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ba-brewer said:
Is anyone using the 1gal fermonster or know how much that size holds?
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I have been curious as well I see the following from http://www.thevintageshop.ca/products/fermonster.html
  • When completely full the 1 Gallon can accommodate up to 4.1 Litre (1.08 US Gallon)
  • When completely full the 3 Gallon can accommodate up to 12 litre (3.2 US Gallon)
I have a few of the 3 gal Fermonsters, and I measured 3 gals + 20 oz (3.2 gal would be 26 oz). Based on this, it seems that the 1 gal is very close to only 1 gal. My small batches have been mostly 3/4 gal hop samplers (using 1 lb of DME), so they might work for me.
 
BrewnWKopperKat said:
For those who fill to the 1.25 gal line, do you also try to keep trub out of the LBMB when transferring from the kettle? If so, what techniques work well for you to leave the trub behind?
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This is how I minimize trub in my fermenters:
  • Whirlfloc at 5-10 mins. Since I do BIAB, whirfloc is a must to get the fine grain particles and break material to settle out.
  • Giving the wort time (30-60 minutes) to settle properly is vital (and probably most important, especially if not using kettle finings).
  • I do my hop additions BIAB style, with the same size paint strainer bag that I do with the grain. This does a damn good job of keeping hops sludge out of the wort while giving the hops about as much contact time with the wort as if it was loose.
  • My kettle has a trub dam on the dip tube. Works well to keep most of the settled trub at bay.
  • I slowly open the ball valve only partway for the wort to drain. This keeps the suction current in the kettle small so not much trub will make it around the dam.
  • I put a 1-gallon size paint strainer bag in the little BMB to catch any bigger clumps of coagulated grain/protein/sludge that may have gotten through when I first open the valve and when the wort level nears the bottom of the dip tube and creates bigger suction that pulls more trub with it. Most of the time, this bag catches very little material but sometimes it catches a lot if I've been impatient and not allowed enough time for the trub to settle.
My process still allows some break material through, which is good for the yeast but for the most part my end wort is very clean.
 
@
CascadesBrewer said:
I have been curious as well I see the following from http://www.thevintageshop.ca/products/fermonster.html
  • When completely full the 1 Gallon can accommodate up to 4.1 Litre (1.08 US Gallon)
  • When completely full the 3 Gallon can accommodate up to 12 litre (3.2 US Gallon)
I have a few of the 3 gal Fermonsters, and I measured 3 gals + 20 oz (3.2 gal would be 26 oz). Based on this, it seems that the 1 gal is very close to only 1 gal. My small batches have been mostly 3/4 gal hop samplers (using 1 lb of DME), so they might work for me.
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I looked at a few homebrew sites and amazon but did not think about going to the vendor. Thanks for finding the information.
 
OnePlate said:
This is how I minimize trub in my fermenters:
  • Whirlfloc at 5-10 mins. Since I do BIAB, whirfloc is a must to get the fine grain particles and break material to settle out.
Click to expand...
Why is that a must for biab? I use whirlfloc my biab brews as well, even though I battle chill haze anyway. I’m still very new to the process, just curious why it’s more important than other processes?
 
Immocles said:
Why is that a must for biab? I use whirlfloc my biab brews as well, even though I battle chill haze anyway. I’m still very new to the process, just curious why it’s more important than other processes?
Click to expand...

If you recirculate your wort, like in a RIMS system, the grain acts as a filter bed and filters out fine particulate matter from your wort; in BIAB, the pore size of your mesh bag defines the size of particle which gets through, which in all systems I've ever seen means you let more grain "dust" through than you would were you vorlaufing.

You could, of course, drain your wort into what amounts to a big grant, and then pump past a filter (hell, even a hop randall filled with rice hulls or something, or even hops!) into your boil kettle, but nobody (?) does that.

