1Gal BIAB

[khannon]

So, being stuck at home with my new electric kettles unfinished at the welders, I am looking to do 1 or 2 Gal BIAB.
I've got ~70-80 lbs of grain, with ~50 of that being Maris Otter, and the rest being various specialty grains that I've bought to make recipes in the past.
I've got ~10 lbs of assorted hops.
I've got maybe 10 different yeast strains
I've got a 3 gallon pot, and a larger pressure cooker which I could use as a pot
I've got 1 and 5 gallon paint strainer bags (previously used for hops)
I've got a few years of brewing with a 10 Gal system (3 Vessel Keggles on propane)
I've got a grain mill
I've got all the cleaning/sanitizing stuff and can go back to bottling.

I know I can do a finer crush for better efficiency, and I assume water losses are roughly the same as a traditional mash?

Any clue what boil off rates are on stovetop? Can I boil mostly covered?

What are the "Gotchas" I should look for?
What is the best way to get from small fermenters to bottles without massive oxidation?
Should I switch to individual bottle priming? I've done batch priming for 5Gal and natural carb in kegs.
I have a bunch of 1 Gal glass jugs to ferment in..

Thanks for any input/suggestions/etc.. Don't want to go out for propane if I don't have to but would love to brew a few beers to make use of my time stuck at home.

 

[McKnuckle]

Roughly 0.5 gallon/hr boil-off is typical. Best way to bottle with minimal O2 is with a spigot, bottle filler, and individually dosed bottles. I use 500mL swingtops so it’s only 6-7 bottles per gallon batch. Need a gram scale with 0.1g precision though.

Since you have jugs without a spigot, presumably, maybe you can find a water dispenser or some other container to use as an intermediate staging area for the beer when you are about to bottle.

 

[IslandLizard]

IMO, the time spent on 1 gallon batches is not worth it. If it's beer worth brewing, brew 2.5-3 gallons, minimum.
You can do 2 of those back-to-back or staggered, to save prep and cleanup time.

Some ideas:
Mash in a 3.5 gallon, half size bucket in a warm, turned off oven.

Mash/boil a higher gravity batch in your 3 gallons and dilute down in the fermenter, or split in 2 and finish each separately with different hops, specialty malts, etc.

With the 2nd pot (pressure cooker body) you can boil the extra wort on the side and may be able to get one 4-5 gallon batch when combined. Definitely with some top up water. Adjust your recipe accordingly.

For small batches, you can bottle straight out of a cold crashed fermenter, each bottle doped with a precise amount of a concentrated sugar solution administered with a graduated syringe.

I ferment "half" batches (2.5-3 gallons) in half size buckets (3.5 gallons). Regular sized brew buckets or carboys should work too for half batches. Just leave the buckets closed to keep the CO2 in the headspace until ready to package. You can add dry hop pellets through the airlock hole, drop them in one by one.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

I am looking to do 1 or 2 Gal BIAB

The topic 1-Gallon Brewers UNITE! may be interesting. Its a multi-year topic, with the year 2020 showing up around page 171.

What is the best way to get from small fermenters to bottles without massive oxidation?
Should I switch to individual bottle priming?

How to bottle NEIPA (without kegging) in combination with some discussion over in 1-Gallon Brewers UNITE! will likely get you off to a good start.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Here's another topic related to bottling that may be helpful: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/...-your-beer-quality.675886/page-3#post-8824638. Replies 102 & 105 may be the most helpful, but others are interesting as well.

 

[Leezer]

I'll just add that I use a 3G pot for 1G batches and a 4G one for 2.5G batches, on my stovetop. I keep lid off during the boil, and used to use 5G paint strainer bags for the mash, but have since purchased wilserbrewer bags. I use Domino Dot sugar cubes in each bottle for priming and do rack to a bottling bucket. For one gallon batches I used to have a good "system" for filling bottles right from fermenter, but have gotten out of practice. Hoping to experiment with ferment and serve in a small keg soon.

 

[C-Rider]

So, being stuck at home with my new electric kettles unfinished at the welders, I am looking to do 1 or 2 Gal BIAB.
I've got ~70-80 lbs of grain, with ~50 of that being Maris Otter, and the rest being various specialty grains that I've bought to make recipes in the past.
I've got ~10 lbs of assorted hops.
I've got maybe 10 different yeast strains
I've got a 3 gallon pot, and a larger pressure cooker which I could use as a pot
I've got 1 and 5 gallon paint strainer bags (previously used for hops)
I've got a few years of brewing with a 10 Gal system (3 Vessel Keggles on propane)
I've got a grain mill
I've got all the cleaning/sanitizing stuff and can go back to bottling.

I know I can do a finer crush for better efficiency, and I assume water losses are roughly the same as a traditional mash?

Any clue what boil off rates are on stovetop? Can I boil mostly covered?

What are the "Gotchas" I should look for?
What is the best way to get from small fermenters to bottles without massive oxidation?
Should I switch to individual bottle priming? I've done batch priming for 5Gal and natural carb in kegs.
I have a bunch of 1 Gal glass jugs to ferment in..

Thanks for any input/suggestions/etc.. Don't want to go out for propane if I don't have to but would love to brew a few beers to make use of my time stuck at home.

Been brewing for over 12 years. This video is about 9 years old so methods have been improved. But I like 2 gallon baches and if done right you get 3 six packs.

 

[specialkayme]

IMO, the time spent on 1 gallon batches is not worth it. If it's beer worth brewing, brew 2.5-3 gallons, minimum.

I'd generally agree. There are quite a few reasons why someone would want to do 1 gallon batches over 2.5 gallon batches (space involved, available equipment, or desire to only have a hand full of bottles) but I'm not sure "filling some time" is a good one.

