1-Gallon Brewers UNITE!

Oberon67 said:

I used the grain bill that Calichussetts volunteered:

3 lbs pale ale or Marris Otter (depends on if you want an american or english barleywine)
.5 lbs Rye
.25 lbs flaked barley
2 oz EACH: Caramel 20. 60. 120

I went with the pale ale, and I boiled the flaked barley prior to adding it to the mash.

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Cool I did not want to assume that no changes were made. I have been in the LHBS when people change the recipe on the fly and the store staff have to educate them on why then need more base malt.
What was the mash temp and for how long? Earlier you said you think it got too hot what was that temp and any idea for how long?

It's been a bit of time now since I mashed, but I remember trying to follow the instructions that came with my Brooklyn kit for mashing their Everyday IPA. You initially spike the temp up to 160F, then keep it between 144 and 152 for an hour. I may have overshot the temp initially, and I know I was on the high side of 155 several times during the mash.

Working on a gas stovetop with a stock pot, spoon in one hand and thermometer in the other, is a little challenging for me so far... although I was able to manage it successfully on two Brooklyn kits in a row. To be fair, I did not understand at the time that going overtemp would denature the enzymes.

Also, the mash was thick and on the dry side; I wound up pressing it against the inside of the strainer with a spoon to work the wort through. I think this may also have been an issue; I should have used more water and a bigger strainer, and boiled down to target volume and OG.

Also, the instructions called for finishing up the mashing by heating up to 170F. I did this.

For everyone doing small batch BIAB on your stove using a brewpot as a mash tun, how are you holding temps? I've seen people mention putting it in the oven, but are you turning the oven on at all?

I brewed a 1.5 gal batch yesterday on the stove and I put my mash which was in a 2.5 gal aluminum pot into my oven (turned off). I even insulated it with a ski jacket, but when I went to take the pH reading about 20 minutes in, the temp already dropped 4 degrees. When doing 5 gal batches, using the same jacket to insulate my pot, I maybe drop 2-3 degrees for a 60 min mash.

mtnagel said:

For everyone doing small batch BIAB on your stove using a brewpot as a mash tun, how are you holding temps? I've seen people mention putting it in the oven, but are you turning the oven on at all?

I brewed a 1.5 gal batch yesterday on the stove and I put my mash which was in a 2.5 gal aluminum pot into my oven (turned off). I even insulated it with a ski jacket, but when I went to take the pH reading about 20 minutes in, the temp already dropped 4 degrees. When doing 5 gal batches, using the same jacket to insulate my pot, I maybe drop 2-3 degrees for a 60 min mash.

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I've only done this once, but I turned on the oven to the lowest temp and let it warm while the mash water was heating up. When I mashed in, I turned off the oven, and placed the pot inside, covered. Worked pretty well.

Ok thanks. Will give it a try.

mtnagel said:

For everyone doing small batch BIAB on your stove using a brewpot as a mash tun, how are you holding temps? I've seen people mention putting it in the oven, but are you turning the oven on at all?

I brewed a 1.5 gal batch yesterday on the stove and I put my mash which was in a 2.5 gal aluminum pot into my oven (turned off). I even insulated it with a ski jacket, but when I went to take the pH reading about 20 minutes in, the temp already dropped 4 degrees. When doing 5 gal batches, using the same jacket to insulate my pot, I maybe drop 2-3 degrees for a 60 min mash.

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When I do it, I monitor the temp and turn the heat on as needed for about 30 seconds at a time.

fuzzy2133 said:

What was the mash temp and for how long? Earlier you said you think it got too hot what was that temp and any idea for how long?

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Check post #5282 for the details.

Oberon67 said:

It's been a bit of time now since I mashed, but I remember trying to follow the instructions that came with my Brooklyn kit for mashing their Everyday IPA. You initially spike the temp up to 160F, then keep it between 144 and 152 for an hour. I may have overshot the temp initially, and I know I was on the high side of 155 several times during the mash.

Working on a gas stovetop with a stock pot, spoon in one hand and thermometer in the other, is a little challenging for me so far... although I was able to manage it successfully on two Brooklyn kits in a row. To be fair, I did not understand at the time that going overtemp would denature the enzymes.

Also, the mash was thick and on the dry side; I wound up pressing it against the inside of the strainer with a spoon to work the wort through. I think this may also have been an issue; I should have used more water and a bigger strainer, and boiled down to target volume and OG.

Also, the instructions called for finishing up the mashing by heating up to 170F. I did this.

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At 155 you get a beer with full body. Alpha-amylase is still working and not denatured, 149° to 158° F is its "optimal range."
Optimal range for Beta-amylase is 126° to 144° F

I agree with you, it sounds like your mash was too thick. At 1.25qts per pound (that is the least amount of water most people mash at) you would have been using ~5 quarts of water (1.29 gallons) before sparging or if BIAB ~2.5 gallons (if you had a 90min boil).

