1-Gallon Brewers UNITE!

Sorry in advance as I'm sure this has been covered 100x in this thread but after about 20 pages of digging, I couldn't find any examples.

How does everyone scale down their dry hop for 1g batches? The other hop additions are easy to figure out since there are IBU contributions but the dry hop is harder. I guess there's a balance to be struck between creating great aroma and not introducing too much trub into such a small batch.

On my last 5 gallon IPA, I dry hopped with 4.5oz. Would you simply divide by 5 and use something like .9oz here?

Pyg said:

Bottles 8 bottles of cream ale.
The hop smell was strong and funky. Like a funky grapefruit. Maybe a little rubbery
1# Pilsen DME
3.2 oz Pilsen malt
3.2 oz flaked corn
3.2oz instant rice
Steep155F for 30 min
Cascade for all 3 staged
5.6 grams for 60 min
2.8 g for 15
2.8 for 5
Pretty sure one oF my kids threw in a pellet of centennial
In my late addition hops.
Hope the funky aroma doesn't interfere with drink ability.
Then again who am I kidding, I will drink it.
View attachment 347265View attachment 347266

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How do you think this would be "dry hopped" with jalapenos?

luizffgarcia said:

Guys,

How do you deal with topping off the evaporated water so you will have the full 1 gallon at the end of the boil?

I am now starting my boil with over six liters and still end up having to tap off about one liter when i move the wort to the fermenter.

Do you use bigger pots so you will be able to boil like 8 or 9 liters to have the desired 4 liters at the end?

Also, is it a good practice to top off during the boil if my pot is not big enough to handle more water from the beginning? Instead of doing so when moving to the fermenter?

Click to expand...

Generally, I try to have enough water in the pot to cover boil evaporation and trub in the fermenter, so when I'm done I have 1 gallon of beer in bottles. I was using a 2 gallon pot at first, but it was too tight a squeeze and boilovers were frequent so I moved to a larger pot.

Topping off in the boil kettle might effect your hop utilization, just something you'd have to account for in your recipe. What you're doing is a partial boil, look for that term online and you'll find lots of info.

For dry hopping just divide the weight. I would not factor the AA

ayrlander said:

Generally, I try to have enough water in the pot to cover boil evaporation and trub in the fermenter, so when I'm done I have 1 gallon of beer in bottles. I was using a 2 gallon pot at first, but it was too tight a squeeze and boilovers were frequent so I moved to a larger pot.

Topping off in the boil kettle might effect your hop utilization, just something you'd have to account for in your recipe. What you're doing is a partial boil, look for that term online and you'll find lots of info.

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Thanks for the tip, i never intended on doing partial boils, i thought topping off was something you have to do sometimes depending on the evaporation rates...

From now on i will try to go with more water and do a full boil instead.

I made a possible boo boo. Or something awesome. Or something in between. Not sure yet.

Made a "leftovers" IPA on the weekend with leftover hops and base malts I had kicking around, had a 'couple' beers while brewing and put in what amounted to be about 200g of 45L candi sugar into the boil. Didn't plan on it.

Just sorta......kept pouring.

Using BRY-97, which seems to be bubbling okay but considering a lot of recipes call for a pound of sugar in a 5 gallon batch was worried that almost a half pound in a single gallon would be way too much of a good thing. Also wondering if I'm making my yeast sugar drunk and that it may stall.

Will post up the recipe for giggles when I find my notebook.

EDIT: Annnnnnnnd I forgot to look up my notes.

But! The BRY-97 is bubbling away like mad. This is going to be interesting.

EDIT EDIT: Been a week and the BRY-97 is still bubbling nice and steady.

Recipe:
488g 2-row
282g Maris Otter
171g Vienna
87g golden promise

60 minute mash at 152F
90 minute boil

3g Fuggle @ 90
3g Hallertau Mit @ 90
4g Hallertau Mit @ 60
3g Hallertau Mit @ 45
3g Chinook @ 30
5g Chinook @ 15
200G 45L candi sugar @ 15
1/8 tsp yeast nutrient @ 15
5g Chinook @ 10
8g Chinook @ 5

Rehydrated BRY-97 with sugar

luizffgarcia said:

Guys,

How do you deal with topping off the evaporated water so you will have the full 1 gallon at the end of the boil?

