1-Gallon Brewers UNITE!

Spinout said:

for those of you that do all grain 1 gallon batches, what are you using for a mash tun, or are you taking more a BIAB approach?
when it comes to yeast, are you using a whole pack/vile on 1 gallon, or splitting between 2 or 3 batches?
i'm planning on doing some 1 gallon batches just to experiment with stuff, or try some lagers since those jugs will fit in the fridge.
i have 2-3gallon stockpots, i think those will work handily to brew 2 batches at the same time inside on the stovetop.

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I use a bag on the stovetop, but you could simply pour the mash from one pot through a strainer to another. Then sparge through the strainer as well. But that would require 3 pots. A paint strainer bag is an easy/cheap way to do it.

I use a bag, but still do mash and sparge separate. Some people add all the water to the mash in the beginning and that only takes one pot.


Half a pack of yeast works for me, plus you get enough yeast in the fermenter to save and reuse. If you use liquid, you should make a starter, use some, and save the rest for future batches.

I converted a 5lb protein powder jug to a fermenter. Filled to the brim, the jug holds just under 2 gal. I scaled an English Brown Ale to 1.5 gals to allow for krausen. This size should also easily fit into our basement fridge if I wanted to try lagering.

@sumbrewindude -- I'm curious about that Tangerine Saison you have listed. Would you be willing to share the recipe?

MrG said:

@sumbrewindude -- I'm curious about that Tangerine Saison you have listed. Would you be willing to share the recipe?

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Sure can!

Recipe's at home so I'll post it tonight. Was scaled to 3gal, on the tangerine front it was the zest of two, and then 4 tangerines pasturized into the primary. Hops were Citra if memory serves - I'll go dig it up...

I will warn you to check your tangerines! I WAY overshot my projected OG with the tangerine addition (whoops! Sweet little buggers, those Halos) and ended up a little on the boozy side so it's been hanging out trying to calm down.

Siason Recipe, 3gal - for 1gal just put it in thirds, 1.5gal in half:

XP SAI - Spring Tanget - Saison
==================================
Batch Size: 2.975 gal
Boil Size: 3.850 gal
Boil Time: 60.000 min
Efficiency: 77%
OG: 12.0 P
FG: 1.2 P
ABV: 5.6%
Bitterness: 26.1 IBUs (Tinseth)
Color: 5 SRM (Morey)

Fermentables
================================
Name Type Amount Mashed Late Yield Color
Acid Malt Grain 4.000 oz Yes No 59% 3 L
GWM Pilsen Malt Grain 3.000 lb Yes No 80% 1 L
GWM Wheat Malt, White Grain 1.000 lb Yes No 85% 2 L
GWM Munich Malt Grain 4.000 oz Yes No 78% 20 L
Wheat, Flaked Grain 1.000 lb Yes No 77% 2 L
Briess - Chocolate Malt Grain 0.250 oz Yes No 60% 350 L
Total grain: 5.516 lb

Hops
=================================
Name Alpha Amount Use Time Form IBU
Warrior 15.5% 0.125 oz First Wort 60.000 min Pellet 12.2
Citra 12.0% 0.250 oz Boil 20.000 min Pellet 10.4
Citra 12.0% 0.250 oz Boil 5.000 min Pellet 3.4
Citra 12.0% 0.500 oz Dry Hop 4.000 day Pellet 0.0

Misc
=================================
Name Type Use Amount Time
Gypsum Water Agent Mash 0.250 tsp 60.000 min
Orange, Zest Other Boil 0.250 oz 5.000 min
Orange, sweet Other Primary 8.000 oz PRIMARY FERMENT ONLY

Yeast
=================================
Name Type Form Amount Stage
Danstar - Belle Saison Ale Dry 0.388 oz Primary

Mash
=================================
150F/179F

Notes -
A Gypsum applied to Mash water, Acid malt required for pH on my water, Chocolate malt added only for color, not necessary.

Skinned tangerines with no pith diced and pasteurized at 160F for 20min on stovetop with 6oz water, cooled, and pitched immediately to carboy with yeast addition.

After primary ferment drops, rack to secondary away from fruit. Dryhop as normal.

