1 Gallon Batches

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NWMOBrewer

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Since I live in a small apartment and don't have the money to commit to buying the equipment for a 5 gallon kit, I hope to start brewing 1 gallon of beer at a time. I found a website benshomebrew.com that has 1 gallon ingredient kits for $15. I decided not to get their kit because I already have much of the stuff I would need. My question is that is it a good idea to use their kits the first couple of times, or take a 5 gallon recipe and divide it by 5 and buy a scale. Money is a big factor in my decision to start with the 1 gallon setup. Also, does anyone know where else I can go to get 1 gallon kits. I live 2 hours away from my nearest home brew store so this thread is my biggest help. Thanks!!!:rockin:
 

Lots of guys knock the Mr. Beer kits, but the primary that comes with the kit is a great little vessel. I have a couple that I get used when I can and love the ease of use.

I have never brewed with the kits, but just tried a beer made from one a couple days ago (came with a kit I bought off CL). It was actually a decent beer. Biggest problem I hear about the kits are both the length of time they give in the directions and the amount of sugar (they call it booster) that is used.

Give it more time and use all malt and you should get a nice beer. For a Mr. Beer you would normally use 3 to 3.5 pounds of LME (that is two cans from one of their kits) and skip the booster.

I buy extracts in bulk from my LHBS and then just weigh out what I need for my batches. I usually do 2.5 gallons at a time as I am the only one in the family who drinks beer and smaller batches give me more variety to try. Gallon jugs I use for wine and freaky experiments.
 
Ya Mr. Beer would be fine. I believe, though, you could use the vessel for 2.5 gallon batches of all-grain brews done on the stove. I think Revvy uses the Mr. Beer fermenter for this.
 
Yea, I would say bump up to at least 2.5 gallon batches. 1gal is just as much work for about a 12pk and you'll be kickin yourself in the arse when you make a great beer and only have a few of em. Honestly though, I live in a 1 bedroom apartment with SWMBO and I just use the coat closet to ferment in, it fits 2 5gal buckets and a case or two of bottles. And on the price of those kits, 15$ for 1 gallon is pretty bad considering you can pay 30$ for a 5 gallon kit and AG is even cheaper. Chances are you'll end up spending more money over time doing this rather than working with 5 gallons. But, for all intents and purposes, a Mr. Beer fermenter would be a good choice if you just want to get your feet wet before you make the plunge, and that is understandable.
 
The only problem with a 1 gallon brew is that it requires the same amount of time and effort of a big batch, yet you only have a six pack to show for your labor. A 5 gallon extract kit with steeping grains doesn't require a lot of space....you can brew that on your stove by doing a partial boil in just a 36qt pot.

If money is the real issue, there's ways to get your total cost down. You could buy kits that are on sale. I used to do that when I first started...every now and then AHS would put kits on sale for $25ish.

Another thing you could do is find a buddy to split the 5g batch with you. This way it would be cheap to brew, you would have 2.5 gallons, and you would only have to store 25 bottles.
 
A 5 gallon paint bucket and lid is about $8. You can drill a hole in the lid and stick a tube in there to let out the CO2.

Morebeer.com even has some 5 gallon kits for $18--and these are kits that include steeping grains.

You'll have to get bottles, but you can save a bunch of plastic pop bottles if you have to. They'll work until you upgrade to regular beer bottles.

Mr. Beer will do the trick, but theyr kits are kind of pricey. They're nealry as much as a 5 gallon kit anyway.
 
Go to your grocery store - walk to the bakery - with a BIG smile ask the lady if they have any frosting containers that they can spare (they do) - say thank you - viola you have a FREE 5 gallon food grade bucket. Now you just need an airlock which is $1. This is a lot cheaper than a Mr. Beer (and a lot more versatile).

You can convert any recipe by multiplying the recipe amount by your vessel size divided by the recipe size.

So if you have a 1 gallon batch and the recipe is for 5 gallons. 3 pounds becomes 3/5 = .6 pounds

2 gallon batch 6/5 = 1.2 pounds

I have done several 1 gallon batches of wine and to be honest it is not worth the time for the little amount that you get.
 
Ha! Yeah, I did that, too. They lady at the bakery gave me about five buckets--some were only 3 gallons, but after washing the heck out of them (hat frosting is stubborn) they make perectly good fermentors and buckets for sanitizer.
 
Beer Wars,

Big kudos to you. At your suggestion, I walked into Publix supermarket bakery department at lunch with a big smile. Walked out with six 31/2 gallon plastic fermenters and 3 1 gallon buckets for whatever. All HDPE food grade.

They were more than happy to get rid of them, they feel guilty throwing them away.

Thanks again. I got some cleaining to do to get rid of cake icing smell and will be brewing a couple of experimental IPA's batches.
 
I called my local HyVee and they have them for 50 Cents. How long will beer last in pop bottles without the anti-oxygen stuff from the caps of the beer bottles? or does that not affect beer that much? Also, I have a 12 quart pot here but only have bigger pots and a turkey fryer to brew with 2 hours north in Omaha. I was thinking of doing the 1 gallon batch to try out homebrewing. Should I continue to wait for the 5 gallon batch and not worry about the 1 gallon yet? Also, suggestions for 2.5 gallon batch stuff?
 