I am now starting my boil with over six liters and still end up having to tap off about one liter when i move the wort to the fermenter.

Do you use bigger pots so you will be able to boil like 8 or 9 liters to have the desired 4 liters at the end?

Also, is it a good practice to top off during the boil if my pot is not big enough to handle more water from the beginning? Instead of doing so when moving to the fermenter?

Click to expand...

I just top up with cold water in the fermenter. Once you get used to how much you lose, you can put it in the fermenter and then add the cooled wort. I do larger batches and usually come up about 2Q low.

Anyone ever tried a decoction mash on a 1 gallon batch? Thinking about trying a 3-step decoction on an oktoberfest recipe but have never done one before.

Opiate42 said:

Anyone ever tried a decoction mash on a 1 gallon batch? Thinking about trying a 3-step decoction on an oktoberfest recipe but have never done one before.

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Never tried it... but, no reason it shouldn't work! Would be an interesting experiment!

jimdkc said:

Never tried it... but, no reason it shouldn't work! Would be an interesting experiment!

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Yah just thinking of my tiny kitchen and how I'd possibly do it and all the while three cats underfoot.

Am currently mashing a white ipa, going to toss about 20g if chopped ginger into the boil. Damn it smells nice!

inkman15 said:

Sorry in advance as I'm sure this has been covered 100x in this thread but after about 20 pages of digging, I couldn't find any examples.

How does everyone scale down their dry hop for 1g batches? The other hop additions are easy to figure out since there are IBU contributions but the dry hop is harder. I guess there's a balance to be struck between creating great aroma and not introducing too much trub into such a small batch.

On my last 5 gallon IPA, I dry hopped with 4.5oz. Would you simply divide by 5 and use something like .9oz here?

Click to expand...

yup. or at your shop have them weigh it out from oz to grams. better units to work with. 1" vs 1/12' same thing, just not as easy to pull off at home

For me id love to do 5 gallon batches. I just didnt have the money in order to get the 5 gallon kit. So im starting with the 1 gallon batches and will slowly replace everything with the equipment i need for 5 gallon batches.

Im currently doing 5 gallon batches but honestly I want to start doing 1 gallon just because to learn means to experiment. I dont want to be stuck with 50 bottles of something terrible because I was experimenting

Well after more than a month of not brewing (ok lets face it 2 months), I finally had time to brew this morning and will have some more time for another one tomorrow morning.

Today was the Table Beer recipe from the Brooklyn brew shop book. Now that the beer is in the fermenter I can ponder what went well and not so well ...

The good part I had an efficiency of 70 % (double crushed grain). I know for some of you that might be low but my previous all grain was at 54% so there is progress. Tomorrow the grain will have been crushed only once so I will see what difference it will make in that department.

Now for the place where I want to see some improvement tomorrow : 3h 45 min brew day ...

I would love to shave those 45 minutes if possible.

7am start getting water to striking temp
7:35 am start mashing
8:35 am start bringing water to a boil
8:52 am start of boil
9:52 am end of boil
10:26 am stop cooling the wort
10:45 am all done clean up done

Now there is a few step where I believe I can do better :

Getting to mash temp, I am always afraid to go above strike temp and end up going slowly, I guess I will have to do a mix of high temp at first and then slowing down when reaching strike temps zone.

Cooling the wort I was limited in ice as I had to keep some for tomorrow, hopefully without limitation I will be able to cool faster my wort.

And maybe if I am a bit adventurous a shorter mashing time by checking on the conversion by testing it ... I shall see on that one.

Alright I am all ready for the Chamomile blonde recipe tomorrow (without chamomile).

Have a great Saturday guys

A 20-30min mash will save some time, you could also look into short boils (I've never done it). Aside from that I think you won't see much time savings without some equipment investment. Temp control and chilling are good areas to look at. [emoji481]

Lepetitnormand said:

Well after more than a month of not brewing (ok lets face it 2 months), I finally had time to brew this morning and will have some more time for another one tomorrow morning.