Ferment temp: 75F allowed to rise



Like I said, check your tangerines! I used 4 for this, and they were way sweeter than I expected. It really boosted my OG when I put them in the fermenter. Belle Saison is a beast! It will chew down wort to nothing, you are warned!

For reference, my OG ended up being 15.5P after the tangerine addition, but the malt OG was bang on (12.2P). I finished at 7.2ABV

Wow, that's great! I'll plug it into BeerSmith and adjust scale if need be.
Many thanks!

Is there any precedent of people doing 1.5 gallon batches. The way I figure that would leave two sixpacks and maybe an extra beer depending on trub.

I think that you mostly see people doing 1, 1.25 and 2.5 gallon batches, but only because of the ease in reducing the standard 5 gallon batch size into these (1/5th, 1/4th, and 1/2 respectively)

I am not tied to any size batch in particular, mostly because I use BeerSmith and can scale recipes to sizes that are appropriate for the fermenter I have open at the time. There's nothing wrong at all with going with a 1.5 gallon recipe with the idea of how many ounces/bottles the recipe will output.

mythbustingpyro said:

Is there any precedent of people doing 1.5 gallon batches. The way I figure that would leave two sixpacks and maybe an extra beer depending on trub.

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That was the main reason I went with 1.5gal starting out, to make sure I cleared a 12pk. Once I got my system dialed in and started refining my process, I could average about 14 bottles per batch. After trub/losses it equaled about 1.35gal, so just north of 1.25gal.

I also found that going any smaller than a 1.5gal batch made it more difficult to order my specialty grains, as I'd need less than an ounce at times. My LHBS only sells by the ounce, so that was a deciding factor as well.

I try to keep all my recipes so that grains are easily scaled by the ounce, and hops are timed/divided by a quarter ounce if possible.

When I moved to 3gal batches, it was very easy to just double the recipes and keep brewing what I loved.

I guess if I scaled again, that would put me in the 6gal brewing camp instead of the 5gal camp. Lot's of recipes out there for 6gal.

mythbustingpyro said:

Is there any precedent of people doing 1.5 gallon batches. The way I figure that would leave two sixpacks and maybe an extra beer depending on trub.

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I've converted a 5# protein powder jug for 1.5 gal batches. The jug holds just shy of 2 gal when filled to the brim, so 1.5 gal leaves some head space. I just put up my first batch, an English brown ale, so it will be another month or so to assess how well it did. I'm about to convert my second jug, so I'll be able to have multiple brews going. One of the advantages of small batch brewing in a limited space, I think.

I use Beersmith2 to scale recipes to 1.5 and 2 gal batches. One thing I notice is that, after scaling, the stats are radically different than the original recipe. I assume this is because of the differences in volume and that various reactions are not linear wrt volumn. Has anyone else experienced this? If so, how do you handle it?

Jim, I've noticed it also in other brewing software, but in some instances it's close vs radically different. The largest variance I've seen has to do with IBU calcs, though every now and then I'll get a weird reading from the grain side also.

Usually when I'm scaling, I'll input the recipe as I see it figuring 70%EFF, and then write down the grain percentages, the AAU, IB/GU, and the gravities. I know my system averages between 77-79%EFF, so I'll then scale the recipe down to my chosen batch size (3gal), and then boost the EFF from 70% to 77%, and see where that puts me in regards to the info I wrote down earlier.

From there I usually back the base grain's down to sizes that I'm used to seeing in my recipes, then adjust the specialty malts to fit the percentages while keeping them close to the lowest amount I can order from the LHBS (1oz), adjust hops to the AAU's required, and then check the IB/GU and Gravity numbers to make sure I'm close. If all that's good, I'll brew it. It never ends up a "perfect" clone of the larger recipe, but it's well in the infield.

Trying to account for every variance that could occur in a small batch, I prefer to get the recipe in a state that I could repeat it easily and still retains 98% of what the author intended.

I was cleaning out one of the fermentation chambers today and thought you guys might enjoy a lineup of one gallon batches. This picture is of no.21-30. No.31-40 are in the chamber underneath, no.1-17 are bottled, and no.18-20 are cold crashing. Five and a half weeks have flown by!