Either way good thing you had alpha amylase on hand to deal with the starches.

fuzzy2133 said:

Either way good thing you had alpha amylase on hand to deal with the starches.

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I consider it a last-ditch effort to make this into beer. I may yet get beer out of it, but it won't be the barleywine I had in mind when I started this project.

imp81318 said:

You mean to make a starter for the 2nd batch, right? What size starter would you do if pitching into a 1-gallon batch using a 1/2 vial of yeast?

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thats what I started to do seems to work well so far:rockin:

finally brewed up a goose island bcbs clone after reading all the threads here and everywhere else I think I will have at least a decent shot at making something that is bcbs like wish me luck

I've used a lot of northern brewer 1 gallon kits and in those it states to use only half of the yeast package. I'm just wondering what yall do with the other half? Toss it or use it. If use it for what.

banks741938 said:

I've used a lot of northern brewer 1 gallon kits and in those it states to use only half of the yeast package. I'm just wondering what yall do with the other half? Toss it or use it. If use it for what.

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Like there recipe says...make bread

banks741938 said:

I've used a lot of northern brewer 1 gallon kits and in those it states to use only half of the yeast package. I'm just wondering what yall do with the other half? Toss it or use it. If use it for what.

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Brew 2 batches at the same time that use the same yeast.

I'm a lapsed homebrewer (last brewed about 2010) looking to get back in... I figure stovetop 1-gallon batches is a great way to do that. I've been reading this thread the last few weeks (and I am actually over halfway through it!) My last brew, back in 2010, was a 1-gallon stovetop-brewed clone of Boulevard Irish Ale that I developed myself.

I'm also planning (and have bought most of the parts) to build an electric 2-3 gallon BIAB system.

I will probably start this weekend with a 1-gallon extract batch of Northern Brewer's Wheaten Beatdown. I bought a 5-gallon kit for this years ago and never got around to brewing it. So, to get started again, I bought enough ingredients for a 1-gallon batch of this.

After that, I'm planning a long string of SMaSH brews to reacquaint myself with various ingredients.

To facilitate my small batch brewing, I also recently bought this:



$10 on Amazon.com! Plan on using it to weigh hops and dry yeast. Looks like it will work great for those! 100 gram capacity... resolution down to 0.01 gram.

Looking forward to rejoining the fold of homebrewers... and particularly small-batch homebrewers.

jimdkc said:

I'm a lapsed homebrewer (last brewed about 2010) looking to get back in... I figure stovetop 1-gallon batches is a great way to do that. I've been reading this thread the last few weeks (and I am actually over halfway through it!) My last brew, back in 2010, was a 1-gallon stovetop-brewed clone of Boulevard Irish Ale that I developed myself.

I'm also planning (and have bought most of the parts) to build an electric 2-3 gallon BIAB system.

I will probably start this weekend with a 1-gallon extract batch of Northern Brewer's Wheaten Beatdown. I bought a 5-gallon kit for this years ago and never got around to brewing it. So, to get started again, I bought enough ingredients for a 1-gallon batch of this.

After that, I'm planning a long string of SMaSH brews to reacquaint myself with various ingredients.

To facilitate my small batch brewing, I also recently bought this:

$10 on Amazon.com! Plan on using it to weigh hops and dry yeast. Looks like it will work great for those! 100 gram capacity... resolution down to 0.01 gram.

Looking forward to rejoining the fold of homebrewers... and particularly small-batch homebrewers.

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Great little scale! Got the same one from my LHBS and it's perfect.

TheCollector said:

Here it is

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Those jars will work well. You could top crop yeast and cleanup will be easy. Fermenters dont have to be sealed, gang. Any cover that keeps dust carrying bacteria and wild yeast from floating in is all you need. Fermentation is going to create positive pressure from the creation of co2 and help keep anything out as well. I ferment in cornies with the pressure release valve locked open and. Grocery bag pulled down over the top of the keg. (I also use stoppers and air locks too)

I have to say that I'm amazed at the changes in hombrewing in just 5 years!

There are hops I've never even heard of!

Nobody does secondaries any more (well, some of us old farts do!)

There are more malt choices!

There are WAY more dry yeast choices!

Feels good to be (almost!) back!

Edit: All these changes and people still scoff at the idea of brewing small batches! Some things never change!

Welcome back Jimdkc. Once you get you system up and running share some pics.