Today was the Table Beer recipe from the Brooklyn brew shop book. Now that the beer is in the fermenter I can ponder what went well and not so well ...

The good part I had an efficiency of 70 % (double crushed grain). I know for some of you that might be low but my previous all grain was at 54% so there is progress. Tomorrow the grain will have been crushed only once so I will see what difference it will make in that department.

Now for the place where I want to see some improvement tomorrow : 3h 45 min brew day ...

I would love to shave those 45 minutes if possible.

7am start getting water to striking temp
7:35 am start mashing
8:35 am start bringing water to a boil
8:52 am start of boil
9:52 am end of boil
10:26 am stop cooling the wort
10:45 am all done clean up done

Now there is a few step where I believe I can do better :

Getting to mash temp, I am always afraid to go above strike temp and end up going slowly, I guess I will have to do a mix of high temp at first and then slowing down when reaching strike temps zone.

Cooling the wort I was limited in ice as I had to keep some for tomorrow, hopefully without limitation I will be able to cool faster my wort.

And maybe if I am a bit adventurous a shorter mashing time by checking on the conversion by testing it ... I shall see on that one.

Alright I am all ready for the Chamomile blonde recipe tomorrow (without chamomile).

Have a great Saturday guys

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That's pretty efficient already. Have you considered overnight mashing? That's a huge time saver

34 minutes to cool your wort seems a bit much. I use a chiller and get it under 10 minutes most days.

Otherwise you're doing pretty well. Not much you can do besides cut your mash or boil times down to 30/45.

Hey Guys,

Well the second brew is over and there is some progress, and learning done.

On the efficiency front, I got 65% with single crush compared to 70% with double crush yesterday, I guess the next brew day in 2 weeks will see a double crush being done on the grain, also I will review my recipe to account for a 70% efficiency.

On the brew time it went like this :

7am start getting water to striking temp
7:15 am start mashing
8:15 am start bringing water to a boil
8:27 am start of boil
9:27 am end of boil
9:50 am stop cooling the wort
9:55 am all done clean up done

compared to yesterday :

7am start getting water to striking temp
7:35 am start mashing
8:35 am start bringing water to a boil
8:52 am start of boil
9:52 am end of boil
10:26 am stop cooling the wort
10:45 am all done clean up done,

I definitely used my time better, nailed my strike temp easily and got a little bit more hands on on the cooling part, not sure how I spent 15 minutes clean up yesterday and only 5 today with the same amount of cleaning ....


Oh well yesterday's brew is happily bubbling away with S33, first time using it .

Now I need to plan my next brew ...

pricelessbrewing said:

I use a chiller and get it under 10 minutes most days.

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I can only dream of it ... maybe one day

pricelessbrewing said:

Otherwise you're doing pretty well. Not much you can do besides cut your mash or boil times down to 30/45.

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I think I will do the next two brew the same way to see if I am repeatable in my process and then will start to mess with the mash. I could play with multiple parameters at a time, but really , I will keep that for my work in the lab and use the KISS method at home.

55x11 said:

That's pretty efficient already. Have you considered overnight mashing? That's a huge time saver

Click to expand...

Nope I have not considered this yet, the important part for me is to be able to brew on Saturday morning when everyone is OUT of the house so that nobody complain about the smell, even the mash smell bother my daughter

When adjusting crush, the main parameter changing is your conversion efficiency.

Whenever you're troubleshooting, I highly recommend separating it out and not looking at overall mash/brewhouse efficiency except for recipe scaling. Moreover this will separate differences in lautering due to unequal stirring, sparging, or differences in grain bills.

If you have a refractometer, then you can take readings every 5 minutes to note your conversion rate. I stop 10 minutes after I get full extraction (35 minutes, so 45 minutes) for most beers. If I have a particularly large grain bill (read: thick mash thickness) I do a full 60 or 75, but only if the thickness is <1.5 qt/lb.

