1-gallon questions

[Spartan300man]

I've been reading through literally dozens of recipes for various 1-gallon ales. I've brewed before, had a 5-gallon setup, made some awesome stouts, ales, and wheats. But I have taken many years off. Now I'm getting back into it, reading as much as possible, and the one thing that I am a little fuzzy on, (and the variation I see in recipes does not help,) is the amount of water I need. I have read 1.35 quarts per lb of grain during the initial mashing process (so close to 3 quarts there). Then an additional gallon for sparging. How much liquid volume should I have going into the wort boil stage?

How much water will I need to start with on the wort boil? How much volume do you lose during a 60 minute boil?

I plan to use a 2 gallon bucket as a primary fermenter, with basically almost a gallon of headspace I would think. So I shouldn't expect to lose much during the krausening process, right? I will have a gallon glass carboy for the secondary. Do I need a blow-off tube for the primary, or will a bubble trap suffice? This is going to be a hoppy American Pale ale. (If you ask me in a few weeks, I might rename it to an IPA.)

 

[SuperCoolGuy-Brewing]

It depends on how you're mashing the grain. Are you doing a mini BIAB, or are you using a small cooler? The issue with water needed for mash and sparge are mostly related to the equipment you are using. If you're using a 3 gallon pot versus a 2 gallon pot for boiling you will get different boil off rates, which means you could need more or less water.

If it were me, I would assume a .75 - .5 gallon boil off rate (from my experience with 1 gallon batches), so roughly 1.5 - 1.75 gallons at start of boil. The large boil off rate, because in my experience with small pots on the stove top you get a much stronger and more vigorous boil, and also kettle geometry. To calculate your mash water volumes i highly suggest using a mashing calculator, and finally, while 1 gallon of head space for 1 gallon of beer is a bit much, it will mean you won't likely need a blow off hose.

When mashing, you have to remember that you'll have grain absorption, so you want to account for that in your strike water. And if you don't want to use my guesstimates for boil off, consider adding 2 gallons of water to your boil kettle and boiling some water around the same vigor as you would beer and letting it boil for exactly an hour. Then chill it and measure what your final volume is that way you know your true boil off rate. Of course, you'll want to include a little more liquid for hop absorption and gunk you leave behind.

Hope this help!

 

[C-Rider]

Fill your boil pot w/water and get it to a nice boil. Then set your timer for 10 minutes and measure "cold" volume and multiply by 6 for your boil off rate. Or if you're bad a math boil it for an hour, let it cool and measure what's left. That's your basic boil off rate for all your beers.

I do 2 gallon batches which yeald 2 six packs on average. My average loss to grain is about .25 g say in 5 g of strike water.

I'd forget about sparging doing BIAB as long as you can do full vol mashing. I squeeze the hell out of my grain and today I got .25 gallons out of 5 lbs of wet grain w/a a SG of 1.053

Since you are using the 2 gallon bucket to ferment as I do why not up your batch size? I try to get 1.9 into the fermenter and 1.8 into the bottling bucket on average. That gives me 18 bottles most of the time. Also this way you use 1/2 a dry yeas pack and don't feel so guilty throwing away more than half of the stuff you paid for.

If you are really into it you could do two batches at the same time by staggering mash and boils and use the whole yeast pack.

Here is a video of my method that has been refined a bit since recording this.

 

[Spartan300man]

Thanks guys, good info. I can't view the video yet, will need to boot up the laptop.
I was planning a boil in bag for the grains. I have a 3 gallon pot for the main boil and a 1.5 gallon pot for sparge water if I need it, or to add for the wort boil. I might use 2 of the 1-gallon glass carboys for the secondary. I'm stopping by the homebrew store and plan to brew this weekend so I will adjust my recipe.
I'm a little uneasy about the temperature dropping during the mash process. I will try to insulate the pot. Is it ok to turn on the gas stovetop heat to keep the temperature in range? I planned to monitor the temp and stir occasionally, and turn on the heat if needed to low to keep it in range. Opinions appear to be split about that. My oven will not fit the 3 gallon pot.

 

[bernardsmith]

I make only small batches and to maintain the mash temperature I simply heat my oven to the minimum (170F), switch it off and put my mash in the oven (Goes without saying that I have heated the water to about 160 and have added the grains and checked to make sure that I have a suitable porridge). I don't have to worry about any heat loss and have not found that the temperature rises above 153 or 4

 

[C-Rider]

Thanks guys, good info. I can't view the video yet, will need to boot up the laptop.
I was planning a boil in bag for the grains. I have a 3 gallon pot for the main boil and a 1.5 gallon pot for sparge water if I need it, or to add for the wort boil. I might use 2 of the 1-gallon glass carboys for the secondary. I'm stopping by the homebrew store and plan to brew this weekend so I will adjust my recipe.
I'm a little uneasy about the temperature dropping during the mash process. I will try to insulate the pot. Is it ok to turn on the gas stovetop heat to keep the temperature in range? I planned to monitor the temp and stir occasionally, and turn on the heat if needed to low to keep it in range. Opinions appear to be split about that. My oven will not fit the 3 gallon pot.

I see w/a 3 gallon boil pot doing 2.5 gallons is not possable. HD sells 2 gallon buckets so unless you NEED to secondary don't just buy more 2 gallon buckets to ferment in.

If you "Boil I A B) be sure you don't have the bottom of the bag touching the bottom of the pot or you may "burn/melt" it.