS. My folks have a vaccum sealer so I should be able to seal up the yeast to prolong its viability for at least one month. If I get 2 brews from 1 packet I'll be happy. I am looking forward to trying this one gallon thing over the weekend.

Mildly annoyed, stovetop won't boil 1.5 gallons of wort. I get up to 205f and peaked. I had to drop it on the banjo burner and turn the gas all of the way down to prevent to much boil off. Hum, what to do? I think the issue might be the $9 walmart kettle while is slightly convex away from the electric burner so there isn't direct contract between the glass and the stainless steel.

you need more buddys

Get a gas stove I've been boiling 4-5 gallons on my stove without any problems!

Seriously, I would just keep using your banjo on low.

I have done a few 1 gallon batches using the 1 gallon jugs you can get at the LHBS. I consistently get 10 bottles out of it which ends up being 0.93 gallons. I usually have about a half bottles worth of beer left in the bottling bucket.

One thing I have noticed with boiling on my gas stove is that if I do it in my 3 gallon pot I have a hard time getting a good rolling boil. I think this is due the extra height of the walls of the pot as they will act like a heat sink dissipating heat into the air. If I use my regular stock pot that barely holds 1 gallon I have no problems getting a good rolling boil. I plan to get yet another pot that only holds 1.5 to 2 gallons and get rid of the 3 gallon pot.

I have always just pitched the entire pack of dry yeast for 1 gallon batches. My understanding is that the yeast will still multiply until they reach some sort of equilibrium ratio of yeast cells to fermentable sugar. If you use a whole pack it will just take less time to reach this equilibrium. I may be wrong though but I haven't noticed any adverse effects with my 1 gallon batches by doing this.

How are you scaling your recipes?
I've been told it's very hard to scale down a beer recipe (I haven't brewed beer yet, only mead), especially the hop additions.

Halbrust said:

How are you scaling your recipes?
I've been told it's very hard to scale down a beer recipe (I haven't brewed beer yet, only mead), especially the hop additions.

Click to expand...

Hop additions should be a little bit higher for more aroma and flavor, while certain malts should be very low in content as to not overpower the brew, mostly less than 5% in my experience.

Target sells a 2gal Igloo water cooler for $12. I am going use BIAB and the cooler as a mash tun for 1-2.5 gallon batches. Northern brewer also sells cute little 2 gallon buckets for ferm chambers, $15 with lid IIRC. I use a 3 gallon BetterBottle for 2-2.5 gallon batches, and 1 gallon glass wine jugs for the rest.

Prymal said:

Mildly annoyed, stovetop won't boil 1.5 gallons of wort. I get up to 205f and peaked. I had to drop it on the banjo burner and turn the gas all of the way down to prevent to much boil off. Hum, what to do? I think the issue might be the $9 walmart kettle while is slightly convex away from the electric burner so there isn't direct contract between the glass and the stainless steel.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I noticed that when I tried to use a cheapo (thin-walled, thin-bottomed) pot for boiling wort. It lost a lot of heat and barely stayed boiling, while my thick-walled tri-clad Fagor Splendid 10qt pressure cooker, which I started using as a 1-gallon boil pot, does the job with less gas. Plus, pressure cookers are awesome when you use them for their intended purpose. Go, get one! Everybody! They are wonderful inventions.

Halbrust said:

How are you scaling your recipes?
I've been told it's very hard to scale down a beer recipe (I haven't brewed beer yet, only mead), especially the hop additions.

Click to expand...

Scaling a recipe is super easy. The ingredients scale linearly. If you have a 10 gallon recipe and want to brew a 5 gallon version divide all of your ingredients by 2. Or a 5 gallon recipe down to 1 gallons you divide by 5. Easy as pie.

My lhbs sells 2 gal buckets that I ferment in for my 1.5 gal batches. If you can't get something like that a 3 gallon better bottle (or the like) will work just fine. You'll just have plenty of head-room. If you're going to lager then you'll want something that you can nearly fill, like a 1 gallon glass jug.

Sithdad said:

My lhbs sells 2 gal buckets that I ferment in for my 1.5 gal batches. If you can't get something like that a 3 gallon better bottle (or the like) will work just fine. You'll just have plenty of head-room. If you're going to lager then you'll want something that you can nearly fill, like a 1 gallon glass jug.

Click to expand...

I looked at my LHBS and they had 1 gallon jugs and 3 gallon better bottled. I went to my church which has a full kitchen and found a 2 gallon mayo tub without a lid that I took. Went to the home depot paint department a grabbed a 2 gallon lid that fits perfect. The only issue is the lid doesn't have a rubber seal so I am only 75% or so safe from bacteria and oxidation post fermentation. Maybe I'll transfer to my wine jug for a secondary to better protect from the nasties.