If you want to play with boil times, it's pretty easy to cut it down to 45 minutes. The only thing you'll have to do is adjust your bittering addition.

Hey all,
Well, I read the first 75 pages of this thread, and from 500 to current. I am sold on gallon brewing for a variety of reasons. I got a BBS Oatmeal Stout kit that got me researching....


While I will follow the kit's instructions as they are for the first batch, I want to start amassing some equipment so I can get started with other kits/recipes as well. I have several questions, but will only do one or two at a time so as not to overwhelm you with my newbness...


1. I am looking into a Thermoworks MTC Therm reader and a K-37-X-T to monitor mash temps as I eventually plan to hold mash temp in the oven. Since the MTC is only rated to 122*, I figured I would keep it outside the oven with the wire probe running into the kettle in the oven. Would this work? Meaning, Does the whole K-37 probe monitor temp so that I will get the oven temp in that reading too? (Does that Q make sense?) MAybe an option is I can have the probe in the covered pot with the connecter only outside of the pot, then I could just connect the reader every so often to check the temp? Or is there an easier way? And what about monitoring temp of cooling wort?




2. Eventually, the plan is to do full volume boil BIAB with the goal of about 1.5 gallons into the fermenter (supposed to yield approx. 12 bottles correct?) Would a 5-gallon kettle be an appropriate choice? Also, I would like a kettle with volume markings so that I can figure that portion out easier... I could go with a 5.5 gallon Ss Brew Kettle that seems to solve the problem. I assume if I can boil in the kettle, I can keep it in a 170* and less oven. And if I got the therm with it, that would seem to solve both problems above, plus has a ball valve. Then perhaps get a more cost effective thermometer for monitoring cooling wort.


Thanks for all the info... I'm sure there will be many more questions as this addiction....errr.... hobby develops.

MaytagMan said:

Hey all,
Well, I read the first 75 pages of this thread, and from 500 to current. I am sold on gallon brewing for a variety of reasons. I got a BBS Oatmeal Stout kit that got me researching....


While I will follow the kit's instructions as they are for the first batch, I want to start amassing some equipment so I can get started with other kits/recipes as well. I have several questions, but will only do one or two at a time so as not to overwhelm you with my newbness...

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Hey sorry that I am not able to help on those, but good luck with your endeavor.

Hey guys,

I hope one of you can help.

I just bottled two 1 gallon batch last night that were brewed using the brooklyn book. As I borrowed the book from the local library, I do not have it anymore and figured out I forgot to make a note of the ABV and was wondering what he expected ABV is to see how close far from it I am.

I hope one of you has the book on hand and is willing to provide me the expected ABV for both beer.

The recipe were

Table beer ( low ABV beer)
Blonde Chamomile (just brewed it chamomile less)

Cheers



My new batch is actually cooling in the sink ( Kiss Your Cousin Kentucky Common's recipe from HBT using Maris otter instead of 2 row )

Table Beer is an estimated 4.2% ABV.
And Blonde Chamomile comes in at 5.8% ABV.

jimdkc said:

Table Beer is an estimated 4.2% ABV.
And Blonde Chamomile comes in at 5.8% ABV.

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Hey thank you , I guess I made some session beer then.

I came up with 2.8% and 4% respectively.

Got to keep working on my efficiency and adjusting my recipe adequately. It sounds like this morning brew is going to be really low too ... ho well try and learn

I tried my first BIAB today. I used Beersmith to calculate the water volumes. I was way off on the final wort. I did a 2 gallon, 60 minute test boil last night and I lost .75 gal. Beersmith calculated I needed 7.99 quarts.

I probably ended up with 1.33 gallons. I'm guessing squeezing the bag had a little to do with it.

swallace said:

I tried my first BIAB today. I used Beersmith to calculate the water volumes. I was way off on the final wort. I did a 2 gallon, 60 minute test boil last night and I lost .75 gal. Beersmith calculated I needed 7.99 quarts.

I probably ended up with 1.33 gallons. I'm guessing squeezing the bag had a little to do with it.