Here... I'll share my best, proven 1-Gallon recipe:

I originally developed this myself as a 5-gallon recipe. It is based on the very popular spring seasonal Irish Ale from Boulevard Brewing of Kansas City, MO. I got the list of grains and hops used along with gravity info (with no amounts or schedules!) from their website around 2006 or so, and used that to develop the recipe. Since then, they have drastically changed their recipe... Their current recipe for Boulevard Irish Ale looks absolutely nothing like this! Frankly, I think the old recipe was better! And I have it! This is one of the best-received beers I ever brewed!

In 2010, I scaled the recipe down to 1 gallon and brewed it using Brooklyn Brew Shop's 1 Gallon brewing instructions (they were pretty new back then!) Here it is:

Avenue Irish Ale

Grain Bill:
1.75 lb. Maris Otter (or regular 2-row)
0.5 lb. Munich Malt
3.0 oz. Wheat Malt
1.0 oz. Special B Caramel Malt
1.0 oz. Caramunich Type 1 Malt
10.0 grams English Chocolate Malt (NOTE: GRAMS, not OZ. on this one! It doesn't seem like much, but it contributes a lot to the color!)

Hop Schedule:
3.0 grams Magnum (14% AA) @ 60 Minutes
3.0 grams Nugget (13% AA) @ 15 Minutes
3.0 grams East Kent Goldings (5% AA) @ 5 Minutes

Yeast:
White Labs WLP004 Irish Ale Yeast (Don't remember how much I used.
If I were brewing this today, I'd probably use 1/3-1/2 packet of Safale S-04
dry English Ale yeast for 1 gallon)

Mashed at about 152°F for 1 hour
Mashed out at 168°F for 10 minutes

Did the strainer-sparge method. 60 minute boil.

OG: 1.061
FG: 1.013
Color: 17 SRM
Bitterness: 38 IBU
ABV: 6.2% (Mine actually came out a bit higher)
Carbonation: 2.5 volumes CO2 (0.54 oz. corn sugar for 1 gallon)

I made a label for it, too (again... based on Boulevard's):

Love all this 1 gallon brew talk

While I will admit I didn't review the 5301 previous posts in this thread, I DID try Google and the HBT search bar and while I'm sure there's info on this... I just couldn't find the right combination of search terms. SO:

For smaller batches (1 gal or 2.5 for example), do you just invest in the packet/vial of yeast for each gallon? Or is there a sneaky way to divide a dose of yeast in a sanitized fashion? Shake the packet until it feels like there's half in each side of the packet, then carefully cut and immediately fold/tape over?

ETA: Further searching here yielded a thread where folks talked about pitching what was needed for the batch, then pitching the rest to make a starter that, once started, went into the fridge until needed. Hmmm.... possibilities!

For dry yeast I used to just eyeball the amount. Close enough for government work . Now I put the packet on my tiny scale shake some out and keep measuring until the packet weighs two grams less than it started at. The it's folded over and tossed into a ziplock vacuum sealer bag and into the freezer.

Any of these methods work. It's hard to over pitch. I usually just split the pack for 1 gallon; use a whole pack for 3 gallons. But I also save yeast now, so usually make a starter from some leftover slurry.

Since my second batch ever, I've been using a starter I keep in a half-pint mason jar in the fridge. It contains recovered slurry of the yeast that came in my Brooklyn Everyday IPA kit, which I'm told is US-05. It also contains a little sugar and a tiny bit of yeast nutrient. When I need to pitch some, I take it out of the fridge, warm it up in a warm-water bath in the sink, and let it sit on the counter while I do my mashing and sparging. By the time I've got the wort chilled to pitching temp and in the 1-gallon jug I use for a carboy, the pint jar of yeast culture is awake and ready to go. I give it a swirl or two and pour half of it into the carboy (which is probably way more than I need, but I like a good vigorous pitch). Then I put a half-teaspoon of sugar in the jar and a pinch of yeast nutrient, top it off with tap water, and let it sit out for a day to build its numbers back up. It sits next to the carboy and they ferment together. After a day or so, when I can see that the start is going good, back in the fridge it goes until the next brew.

I ferment my 1 gallon batch of beer in a 2 gallon bucket. If you are talking about dry yeast, I usually spread the yeast to cover all of the wort. When done, the wort is covered in a layer of yeast. Then I just seal up the bucket and wait. I usually use up 2/3 to a whole packet depending upon what beer I am making. Liquid yeast, I would normally shake up the vial then pour about have of the contents.

mtnagel said:

For everyone doing small batch BIAB on your stove using a brewpot as a mash tun, how are you holding temps? I've seen people mention putting it in the oven, but are you turning the oven on at all?

I brewed a 1.5 gal batch yesterday on the stove and I put my mash which was in a 2.5 gal aluminum pot into my oven (turned off). I even insulated it with a ski jacket, but when I went to take the pH reading about 20 minutes in, the temp already dropped 4 degrees. When doing 5 gal batches, using the same jacket to insulate my pot, I maybe drop 2-3 degrees for a 60 min mash.