Five and a half weeks and you're ONLY up to 40? LOL

Any repeats or do you have 40 different beers? Post a pic of your fermentation chamber! I'm impressed, and depressed, at the same time - I've only been able to brew 4 times this Spring/Summer. Sad Panda...

KindofBlues71 said:

Five and a half weeks and you're ONLY up to 40? LOL

Any repeats or do you have 40 different beers? Post a pic of your fermentation chamber! I'm impressed, and depressed, at the same time - I've only been able to brew 4 times this Spring/Summer. Sad Panda...

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The only repeats were when I didn't nail a recipe the first time. I.e. I forgot aroma hops on one and re brewed it the next night with the hops.

The first 30 or so were all the same APA with different Crystal malts: no.1 2.5% CaraPils, no.2 5% CaraPils no.3 2.5% C10 no.4 5% C10 and so on. I'm in a siphon VS pour series now with an amber ale, and IPA, an ESB, and wrapping up tonight with an Irish stout. Two of each beer, one siphoned from the kettle (clear wort only) and one swirled and poured.

With one gallon it's pretty easy to knock it out each night. Tonight I was cooking dinner for 6 kids and two adults (my family plus two neighbor girls) so I was in the kitchen anyways. Going to bottle now and throw in Irish Moss.

Pouring all the way.

I switched over to a funnel and won't look back for kettle transfers. As long as I'm careful on the front end to keep the trub down from mashing and use a hopsock, it's been a much better end to the brew day. What little trub that's in the carboy will separate out with no issues.

sumbrewindude said:

Pouring all the way.

I switched over to a funnel and won't look back for kettle transfers. As long as I'm careful on the front end to keep the trub down from mashing and use a hopsock, it's been a much better end to the brew day. What little trub that's in the carboy will separate out with no issues.

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I don't really mind either way. I usually bottle a batch from a couple of weeks ago while I'm chilling the night's brew, so a quick rinse and sanitize of the siphon after bottling is no big deal. I'm mostly interested in the effects of off flavors and clarity.

To make the most dramatic difference, I have been siphoning perfectly clear wort and pouring as much break as possible, but I didn't even consider the option of letting the break settle and pouring gently. That sounds like a really good compromise.

I know the biggest downside of increased trub for a one gallon brewer is losing yield. In my experience, siphoning gets 9 bottles, pouring gets 7 or 8. That's a big difference in efficiency.

Also I love harvesting yeast from a batch that has been siphoned. The layer at the bottom is so clean that I could put it in a vial and sell it as WL.

The same beer, siphoned and poured.

I would venture to say that regardless of the technique for transfer, the volume of both is the same. If anything, you'll have more wort from pouring the entire kettle contents into the fermenter vs siphoning from the kettle into the fermenter - the difference is the displacement of the wort from the addition of the trub, and how much loss will occur from blowoff due to the small fermenter size.

Up your fermenter size, pour the whole works in, and have no losses from volume reduction or blowoff - I'll wager your total bottle count will be the same regardless.

AFA off flavor/clarity, a test was done and shown that trub actually will create a clearer beer vs no trub. IMO it's sort of a horse a piece either way, as the appreciable difference is small. I think the flavor thing is a non-issue as well, but there's so many wive's tales around brewing it's hard sometimes to separate lore from the process.

As long as you're having fun, and enjoying what you're doing, and learning along the way then it's all good.

sumbrewindude said:

As long as you're having fun, and enjoying what you're doing, and learning along the way then it's all good.

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Agreed!

Then there is option C: Use a sanitized biab bag in the funnel to pour the wort through for catching break and hop material.

So many ways to make great beer at home.

I'm not attached to any one way. Each has it's advantages for sure. I'm most interested in testing multiple methods across several beer styles to see what unexpected advantages may come up. For example, the clarity improved in a recent experiment when cold break was left in the fermentor- the opposite of what I expected!

All this beer looks amazing

matthewmurray said:

I know the biggest downside of increased trub for a one gallon brewer is losing yield. In my experience, siphoning gets 9 bottles, pouring gets 7 or 8. That's a big difference in efficiency.

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I use the 'pour carefully' method with my strainer over the funnel. I used to get 8 bottles, but, with experience, have moved up to 9 bottles per batch. I still get quite a bit of trub in the primary.

teleplucker said:

I use the 'pour carefully' method with my strainer over the funnel. I used to get 8 bottles, but, with experience, have moved up to 9 bottles per batch. I still get quite a bit of trub in the primary.