1 gallon batches come with some additional challenges. A slight miscalculation on BHE, boil off rates, grain absorption rates, or a number of other factors could have huge impacts. Take boil off rates for example. Let's assume you think boil off rate is 0.5 gal per hour. You want a 1.056 OG, so you shoot for 1.037 pre-boil OG, which with a 0.5 gal loss will get you to 1.056. But if your number is off, and it's really 0.4 gal per hour your OG will be 1.050. If it's really .6 gal per hour your OG will be 1.062. Kinda big swings.

In a 5 gal batch, +/- 0.1gal boil off would only change your numbers from 1.056 to 1.054-1.057, roughly.

It just means you need to dial in some of your variables, which if you're only planning on doing for a few weeks or a month to "pass the time" I'm not sure it makes sense.

I know I can do a finer crush for better efficiency, and I assume water losses are roughly the same as a traditional mash?

Water losses were always less for me with BIAB and a fine crush. You can also squeeze the bag.

Any clue what boil off rates are on stovetop?

Depends on your pot. Do a test run with tap water. Will only take an hour or so.

Can I boil mostly covered?

Yes. I'd take the lid off for the last 10 min of the boil though.

Should I switch to individual bottle priming?

That's how I've always done it. I always feared oxidation by batch priming. Table sugar was also readily available, so that's what I've always used.

Measure out by weight, not by volume. You can get very different weights from two different teaspoons of sugar, for example. I've done anywhere from 1.7g/12oz bottle all the way up to 3.2g/12oz bottle. Generally I hover around 2.6g/12oz bottle, or 5g/22oz bottle recently though.

I have a bunch of 1 Gal glass jugs to ferment in..

Make sure your syphon fits in the neck. I made that mistake once, and had to rig up some hose and mess with it to get it to go to the bottom before. Not fun.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

which if [OP might be] only planning on doing for a few weeks or a month to "pass the time" I'm not sure it makes sense.

Agreed, but it's the OPs time.

1 gallon batches come with some additional challenges. A slight miscalculation on BHE, boil off rates, grain absorption rates, or a number of other factors could have huge impacts. Take boil off rates for example. Let's assume you think boil off rate is 0.5 gal per hour. You want a 1.056 OG, so you shoot for 1.037 pre-boil OG, which with a 0.5 gal loss will get you to 1.056. But if your number is off, and it's really 0.4 gal per hour your OG will be 1.050. If it's really .6 gal per hour your OG will be 1.062. Kinda big swings.

Pretty easy to overcome this challenge by verifying assumptions:

1. measure wort volume and SG at the end of mash and end of boil
   
2. make adjustments as necessary.

 

[specialkayme]

2. make adjustments as necessary.

Hahahaha. Yes. Obviously. The point is you have to make significantly larger adjustments due to the volume, which has a significantly larger impact on the end result.

You can easily add water to cut down an OG that's too high. You can easily add DME to bring up a low OG. But both would produce significantly different products than what you started off intending to make.

If I start off with a grain bill of 1 lb Pilsner, 0.7 lb Wheat, and 0.3 lb Munich, expecting an OG of 1.056, but find out I'm at 1.061, is that the same beer I wanted to make? Close enough to some. To others, add 0.1 gal of water. Does that make it the same? Conversely, if you're expecting an OG of 1.056, but find out you're at 1.048, do you just add 0.2 lbs of DME to get it back up to 1.056? What type of DME are you going to add? All Pilsner DME would throw your percentages off significantly. Same with all Wheat DME. Are you going to weigh out Pilsner DME, Wheat DME, and Munich DME to keep it in the same percentage you wanted it to originally be? Are you going to keep DME of all 3 types on hand "just in case"?

Or you could just say screw it and keep "Light" DME on hand. Which is fine in my book. But +/- 10% in one category could easily change the end beer. And that's just OG. There are dozens of other categories.

The point isn't that you can't adjust for it. The point is once you adjust, you're no longer making the same beer you intended to. Slight adjustments in a 5 gal batch have smaller differences on the end result.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

The point isn't that you can't adjust for it.

And yet ...

... I do adjust (when necessary and carry forward the recipe specific adjustments)

and

... I get beer that I enjoy.

 

[specialkayme]

... I get beer that I enjoy.

https://media.giphy.com/media/vcKEsYOdjoCeJRpn95/giphy.gif

 

[soccerdad]

3 gallon pot will easily do a 1 gallon batch

 

[khannon]

Thanks for all of the input. I gave it a go yesterday, and have a happy batch of yeast consuming what I expect will soon be beer.

I'm not looking to dial this in too much, especially because without a refractometer I did not waste beer doing gravity samples. I'm just looking to be able to brew a bit as my equipment is "In the shop" and so I don't have my shiny electric stuff yet, and the house feels empty without billions of yeast cells doing their thing..

Things I found out while doing this so far.
2 Gallons of water is much easier to lift than the 14ish that is start of a normal boil...
.1oz of hops is really not a lot of hops.
Cleanup is a lot quicker when you don't have to worry about hoses, pumps, heat exchangers, etc..
It was kind of cool to put the whole mash in the oven (I had preheated it to ~140) and have it maintain a mash temp of 152 the whole time.. normally I lose a dgree or two.
The Opshaug Kviek yeast that I dried as an experiment is viable, so I guess I'm going to have to try a few different strains of Kviek now.
In all, I hit about the volume I expected, I had a little less boil off than expected, but I had also added a couple more ounces of Maris Otter, and went a little higher with the hops than the recipe, so maybe I'll get something close.
After I play with it a bit, maybe I'll buy and learn how to use a refractometer, Or maybe my kettles will come in, and I'll go back to my old ways.
Mostly it feels good to make beer again.

Thanks again for all the input and help,
Kevin