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Yes squeezing and how long to let the grain drain are variables that software do not know.

good to see things are well here haven't had time in forever to brew but this weekend might be that time again

swallace said:

I tried my first BIAB today. I used Beersmith to calculate the water volumes. I was way off on the final wort. I did a 2 gallon, 60 minute test boil last night and I lost .75 gal. Beersmith calculated I needed 7.99 quarts.

I probably ended up with 1.33 gallons. I'm guessing squeezing the bag had a little to do with it.

Click to expand...

Beersmith is an excellent tool once you get the software working with your process/equipment. It may take a couple brews to gather the information you need to input, but just take good notes and understand what your doing before relying too heavily on the calculations it so nicely provides. Also, this would not throw your calculations off by a third of a gallon on the one gallon scale, but the quantity of hops used I have begun taking into consideration when calculating my volumes. Those wonderful little pellets can absorb a lot of liquid. Best of luck!

I currently brew 5 gallon batches and am seriously considering picking up a couple 1.4 gallon fermenters to do 1 gallon batches of special high ABV brews to bottle cage & cork style. I love having 5 gallons of 5-7% ABV beer on draft, but having that much 8-12% ABV really slows down the rotation for me. Besides, the big beers make a great presentation for sharing in the Belgian cork-top bottles. I think I just talked myself into it. Cheers!

headfullahops said:

I currently brew 5 gallon batches and am seriously considering picking up a couple 1.4 gallon fermenters to do 1 gallon batches of special high ABV brews to bottle cage & cork style. I love having 5 gallons of 5-7% ABV beer on draft, but having that much 8-12% ABV really slows down the rotation for me. Besides, the big beers make a great presentation for sharing in the Belgian cork-top bottles. I think I just talked myself into it. Cheers!

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Do it.

Want to do some 1 gallon BIAB. Best way to calculate how much water I will need? I'd like to do a full volume mash and no sparge. My first grain bill would be 1.75#.

Google brewmate.
It is free to download and has a very good biab setting(you can choose it as a default setting if you like).
I have used this programme for years.
It is very basic with regards to ingredients,but you can easily add your own.

treacheroustexan said:

Want to do some 1 gallon BIAB. Best way to calculate how much water I will need? I'd like to do a full volume mash and no sparge. My first grain bill would be 1.75#.

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Since you know the quantity of grain already. I'll provide how I would approach it. According to How to Brew, grain absorbs 0.5 quarts of water per pound (he refers to it as water retention coefficient) so...

1.75 x 0.5 = .875 quarts (28 oz.) + 1 gallon + boil off = total amount of water

You'll also need to add any kettle losses you'll have.

Obviously, the amount of water used will effect your efficiency, so you may want to calculate the amount of grain based on an assumed efficiency until you can nail down what it is.

If you own How to Brew, Palmer provides great detail on the no sparge calculations in Chaper 17, Lautering.

Boiling my first 1 gallon BIAB now. My mash temp dropped quite a bit because I didn't realize my pot wouldn't fit in the oven without taking the racks out so I didn't bother with it. Hopefully it still turns out alright!

Congrats, let us know how it goes.

TonyKZ1 said:

Congrats, let us know how it goes.

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So far so good. 1.25 gallon in the fermenter, hit my gravity of 1.040 exactly! It's a blonde, and I'm going to rack it onto jalapenos next week!

So just following up. I bottled my first 1 gallon BIAB yesterday. It was a blonde ale and I added 1 split, roasted and frozen jalapeno to the primary. It tastes awesome!! Excited to try a bottle!

Hi All,

Woundering if anyone has done a 1gal Ginger Beer that has turned out great? Maybe even a crabbies clone?

Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving all you little-batch brewing folk!

On this last Monday, I bottled my Festivus Miracle. It tasted very nice with just the right amount of spice. It'll be a nice Christmas eve indulgence with my father who will be visiting.

Tomorrow, I'm brewing an all-grain IPA recipe from Brooklyn that I got as a gift a while back. In between hops additions, I'll be putting up the Christmas tree.

Best to all of you 1-gallon fellows this holiday season!

VG