As for chill haze, two thoughts that seem like easy partial solutions:
  • if you're fermenting in a chest freezer, set that sucker to 34˚ (assuming a 2˚ tolerance), and transfer that chilled beer to a keg or bottles
  • and/or use a fining agent, like gelatin, or kieselsol and chitosan, or biofine, or isinglass, in your beer once fermentation has stopped, or even adding some directly to your keg pre-transfer (so that the filtering agent won't be largely wasted filtering out particulate matter that naturally settles out towards the end of fermentation anyway, and pre-transfer to stimulate thorough mixing)
 
treacheroustexan said:
I’ve brewed quite a few of one gallon BIAB batches on my stove top using a paint strainer bag. They turned out fine but nothing in quality that compared to my 3-5 gallon batches with my grainfather. I usually just start with 2 gallons of water and no sparge. I’m going to give another shot at a batch tomorrow. Any tips on improving this process?
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How did your brew day go? It has been over a year since I last brewed... due to some life changes, so I am now looking at smaller Bach brewing. When I did 4-5 gallon BIAB’s, I would always sparge with a gallon or 2, and that worked for me. Then I would squeeze the hell out of that bag.
 
Hi Richard - and welcome. It depends. Fermenting 1 gallon of wine or beer in a 3 gallon fermenter poses no problem. Period. But after active fermentation has ceased and there is virtually no more sugar for the yeast to ferment then the protective layer of CO2 the yeast belch out, very rapidly dissipates. If you are brewing beer you will be bottling or kegging at that point so again there is no problem, but if you are making wine you typically need to age the wine for a few months or longer and so when active fermentation ends you need to transfer (rack) the wine into a vessel where there is no headroom ie space for air. (Oxygen is what yeast need as they reproduce and build up their bio-mass. Oxygen is what wine does NOT need as wine ages, because the O2 oxidizes the wine and so damages its flavor and color. This applies to fermenting honey (mead) and cider (which is really a wine too except that the ABV is more like a beer)
 
Also forgot to mention that this is for primary only. If you do a secondary (which most do not) you will want as little headspace as possible.

Just adding, I’ve only dry hopped once in a half full fermenter and didn’t have great luck with those results. That particular beer oxidized very quickly. But my other beers have been perfectly fine. I do not brew hoppy ales often and I don’t think I’d dry hop another half capacity batch, personally.
 
Immocles said:
Also forgot to mention that this is for primary only. If you do a secondary (which most do not) you will want as little headspace as possible.

Just adding, I’ve only dry hopped once in a half full fermenter and didn’t have great luck with those results. That particular beer oxidized very quickly. But my other beers have been perfectly fine. I do not brew hoppy ales often and I don’t think I’d dry hop another half capacity batch, personally.
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Thank you Immocles, I do not plan to do secondary any time soon so I'm safe on that one!!
 
I'm sure this has been covered before but feels easier to ask than trawl through 170 pages.

A question about liquid yeast when fermenting 1 gallon: do you pitch the whole pack or split it somehow? Using a whole pack seems like an overpitch and given the cost, I assume you'd want to ferment more than one small batch with a vial/pack. I have taken up brewing again after a lengthy break and before I used to use White Labs as you could pitch half a vial, reseal and then pitch the rest later but now that they have changed packaging that isn't possible. Appreciate any tips.
 
RatsoRizzo said:
I'm sure this has been covered before but feels easier to ask than trawl through 170 pages.

A question about liquid yeast when fermenting 1 gallon: do you pitch the whole pack or split it somehow? Using a whole pack seems like an overpitch and given the cost, I assume you'd want to ferment more than one small batch with a vial/pack. I have taken up brewing again after a lengthy break and before I used to use White Labs as you could pitch half a vial, reseal and then pitch the rest later but now that they have changed packaging that isn't possible. Appreciate any tips.
Click to expand...

You could make a small vitality starter and then split into 1/2 pint or smaller sanitized mason jars. Then store in the fridge for the next brew day.
 
