Does anyone brew 3 gallon extract recipes?

[Anthonie]

I have stepped down from brewing 5-6 gallon extract recipes to 3 gallon recipes. For some reason I have had some bad tasting beer doing this; I think it might be that my conversions are off when I scale a 5 gallon recipe down. Does anyone else brew 3 gallon extracts? I would be interested in discussing what you have exerimented with.

 

[sleepycreek]

How much wort do you boil? 2.5 gallons?

 

[dkevinb]

I have, as well as using the Mr. Beer LBK (2 1/8 gallons) with my own recipes. For scaling a 5-gallon recipe down to 3 gallons I just multiplied the grain and hops by 3/5. It doesn't hurt to run the answers through a brewing calculator.

 

[Anthonie]

I start out with 2.5 gallon boil.

Dkenvinb: I have multiplying by 3/5 too which makes a 5 gallon recipe with 6 lbs DME convert to around 3.6 does that sound like an adequate amount of malt for 3 gallons?

 

[alexacuna]

I've done the quantity for 5-Gallon * .6 for most of my 3 gallon scaling batches and they've turned out fine.

 

[TonyKZ1]

I've brewed 3G extract recipes, they work fine. I've bought my 3G recipes from Hop Hero but I haven't seen them sold anywhere else. Scaling them down from 5G or up from 1G recipes ought to work fine too.

 

[Anthonie]

I have heard that some people prefer 3 gallon brewing because it allows for a full wort boil, but my stove can't manage it so I usually ave to do a 2.5 gallon or split the whole batch in half and have two 1.5 gallon worts.

 

[TonyKZ1]

Well, I prefer them (and smaller 1 or 2G batches) over a larger batch because my brewkettle (ie. my wife's 3G stockpot) isn't big enough to brew a 5G recipe nor is our kitchen sink big enough to ice cool a bigger 5G pot.

 

[bucketnative]

Perhaps defining "bad tasting" would help people address your problem. There are a lot of sources for "bad tastes".

 

[Bert_T]

I began by brewing several 5 gallon kits, and for the sake of continuous and experimental brewing I scaled down to 3 and 1 gallon brews. It's got its plusses and minuses. I can make more variety and in the event of a bad batch not have to worry about discarding 5 gallons. But for the effort and time it takes to brew and clean for 1 and 3 gallon batches, might as well brew 5 gallons. I enjoy the hobby, so it doesn't bother me.