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It depends upon at what mash temp you want to establish. I usually go for 152 because that's what my oven will hold temp at consistently. I mash for 90 minutes and stir every 20 minutes. The last 10 minutes I transfer it to a convert 2 gallon cooler that has been preheated with some hot water as to no lose too much temp in transferring.

We as one gallon brewers face a problem. Can only buy in bulk....what do you all do with extra grains? Every make a random brew with a mixture of old stuff?

markb91 said:

We as one gallon brewers face a problem. Can only buy in bulk....what do you all do with extra grains? Every make a random brew with a mixture of old stuff?

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Yes and I make a random Pale Ale to IPA with left over hops too.

Honestly I am not super concerned about using the exact crystal malt in a recipe so I tend to keep some 40 or 60 on hand and just use more or less depending on what is called for.

Just watch out for the kitchen sink approach with grains. You could end up with a muddy bland flavored beer.

jimdkc said:

Nobody does secondaries any more (well, some of us old farts do!)

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I do!!!! I'm a new fart, been brewing for just shy of 2 years now

jimdkc said:

Nobody does secondaries any more (well, some of us old farts do!)

Click to expand...

I do!!!! I'm a new fart, been brewing for just shy of 2 years now

I use a secondary as well and siphon with a muslin bag on siphon. My friends hate how clean/clear beer gets (they only primary.)

Today I used some of my new Briess 2-row and put up another gallon batch of beer. This was a brown ale; I used the following:

2 quarts of 2-row
4 oz. (volume) of Caramel 120
1 tsp. US Goldings (5.1% alpha) each at 60, 40, 20, and 5

(Can you tell I don't own a kitchen scale? )

Although I had lightly ground the 2-row in a little Krupp coffee grinder prior to mashing, I did not sufficiently break up the grain and I was dissatisfied with the extraction... my wort was too light. So I added about 1/2 cup of light corn syrup and 1/2 cup of table sugar. Original gravity came out to 1.069. It would have been higher... the initial reading was 1.090... but I did not have a 1-gallon jug to ferment in, so I split the batch between two 2-liter soda bottles, and added just a bit of water to cut the headspace.

Pitched out of my little half-pint colony of US-05. We will see tomorrow if it took off. Meanwhile I've got to pick up another gallon jug or two...

I've been doing a lot of research to find the best priced kits including shipping online and think I may have found one. Just want to know if anybody else has used them before. They are perrys brewer. Here is the link https://perrysbrewer.com . I like northern Brewers kits and brooklyns kits just really hate buying a kit for $14ish. And turning around and paying $7.99 for shipping. Perrys has free shipping and kits have grain bag and caps. There also on eBay to. Thanks guys!!!

Do you guys have milling techniques? Or do you only use a mill? My LBHS wants to charge me to use their equipment and I believe that's absurd.

markb91 said:

Do you guys have milling techniques? Or do you only use a mill? My LBHS wants to charge me to use their equipment and I believe that's absurd.

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If you are getting grain from them yes it is absurd! I have the cheap corona mill and it works ok. Beats using a blender or rolling pin.

Opiate42 said:

I do!!!! I'm a new fart, been brewing for just shy of 2 years now

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markb91 said:

I use a secondary as well and siphon with a muslin bag on siphon. My friends hate how clean/clear beer gets (they only primary.)

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When I started brewing, everybody almost always did secondaries.

I think I've seen "No need to secondary!" almost as much as "Why don't you just brew 5 gallons?"

Oberon67 said:

Pitched out of my little half-pint colony of US-05. We will see tomorrow if it took off.

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...and today both Pepsi 2-liters were bubbling away like mad.

I think I'm going to enjoy this batch.

Oberon67 said:

Oh, hey, fuzzy2133 and Calichusetts... With my barleywine, do I need to rack into a secondary fermenter and keep it there for a few months, or can I just prime and bottle it after a month or so in the primary?

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So since I added the amylase week before last, this batch has been steadily churning away with obvious yeast action. It's been about six weeks on the primary now, and I'm wondering how long it's going to take to settle down.

I understand the rules are different for big beers, and patience is called for. I believe it.

fuzzy2133 said:

If you are getting grain from them yes it is absurd! I have the cheap corona mill and it works ok. Beats using a blender or rolling pin.

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I am thinking about getting a mill (Cereal Killer) also. Some recipes require grain that I can't get from my LHBS. Problem is that I need to buy at least a pound while my recipe requires ounces. I know I can substitute grains, but will the beer be the same. Also with the mill, I can buy the grain now. Then mill and brew at a later date if need be.