RatsoRizzo said:
I'm sure this has been covered before but feels easier to ask than trawl through 170 pages.

A question about liquid yeast when fermenting 1 gallon: do you pitch the whole pack or split it somehow? Using a whole pack seems like an overpitch and given the cost, I assume you'd want to ferment more than one small batch with a vial/pack. I have taken up brewing again after a lengthy break and before I used to use White Labs as you could pitch half a vial, reseal and then pitch the rest later but now that they have changed packaging that isn't possible. Appreciate any tips.
Click to expand...

I pitch about 2/5 of the slurry directly into the wort and then pour the rest into a sanitized mason jar with extract. I make a small starter out of the jar and when fermentation ends I stick it in the fridge. When I want to brew another beer I pour off some of the beer on top, shake everything up and then pour about half of the liquid into a flask to make a starter for the next beer. I also add more wort to the mason jar to keep the jar full of protective beer and keep the yeast healthy. Doing this I always have a protective layer of beer on the yeast and do not worry about getting the culture infected or transferring infected yeast from one batch to the next.
 
RatsoRizzo said:
A question about liquid yeast when fermenting 1 gallon: do you pitch the whole pack or split it somehow?
Click to expand...

Overpitching is not as bad as underpitching, but yeah, best avoided, and I agree, the cost of yeast hurts. Here are some notes:
  • for lagers, one pack is actually pretty close to the recommended amount, so I pitch whole packages when doing these one gallon
  • you can brew, say, 1.1 gallons of wort (post boil), pitch into the (obviously chilled) .1 gallon excess, and then dole out the appropriate pitch if your concern is pitching a good amount for ales
  • you can also, once you've bitten the bullet, brew up to, say, 5 beers on one yeast cake if you play your cards right (I suspect you'd have to rack to secondary as fermentation slows so the yeast stays active, use pure O2, nutrient, not cold crash, etc)
  • with dry yeast, you could gamble and use a .01g scale (<$20, necessary for salt additions anyway) to dole out the yeast on a batch-by-batch basis, but each time you open and close the packet, you risk infection
  • with the above, I've found that those little plastic cups you pump mustard and ketchup into at burger joints are perfect for yeast and salts
 
I’d like to hear some experience of gallon brewers making big beers.

I am beginning to work on a RIS so that I can have a good base to experiment off of. Do you all bulk age in a secondary? Or go straight from primary to bottle conditioning.

I just hate the act of racking beer from one container to another. I still get nervous on bottling day going from the big mouth bubbler to my bottling bucket.

Any other tips for big beers you all might have?
 
CaddyWampus said:
I’d like to hear some experience of gallon brewers making big beers.

I am beginning to work on a RIS so that I can have a good base to experiment off of. Do you all bulk age in a secondary? Or go straight from primary to bottle conditioning.
Click to expand...

I don't think there is really any significant difference between the process with a small batch and an 5 or 10 gallon batch. The predominant current thinking is that there in no need for secondary unless you plan to bulk age for more than a couple months or you want to add flavoring agents or fruit without the yeast cake being present.

One of the nice things about the Big Mouth Bubbler is that you can fill it full enough initially that you should have enough finished beer to fill a one gallon jug to the top for secondary and minimize oxygen exposure.

Tips for big beers: Mash at lower temperature than you think, lots of oxygen before fermentation, aerate again at 12 hours if it is a really big one, lots and lots of yeast (even more than you think), yeast nutrient, slow ramp up in temperature starting at the recommended low end for the yeast and ending at the high end and do the high gravity voodoo dance. High gravity ferments are hard on yeast. You want to do everything you can to make them healthy and comfortable

Regarding long term bulk conditioning or bottle conditioning, it seems the consensus is that they are somewhat different and it depends on your preference. I don't have enough experience to recommend one or the other.
 
