Splitting 5 gallon batch into 5 1 gallon batches

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OofC_Zer0

OofC_Zer0

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So I have a very basic grain bill for an IPA:
12.5# 2Row (US)
1# Crystal 60l
.75# Carapils

And what i want to do, is to do a regular size mash, and then split the wort into 5 batches and do 5 different boils. My plan is to do 5 different single hop IPAs and try and really get a feel for what each hop attributes at different boil times and dry hops. Anyways beersmith tells me that to do a 60 minute boil and to wind up with 1 gallon I need to start with 3.21 gallons. Im not sure if this is going to work or not. Should i try and do what beersmith says, and just run some extra sparge water through the mash tun, to get 15 gallons? Or make beersmith think that its a 5 gallon batch and just say that it needs 8 gallons preboil and then split that into 5? Trying to brew either tonight or tomorrow. Have my starter on the stir plate. Any advice tips or help would be much appreciated. Thank you! :mug:
 
OofC_Zer0 said:
So I have a very basic grain bill for an IPA:
12.5# 2Row (US)
1# Crystal 60l
.75# Carapils

And what i want to do, is to do a regular size mash, and then split the wort into 5 batches and do 5 different boils. My plan is to do 5 different single hop IPAs and try and really get a feel for what each hop attributes at different boil times and dry hops. Anyways beersmith tells me that to do a 60 minute boil and to wind up with 1 gallon I need to start with 3.21 gallons. Im not sure if this is going to work or not. Should i try and do what beersmith says, and just run some extra sparge water through the mash tun, to get 15 gallons? Or make beersmith think that its a 5 gallon batch and just say that it needs 8 gallons preboil and then split that into 5? Trying to brew either tonight or tomorrow. Have my starter on the stir plate. Any advice tips or help would be much appreciated. Thank you! :mug:
Click to expand...

I would try boiling some water in your planned pot first, and see what your boil off is. I would expect a boil off of about 1.25 gallons per hour in most cases.

Once you boil your water and see how much boils off in an hour, then you can know what your preboil volume needs to be.
 
Yooper said:
I would try boiling some water in your planned pot first, and see what your boil off is. I would expect a boil off of about 1.25 gallons per hour in most cases.

Once you boil your water and see how much boils off in an hour, then you can know what your preboil volume needs to be.
Click to expand...

I shall try that here shortly, But lets just say i boil off 1.25 gallons in the hour, so i would need 2.25 * 5 = 11.25 gallons. Should i be able to successfully sparge that much without having any adverse effect?
 
OofC_Zer0 said:
I shall try that here shortly, But lets just say i boil off 1.25 gallons in the hour, so i would need 2.25 * 5 = 11.25 gallons. Should i be able to successfully sparge that much without having any adverse effect?
Click to expand...

Ideally, you'd put no more than 3 quarts of water per pound of grain through your grainbed, but I have successfully done 3.5 quarts/pound total. That should give you a little wiggle room!
 
Up at 5 this morning, finished the 5th batch at 1:30 this afternoon. Quite a hectic morning. Aside from over boiling the first one, I would say that everything else went as smooth as possible. Still haven't gotten the energy to clean up from it all! :-/

image-1624589620.jpg
 
GREAT picture! That's awesome.

I'm so much lazier than you that I never even considered 1 gallon batches except for wine! Good job. Let us know how it turns out.
 
I've been considering breaking up a five gallon batch like that as well, I really like your single hop IPA idea. My idea was to make a five gallon batch and spilt it up post boil, with the variables in the fermenter such as dry hopping or cold steeping grains or coffee and seeing how they changed compared to a non adjusted batch. My fiances sister got me an awesome book that has tons of recipes for one gallon batches, many of them very unusual and interesting. Its called The Brooklyn Brew Shop's Beer Making Book: 52 seasonal recipes for Small Batches. Thought you might like that since you are experimenting with one gallon batches also. Cheers and good luck with your experiment!
 
This was also my first attempt at using a yeast starter from harvested yeast. Turned out well. All of them are bubbling away like crazy. :tank: I used Mr. Malty's Calculator, but went a little higher on the concentration just to make sure that it would work (i was a little nervous). Made a 2L starter and split it into 5 400mL batches and then pitched. I will keep posted on how everything turns out. And i will definitely check out that book. Seem to be right up my ally!
Cheers

Sheldon
 
With the same base wort, it suprises me that the beers have such a range of colors to them. Is this actually the case? Or is the lighting playing tricks on me? Or maybe hops have a Lovibond rating I wasn't aware of? With all those trub layers, I imagine you pitched a fair amount of time before this pic?
 
FWIW.. Two weeks ago I split a 4 gallon batch into gallon jugs - 2 Maris Otter with Amarillo and the other 2 with Simco. I made sure the wort was blended between the first and second runnings before splitting into my 2 brew pots for the ensuing boil and hop additions. I had similar results as far as color differences.
 
I can't remember and also can't look at the jugs at work (hehe), but it may have been that the hops hadn't settled and were still floating around.. influencing the color.
 
I did the same thing last fall and loved the results. When you can actually taste the beers side by side you really get an appreciation for the significant differences between similar hop varieties.
 
They all settled down to the same color. The ones on the right were the most recently racked. I put my wort into 2 6.5 gallon "ale pails" and mixed and stirred them until they had the same pre boil gravity. I figured that would be the most accurate way. But all are doing well and fermentation is slowing now.
 
OofC_Zer0 said:
Up at 5 this morning, finished the 5th batch at 1:30 this afternoon. Quite a hectic morning. Aside from over boiling the first one, I would say that everything else went as smooth as possible. Still haven't gotten the energy to clean up from it all! :-/
Click to expand...