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I'm trying this entire week with all pour, but to the very lip of the jug... Only enough room for a bung and blowoff. We will see how much I net!

Repeat post

Repeat post

My take on it is this, I started last week. I did an all grain 1 gallon kit from Brooklyn Brewery.
I went with the smaller size because of room issues and I wanted to make sure I like doing it
And if I started smaller it wouldn't be so scary when I do a larger batch as I know the process.
I have a small attention span and usually jump from project to project but always returning to
The previous ones.
So far I loved it. I have three more 1 gallon kits but I also purchased the 2 1/2 gallon Brew Demon
system mostly for the conical fermenter. I will try their LME for fun but plan on doing all grain
batches in the fermenter.
I have a question though, I live in Hawaii and my fermenting temp is about 76-79. Is this ok?
The yeast really went to town in about 8 hours and blasted for about a day and a half. It's all
Quiet now.....thanks for your input.


Update: I wrapped a wet tshirt around it and the temp is staying about 72 degrees.
Thanks for the suggestion. Today I will try the 2 gallon brew demon system.

PhantomBrew1111 said:

My take on it is this, I started last week. I did an all grain 1 gallon kit from Brooklyn Brewery.
I went with the smaller size because of room issues and I wanted to make sure I like doing it
And if I started smaller it wouldn't be so scary when I do a larger batch as I know the process.
I have a small attention span and usually jump from project to project but always returning to
The previous ones.
So far I loved it. I have three more 1 gallon kits but I also purchased the 2 1/2 gallon Brew Demon
system mostly for the conical fermenter. I will try their LME for fun but plan on doing all grain
batches in the fermenter.
I have a question though, I live in Hawaii and my fermenting temp is about 76-79. Is this ok?
The yeast really went to town in about 8 hours and blasted for about a day and a half. It's all
Quiet now.....thanks for your input.

Click to expand...

In my limited brewing experience you want between 58 to 70 degrees I'd put a wet t shirt on it to drop the degrees a bit

PhantomBrew1111 said:

My take on it is this, I started last week. I did an all grain 1 gallon kit from Brooklyn Brewery.
I went with the smaller size because of room issues and I wanted to make sure I like doing it
And if I started smaller it wouldn't be so scary when I do a larger batch as I know the process.
I have a small attention span and usually jump from project to project but always returning to
The previous ones.
So far I loved it. I have three more 1 gallon kits but I also purchased the 2 1/2 gallon Brew Demon
system mostly for the conical fermenter. I will try their LME for fun but plan on doing all grain
batches in the fermenter.
I have a question though, I live in Hawaii and my fermenting temp is about 76-79. Is this ok?
The yeast really went to town in about 8 hours and blasted for about a day and a half. It's all
Quiet now.....thanks for your input.

Click to expand...

And as many will tell you, the temp of the fermenting wort is higher than the air temp. So you could be getting into the 80s inside the fermenter. How are you measuring it? Just the room temp or with a stick on thermometer?

Wet t-shirt or ice bath will be the easiest way to chill it. A gallon is easy to do.

What Brooklyn kit did you do?

Hi Everyone,

I've only been brewing for a short while, having started with some 6 gallon coopers kits. One day I saw a Brooklyn Beer Shop kit at a local store, and it piqued my interest. I've been reading up on the subject of small batches, there are still some things I'm not sure about.

1) What is the ideal sized stock pot for doing 1 gallon batchs of all grain? Or to be on the safe side, if I do eventually want to make 1.5 or 2 gallon batches, what should I get? I currently have a 1.75 Gallon pot. Would I be able to get away with my current pot for a 1 gallon batch?

2) From watching the BBS video, they do a sparge step. I'd be more interested in the BIAB method, as you save some steps and time. Can you follow the recipes in the BBS recipes book while doing BIAB, or would you have to modify them?

I'm sure I'll have more questions in the future, but I'll start with these, thank you!

I did the chocolate maple porter.
I have a strip thermometer on the jug.

What do you guys do for yeast? Do you just add 1/4- 1/2 a vial or pack and save the rest for later?