InspectorJon said:
I don't think there is really any significant difference between the process with a small batch and an 5 or 10 gallon batch. The predominant current thinking is that there in no need for secondary unless you plan to bulk age for more than a couple months or you want to add flavoring agents or fruit without the yeast cake being present.

One of the nice things about the Big Mouth Bubbler is that you can fill it full enough initially that you should have enough finished beer to fill a one gallon jug to the top for secondary and minimize oxygen exposure.

Tips for big beers: Mash at lower temperature than you think, lots of oxygen before fermentation, aerate again at 12 hours if it is a really big one, lots and lots of yeast (even more than you think), yeast nutrient, slow ramp up in temperature starting at the recommended low end for the yeast and ending at the high end and do the high gravity voodoo dance. High gravity ferments are hard on yeast. You want to do everything you can to make them healthy and comfortable

Regarding long term bulk conditioning or bottle conditioning, it seems the consensus is that they are somewhat different and it depends on your preference. I don't have enough experience to recommend one or the other.
Click to expand...

I am not entirely sure how long I need to age this beer. I figure at least a month in primary and then bottle or possibly to a gallon jug.

Brewer's Friend has my recipe at 1.109 OG, so this is quite a large beer gravity-wise. I planned to mash at 150degf and pitch a full pack of dry yeast where I would normally pitch around 1/3 to 1/2 for any other beer.

I will definitely admit that sometimes I would love to scale up my batch size just for simplicity sake, but there's very few times I wish I had more than 9-10 beers at a time. The beauty of small batches is that if I brew something I love, I can just brew again fairly easily.
 
CaddyWampus said:
Brewer's Friend has my recipe at 1.109 OG, so this is quite a large beer gravity-wise. I planned to mash at 150degf and pitch a full pack of dry yeast where I would normally pitch around 1/3 to 1/2 for any other beer.
Click to expand...

From the folks at Alvarado Street Brewery who make some amazing imperial stouts:
"We mashed low, around 145, to make sure our wort sugar composition was as simple as possible to get it to "dry" as far as it could go. With these stouts they can stall rather high and leave you with a beer that's unpalatable (but good barrel candidates)."
 
InspectorJon said:
From the folks at Alvarado Street Brewery who make some amazing imperial stouts:
"We mashed low, around 145, to make sure our wort sugar composition was as simple as possible to get it to "dry" as far as it could go. With these stouts they can stall rather high and leave you with a beer that's unpalatable (but good barrel candidates)."
Click to expand...

Looks like I’ve got some more research to do. Thanks!
 
Alvarado Street uses a high percentage of roasted and crystal grains. Maybe 35-45% on their sweet stouts. That's the reason to mash low.
 
Heya fellow small batchers. Kicking this thread back up for a question.
I had pretty good luck on a simple stout, and have some leftover grains from it so looking to replicate it a bit. My wife just got a shipment of freshly roasted coffee beans, so I figured I’d take a stab at a coffee stout. What’s the easiest protocol on this? I’ve seen cold brew additions, regular coffee additions, and bean additions to fermenter. I think I’d prefer to go the bean in fermenter route. Is there a good rule of thumb for quantity? I was thinking 1.5oz whole bean (probably cracked or slightly ground) addition to primary for 1-2 days before bottling. Batch size slightly over a gallon. Good plan? Too much? Completely wrong direction?
 
Immocles said:
Heya fellow small batchers. Kicking this thread back up for a question.
I had pretty good luck on a simple stout, and have some leftover grains from it so looking to replicate it a bit. My wife just got a shipment of freshly roasted...
Click to expand...

I did a 1.25 gallon batch of a coffee stout back in May. There's different ways to handle the coffee, but here's what I did. I put around 2 oz of whole bean vanilla/caramel coffee in a ziplock bag and smacked each bean with a hammer a couple times to break them up without pulverizing them. At the end of the boil I dropped the temp to around 180° and dumped the beans into a sanitized hop sack and just swirled them in the warm wort for about 5 to 10 minutes, and then removed the sack and proceeded as normal. That provided enough flavor such that I still perceived a nice background coffee taste when drinking my last bottle in mid September.
 