When you get all beers conditioned, combine them for an Ultimate IPA!

I just brewed a batch with just about all of those hops in one.

-Mac
 
Mac951 said:
When you get all beers conditioned, combine them for an Ultimate IPA!

I just brewed a batch with just about all of those hops in one.

-Mac
Click to expand...

Sounds delicious! I'll have to mix all 5 together in a growler and then enjoy!!!! Thanks for the tip! 🍻
 
Any word on how these turned out?

I actually just split a 5 gallon batch into 3 separate batches last night. I forgot to up the amount of water to compensate for the increased boil off... Oops. I just added some water at the end until I hit the gravity I was aiming for. Hopefully it still turns out.
 
IIWolfpakII said:
Any word on how these turned out?

I actually just split a 5 gallon batch into 3 separate batches last night. I forgot to up the amount of water to compensate for the increased boil off... Oops. I just added some water at the end until I hit the gravity I was aiming for. Hopefully it still turns out.
Click to expand...

I bottled these last week, so hopefully this weekend they should be ready. I will post up on how they turned out!

image-1145293281.jpg
 
I just came here to ask some questions about doing the exact same idea… except I'm an extract brewer. I see this thread is in the all grain forum so I'm not sure if it's best to make a new thread or just ask my questions here. I'm not in a hurry, so I guess I'll try here and if it doesn't work out, I can do my own thread later, anyway…

I want to brew five one gallon batches of single hop IPAs, each with different hops. I'm debating two different ways to go about it on brew day.

The first would be to start like a normal five gallon batch, steeping my specialty grains, and then just take enough for each brew out of there and do my regular process, only in smaller batches for each one. This seems like the obvious way to go, but it will be a bit more effort than my other idea…

The second is to basically brew without any hops and then just boil the hops by themselves and mix the hop water with hop-free wort in the fermentor. This will be a lot easier but I'm not sure if the quality will be as good. For one thing, the hops will be boiling in even less water than the already small one gallon batches. I don't know if there is any reason boiling hops in water will work differently from boiling them with the malt, but that is another concern. Plus this will make it a little harder to figure out how much water to use in the first place.

Any advise would be appreciated.
 
cormano said:
I just came here to ask some questions about doing the exact same idea… except I'm an extract brewer. I see this thread is in the all grain forum so I'm not sure if it's best to make a new thread or just ask my questions here. I'm not in a hurry, so I guess I'll try here and if it doesn't work out, I can do my own thread later, anyway…

I want to brew five one gallon batches of single hop IPAs, each with different hops. I'm debating two different ways to go about it on brew day.

The first would be to start like a normal five gallon batch, steeping my specialty grains, and then just take enough for each brew out of there and do my regular process, only in smaller batches for each one. This seems like the obvious way to go, but it will be a bit more effort than my other idea…

The second is to basically brew without any hops and then just boil the hops by themselves and mix the hop water with hop-free wort in the fermentor. This will be a lot easier but I'm not sure if the quality will be as good. For one thing, the hops will be boiling in even less water than the already small one gallon batches. I don't know if there is any reason boiling hops in water will work differently from boiling them with the malt, but that is another concern. Plus this will make it a little harder to figure out how much water to use in the first place.

Any advise would be appreciated.
Click to expand...

If I were to do it again, I would probably just do a normal batch boil, and just use a high alpha hop for bitterness early in the boil and that's it. Then split them into 5 separate fermenters and dry hop with different hops. It is definately A LOT of work to do 5 different boils at that size in one day. I'm sure it's probably more effective that way, but I'm sure you would get similar results. As to boiling hops in water, I can not give you any advice on this as I have never tried it. Either way, good luck on your experiment. Happy brewing!!
 
I've done a few batches of single hops as well, and found that extract based is the easiest to keep consistent.

Make a small batch size using lhbs supplies, and in order to get a good feel for hops use a bittering, flavor, and aroma addition.

I made 4 gallon batches using 3lbs LME, 1lb DME, and 0.5lb 40°L
To account for different AA% of hops, pre-calculate for a IBU to Gravity Unit ratio of 0.5-0.9.

My batches came out to be 1.040 (40 grav units) and I made the 60 minute boil addition to provide 35 IBU. Then use ~0.5oz @ 10 minutes (very little IBU addition) and 0.5oz at knock-out.

If doing this will all-grain, one wort combined into one vessel and redistributed is what is needed to keep the wort consistent.

However, If you really want to break up the process over say a couple of months, extract is easier to make consistent worts. Just keep the same yeast, and you have to keep good fermentation temperature control!

If you want to try a few examples to get a wide gambit of hops, try:
Kent Goldings
Amarillo
Centennial
Hallertau

Most home-brewers have a wide selection available, but you'll quickly pick up on ones you really like. When you want to add a new hop to your favorite list, try a simple pale ale like above. I now love Amarillo and Simcoe way more than Cascade which I find too commercialized.

-Mac
 
This is a really cool idea. I'm thinking about doing the same thing with splitting my 5 gal batch into two Mr. Beer fermenters. Although I dont plan on doing two boils, I'm just really interested in playing around with different yeast strains, I've always wondered what would happen if you used an Irish ale yeast in an IPA recipe :D
 
I did the same thing last fall with 5 different cider batches. I played around with different concentrations of brown sugar, honey, and nutmeg. Found out that one gallon batches are about the same work as 5 gallon, but its good cuz you don't waste as much product in the expirement.

The biggest lesson I learned was to take good notes and keep them organized during the expirement.

Kudos on your idea!
 

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