SkidR0we said:

Hi Everyone,

I've only been brewing for a short while, having started with some 6 gallon coopers kits. One day I saw a Brooklyn Beer Shop kit at a local store, and it piqued my interest. I've been reading up on the subject of small batches, there are still some things I'm not sure about.

1) What is the ideal sized stock pot for doing 1 gallon batchs of all grain? Or to be on the safe side, if I do eventually want to make 1.5 or 2 gallon batches, what should I get? I currently have a 1.75 Gallon pot. Would I be able to get away with my current pot for a 1 gallon batch?

2) From watching the BBS video, they do a sparge step. I'd be more interested in the BIAB method, as you save some steps and time. Can you follow the recipes in the BBS recipes book while doing BIAB, or would you have to modify them?

I'm sure I'll have more questions in the future, but I'll start with these, thank you!

Click to expand...

Pot size can be tricky since you need to account for the grain bill. I have a 12qt and 20qt that I will used based on the grain bill.

For BIAB you use the same grain bill however you need all the water that you will lose in grain absorption and boil off in the mash.

See the BIAB sticky for more info

Damoxemus said:

What do you guys do for yeast? Do you just add 1/4- 1/2 a vial or pack and save the rest for later?

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yep! if half a pack of dry or partial smack will give you enough viable cells, save the rest for the next batch. This yeast calculator will become your friend:http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

And there are others out there, but that's the one I use.

Damoxemus said:

What do you guys do for yeast? Do you just add 1/4- 1/2 a vial or pack and save the rest for later?

Click to expand...

I do pretty big beers so it usually works out to one full vial, which is nice. I highly recommend switching to liquid yeast if you have a LHBS. Even if you do smaller beers, you can often find vials that are a few months old and the pitch rate will still be almost the whole vial.

Its more expensive, but you can harvest afterwards and your options go up significantly when you go liquid.

SkidR0we said:

Hi Everyone,

I've only been brewing for a short while, having started with some 6 gallon coopers kits. One day I saw a Brooklyn Beer Shop kit at a local store, and it piqued my interest. I've been reading up on the subject of small batches, there are still some things I'm not sure about.

1) What is the ideal sized stock pot for doing 1 gallon batchs of all grain? Or to be on the safe side, if I do eventually want to make 1.5 or 2 gallon batches, what should I get? I currently have a 1.75 Gallon pot. Would I be able to get away with my current pot for a 1 gallon batch?

2) From watching the BBS video, they do a sparge step. I'd be more interested in the BIAB method, as you save some steps and time. Can you follow the recipes in the BBS recipes book while doing BIAB, or would you have to modify them?

I'm sure I'll have more questions in the future, but I'll start with these, thank you!

Click to expand...

I use a 2 gallon pot and it's nearly at the top at the start of the boil. Researching 2 and 2.5 gallon batches, my conclusions are 2x size pots are the minimum you would need.

For BIAB, the recipes would be a good starting point with tweaks to follow. I haven't done the calculations, but I *think* that would also increase the size of the pot that you would need above and beyond the usual BBS recommended process.

Calichusetts said:

I do pretty big beers so it usually works out to one full vial, which is nice. I highly recommend switching to liquid yeast if you have a LHBS. Even if you do smaller beers, you can often find vials that are a few months old and the pitch rate will still be almost the whole vial.

Its more expensive, but you can harvest afterwards and your options go up significantly when you go liquid.

Click to expand...

Even on a one gallon brew do you do a yeast wash and harvest it?

MrG said:

Even on a one gallon brew do you do a yeast wash and harvest it?

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Yes. Or top crop. Often both.

That's good to know. I wasn't sure if it was worthwhile/feasible on a small scale. I'll have to look into this! I have about 7 1-gallon jugs going, and it's getting expensive to keep re-buying (and shipping) yeast!

Thanks for the yeast tips!

I plan on making a short video on how to make a first time batch cheap/simple/minimal equipment. Basically going to do the 15 Minute Cascade IPA but 1 gallon.
Wasn't sure what to do yeast wise but now I do.

matthewmurray said:

Yes. Or top crop. Often both.

View attachment 218766

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What's the blow off jar contraption? Is it for yeast harvesting?