BongoYodeler said:
I did a 1.25 gallon batch of a coffee stout back in May. There's different ways to handle the coffee, but here's what I did. I put around 2 oz of whole bean vanilla/caramel coffee in a ziplock bag and smacked each bean with a hammer a couple times to break them up without pulverizing them. At the end of the boil I dropped the temp to around 180° and dumped the beans into a sanitized hop sack and just swirled them in the warm wort for about 5 to 10 minutes, and then removed the sack and proceeded as normal. That provided enough flavor such that I still perceived a nice background coffee taste when drinking my last bottle in mid September.
Click to expand...

Hmm, that might be the ticket. Thanks. I’ll jot that down in my notes so I don’t forget it haha. Gotta test out the coffees first to find the right candidate.
 
Love the small batches with big bottles. I've never really minded bottling but, it's a lot less of a chore with smaller batches and bigger bottles.

Bottled 2.5 gallons last night. Had ten 740ml Coopers bottles and two 1 liter soda water bottles. Took less than an hour to prep, bottle, and clean up. MUCH more pleasant than bottling five gallons in fifty twelve ounce bottles.

I keep one case of 12 ounce bottles around and I'm not sure why. I've gone to the Cooper's 740ml bottles, 22 ounce bombers, and just a few clear one liters so I can check carbonation levels. Liter bottles are thinner than the Cooper's so I get a better indication of pressure level.

All the Best,
D. White
 
Richard Hemmerde said:
Hi all.
I am fairly new to brewing and have been fermenting in 1 gal jugs but I just got a couple of 3 gal carboys. Is there any issue with using a 3 gal fermenter for a 1 gal batch?
Thanks for any help.
Click to expand...

I have done 1G in a 5g bucket with no issues.
 
One thing I noticed when I have a lot of head space in the fermentor is I can get the airlock to sometimes reverse on cooling cycles toward the end of fermentation.
 
Hello fellow 1-galloniers!
I have just started brewing and tasted my first batch (1-gallon wheat beer) while bottling, and I felt pleased about the taste.
Jey! I´ve also started reading this topic from the start. I´m now in page 31 of 170.

Today I´m going to make my second batch that will be APA.
And I just want to check that everything is about right:

So I´ll put BIAB bag and stainer to my kettle (7 litres) and heat about 5 litres / 1,3 gallons of water to steeping temp (68 celcius).
I´ll put the chrystal-grains (200grams) in the kettle.
Lid on and to owen for a 15 minutes.
(is it ok to left the owen on wen using a biab bag? I measured that I can hold the temperature in about 65 celcius when the owen is on)
Take the bag out and squeeze.
Start heating the wort and add (500grams) DME Light.

When boiling:
Adding 20 grams of Mosaic pellet (AA 12,3) like this:
20min 5grams
10min 5grams
5min 5 gams
0min 5grams
I counted that this would give me about 50IBU.

Using only mosaic because for now its all I could get.
(well I have some Saaz left from the wheat beer session also).
I tried to get Citra, but that was run out.
My original recipe told to put 20grams of Citra in batch at 10min.

Chilling in bathtub full of iced coolers.

I wonder should I pour all the turb from the kettle to fermenter, some of it, or not at all?
(In my first batch I left it all in the kettle.)

Yeast: US-05 (about 1/3 of the 11grams package).
Fermentation in 5 litres / 1,3 gallons glassbottle with airlock.

I would be grateful if someone could give some comments, tips, improvements, for my brew-plans.

Ps. Huge respect to all you guys. I have learned so much from this forumtopic. Nice to be here. And Hello to all :)
And sorry for the huge post.
 