I called my local HyVee and they have them for 50 Cents. How long will beer last in pop bottles without the anti-oxygen stuff from the caps of the beer bottles? or does that not affect beer that much? Also, I have a 12 quart pot here but only have bigger pots and a turkey fryer to brew with 2 hours north in Omaha. I was thinking of doing the 1 gallon batch to try out homebrewing. Should I continue to wait for the 5 gallon batch and not worry about the 1 gallon yet? Also, suggestions for 2.5 gallon batch stuff?

It is still quite possible to make 5gallon batches with only a 12quart pot, I should know since that's all I've got. Granted I am only doing extract w/specialty grains, I assume that's how you would start off. And for the 2.5 gallon batches; find a recipe(generally 5gallons), divide by two. For your own sake, start off doing at least 2.5 gallon batches. As I said before, you will be disappointed when you've got a beer that comes out great and you only have 10 or so. 1 gallon batches will require just about the same effort and time to make and ferment (bottling will be quicker though, obviously) but leave you with less yield.
 
A guy at work gave me 2 Mr. Beer vessels. They leaked, and I shot them full of holes with a shot gun. Made for good target practice. Put some feathers on them and the look like turkeys.

I like the 5 gallon bucket too.
 
If you do all grain, then a 2.5 gallon batch should be your target size.
For a 12 quart pot, (using the suggestions in DeathBrewer's all grain stove top tutorial), 6 lbs of grains would produce about 2.75 gallons of wort.

As for using pop bottles...
They can be used, but they are gas permeable. When I bottle, I usually use 1 20 oz pop bottle so I can monitor the carbonation and it has always worked fine, but it is also the first bottle I drink out of the batch so it is in the bottle for only 2-3 weeks. I've reused 2 pop bottles over 5 times with no problems. According to this article about plastic beer bottles, pop bottles have a 10% carbonation loss in less than 50 days and unexceptable oxygen infiltration. It's hard to tell from the tables in the article, but it looks the the max shelf life with pop bottles is 30 - 50 days (though it seems to me that pop has a longer shelf life than that).
If you have a bar in your area shameless enough to serve plastic bottles, you may be able to get some empties from them. They have special coatings to make them less gas permeable.
 
The only problem with a 1 gallon brew is that it requires the same amount of time and effort of a big batch, yet you only have a six pack to show for your labor. A 5 gallon extract kit with steeping grains doesn't require a lot of space....you can brew that on your stove by doing a partial boil in just a 36qt pot.

If money is the real issue, there's ways to get your total cost down. You could buy kits that are on sale. I used to do that when I first started...every now and then AHS would put kits on sale for $25ish.

Another thing you could do is find a buddy to split the 5g batch with you. This way it would be cheap to brew, you would have 2.5 gallons, and you would only have to store 25 bottles.

Sweet jebus a partial boil with an 8.5 gallon kettle?!?!

I just used a 12 quart and a 16 quart for 2.5 gallon all grain batch.. worked fantastic. and It was 15 bucks for the ingredients..
 
I called my local HyVee and they have them for 50 Cents. How long will beer last in pop bottles without the anti-oxygen stuff from the caps of the beer bottles? or does that not affect beer that much? Also, I have a 12 quart pot here but only have bigger pots and a turkey fryer to brew with 2 hours north in Omaha. I was thinking of doing the 1 gallon batch to try out homebrewing. Should I continue to wait for the 5 gallon batch and not worry about the 1 gallon yet? Also, suggestions for 2.5 gallon batch stuff?

:mug:

I have a 12 quart pot and I have made a few 3 gallon all grain batches and a 5 gallon extract batch with it.

I personally have made a few 1 gallon batches of Apfelwein trying different sugars. One of the batches was AWESOME but I only had 10 bottles of it. IMO it is not worth the effort unless you are making something and trying different amounts of ingredients to match your taste.

Let me preface this by saying that my wife and I are not big drinkers. I thought that 4 gallons of alcohol would last us for 6 months minimum. I started brewing a few months ago and I can tell you that the hardest thing is to fill your pipeline. I started with a one gallon batch of Apfelwein and a 3 gallon batch of a Miller Lite clone. Once I bottled those I immediately started another Apfelwein and beer batch. Had some friends over and before the second batch was in bottles the first batch was being finished off (everyone I know wanted to try my brew once they found out I was brewing). Nothing I was drinking was in its prime. So I moved to 3 gallon batch of Apfelwein and a 5 gallon batch of Deception Stout. I expect this to begin to fill my pipeline.

I would say 2.5 gallons is the MINIMUM that I would do outside of experimental batch.
 
Keep in mind the one gallon kits are not for most people on this site, thus most of the opinions. They are for beginners that may not want jump into this hobby knee deep with equipment/ cost/ space or it was a gift. Don’t try to tell me $8 bucks and blah blah your setup, you all know it goes way past that (addiction.......help me).
 
I probably won't be getting an equipment kit since I'll already have much of what I need, and won't need stuff like a hydrometer right away, I will get that when the money arrives for it. By splitting a 5 gallon batch, I'll need to get a scale? That way I can accuratly split the batch.
 
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