Hello and welcome into the addiction ;)
For 15 min, you don't need to put it in the oven. Actually you never should (bags can withstand some temps but not the oven heat ;)). Lid on will suffice.

It's other story with all grain mashing - it should be your next batch btw. Same procedure but bit longer, with pilsner or pale malt instead of DME :).
You could filter your final wort, trough cheesecloth/hopsocket (but they're must be sanitized).

Make lots of notes, measurements, pics and taste the wort from time to time ;)
Foremostly enjoy the stuff !!! :)
 
mirogster said:
Hello and welcome into the addiction ;)
For 15 min, you don't need to put it in the oven. Actually you never should (bags can withstand some temps but not the oven heat ;)). Lid on will suffice.

It's other story with all grain mashing - it should be your next batch btw. Same procedure but bit longer, with pilsner or pale malt instead of DME :).
You could filter your final wort, trough cheesecloth/hopsocket (but they're must be sanitized).

Make lots of notes, measurements, pics and taste the wort from time to time ;)
Foremostly enjoy the stuff !!! :)
Click to expand...
But don't many of fullgrain-biab-guys do the mashing in oven? I think I have read about it here...??

And I'm already planning my firs all grain biab. Just want to test the system couple of times with DME first :)
 
HemanBrew said:
But don't many of fullgrain-biab-guys do the mashing in oven? I think I have read about it here...??

And I'm already planning my firs all grain biab. Just want to test the system couple of times with DME first :)
Click to expand...

When I do gallon batches I use a 5 gallon paint strainer and preheat the oven to the lowest setting and turn it off right before putting the mash in the oven. Works like a charm. I just wish I could fit my 5.5 gallon pot in there for my larger batches.
 
I've heard of folks mashing in the oven. Never done it myself, but it sounds like it works well. If thats what's convenient for you, I'd say give it a try. I would preheat the oven to the lowest setting, and then turn it OFF. Don't mash with the oven heat actively turned on.

When I do an extract with a grain steep, I steep the grains while heating up the water. When the water gets to about 160F (my conversion from F to C is terrible...about 65-70C?), I pull the bag out and let it drip for a bit, maybe swirl it around a bit. But if you're just testing out the process, go for it your way. It really shouldn't matter in the end.
 
Well, my brewday is finished now. It took only 2h15mins including cleaning, so that was fast!

I had a few mistakes that might spoil the purity of the beer:
-While cooling the wort I accidentally spilled water from shower to the wort, but not much
-when removing the hopsock I accidentally got some bath water to wort because the other half of the sock was wet from the bath.
-when I took the wort sample to measure the OG, I forgot to spray starsan to the scoop bottom. Only sprayed to inside the scoop.

I hope there won't spoil my beer with unwanted infections. We'll see.
IMG_20200103_213230.jpeg
 
I'm going to start brewing beer soon and I will be making one gallon batches for the foreseeable future. I want to try different recipes and I don't have enough space or enough people for five gallon batches.

I also think I can do all grain in one gallon batches with the regular kitchen equipment I have and a normal stove.

I have taken a look at a few recipes and I'm not sure how to scale them down to 1/5th. But I also don't have a clue what I'm doing with beer in general.
 
Thank you. I'll look into those. I am thinking I will need to figure out how to make from a recipe and not a kit at some point. The simplicity of the kits is tempting but they get expensive and I'm not sure I'm learning much.

If anyone knows of a source of good one gallon recipes (all grain or extract) or has already properly converted 5 gallon to 1 gallon it would be appreciated.

I do fear it may not be as simple as just dividing by five though. You can't always just cut down a recipe in baking. Beer may be similar.

ba-brewer said:
In general you can take a recipe and divide by 5 and get you pretty close. A program like beersmith is helpful in recipe design and scaling a recipe.

Austin Home brew has 1gal all grain recipe kits.
https://www.austinhomebrew.com/All-Grain-One-Gallon-Recipe-Kits_c_324.html
Click to expand...
 

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