1-Gallon Brewers UNITE!

Probably a good idea. Everything I've done in my first few batches has worked out ok, but I'd definitely like to start being more consistent with temp. and water volume.

My decision to start with small batch brewing was initially based on equipment costs, but I've really been enjoying it so far. I've been using a set-up pretty similar to the one described here. (Apologies if its been posted already) Seems like a great way to do small-scale all-grain.

 

I have scads of Grolsch bottles lying around, so the batch size I make is usually dictated by the size of the fermenter I have open. I have 2, 4.25 and 5 gallon buckets that I ferment in, so I choose a recipe size which will fill the fermenter about 75%.

Is your mash tun similar to the one in the link also?

 

Same size but different shape. My cooler is a little taller and narrower.

I've been using 2 gallon buckets as fermenters because the LHBS I went to happened to have a small stack of them available. Haven't seen that size at the other stores I've been to unless they have them in the back room.

 

I just did a second gallon batch and realized that I pitched the yeast at too high temp. It was late, I was impatient, and I thought any pitch temp under 100F would be find as long as fermentation temps were lower.

I may just dump the batch, and try again, rather than wait 6 weeks for bad beer.

 

What was the temp?

 

At the worst, the yeast may have fried to death, which would mean that you may just need to pitch some more yeast. What temp did you pitch at? How long ago was this? Do you have any sign of fermentation yet? What yeast strain was it?

 

You can always re pitch the yeast if

 

I'm looking for a great and simple one gallon hard cider recipe. I tend to like sweeter ciders if that helps!

Thanks!!


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Wanting a sweet cider complicates it a little, wanting it sweet and carbed complicates it more


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You're asking for 3 things: great, simple, sweet. I think you have to pick two of those.

 

Bubbling away. Nottingham yeast. It was under body temp and probably cooled a bit more during transfer to fermenter, low 90s maybe? After pitching I wrapped in cold wet cloth, and next morning it was mid/low 60s. I may just keep this batch, but repeat the recipe with better technique.

 

I started out brewing 5 gallons, moved into an apartment, and now I am doing 1 gallon batches. I immediately noticed some benefits: I can make a fermentation chamber I never had before with a $30 mini fridge and $10 temperature controlled switch, ingredients are cheaper, I can brew by myself, and if I mess up I don't have to drink 5 gallons of sub-optimal beer

 

Do you guys necessarily use a blow off tube on a 1 gal. Carboy?

Thank god i did on my first batch (inwas following the instructions manual of my kit). Im wondering if it s a prerequisite for smaller capacity carboys compared to big 5gal plastic buckets, which have more room to them.. Or does it just concern other factors (intensity of yeast, temp, etc)?

 

Yes. When I brewed 5 gallon batches I used a 6.5 gallon carboy that was USUALLY enough headroom. With these little 1 gallon carboys I definitely need a blowoff tube. A normal airlock would get filled with junk right away.

 

I'd keep it. You have active fermentation, Notty is a forgiving strain of yeast, and you didn't stay long in the high temp range. I bet the batch will be just fine. Couple of months from now, let me know how it tastes!

 

I usually brew 5 gallon but love the idea of experimenting with 1 gallon brews. My question for the 1 gallon group is. Do you still use the full pack of yeast in the 1 gallon like you do for 5 gallon?

 

Ha! Simple and great works for me!

 

Ha! Great and simple work for me! I'm looking for something to brew during my busy months at school. Cider works for that!

 

I pitch 1/2 to a full pack myself. I've only used dry yeast.
I did a two SMaSH batches the same day, split the yeast, and they took off within 4hrs. Thankfully I use blowoff tubes.

 

I have not need to use a blow tube - yet.

That said, my carboys are about 2x the beer volume (eg, 3gal for a 1.5gal batch), and I mostly use dry yeast which doesn't seem to get as wild as some of the liquid yeasts out there. I have had a couple come REALLY close, but nothing too bad yet.

 

I recently used the liquid wyeast with the activator in it and thought about if I were doing a 1 gallon how would I have to adjust it

 

Great and simple is simple: get your juice up to about 1.060 with sugar, add pectic enzyme and yeast nutrient (amounts according to the package), add a campden tablet, and let it sit for 24 hours.

Swirl it all around, add yeast (champagne works well, some love Nottingham) and an airlock. Let it ferment all the way out (.998 or lower).

Bottle it and let it carb up. It will be very dry, like champagne.

I think if you rack it off the yeast after a couple of weeks and let it sit for a couple more, it will be better and less harsh. (But doing too much of that takes it out of "simple" territory.)

You can add sugar or honey or even more cider in the glass when you serve it. (That would be simple and sweet, but not great.)

 

Just read that increasing temp towards end of fermentation helps yeast to "clean up after itself", so might try that for the last week before bottling.

And obviously it's time to use what I've learnt and do another batch

 

Practice makes perfect!

Practice also makes more beer.. So it's a win all around.

 

You can make a starter and split off what you need and store the next for another day. If you're doing a higher gravity ale you might find that you actually need a vial. Especially when you calculate its viability with mr. malty or whatever you use.

I end up using close to 1 vial for most of my batches since I tend to brew higher gravity ales.

 

Im trying to find a small hydrometer which might make gravity readings worthwhile for 1 gallon batches.
I did find a thread on which the links are out-dated however (http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/small-hydrometers-387081/).
There was a decent idea of fitting a 5-inch hydrometer into a sanitized turkey baster and then sucking up - reading - pumping out the liquid so as to minimize waste.

Ive made two 1 gallon batches so far without taking any readings. I have a feeling at least one will fail though (all grain but being a total noob, i did not crush grains. in the process of brewing, i read up that extraction rate would be pretty affected so i compensated with a little DME during boil.. bahh, everything else went down so perfect and the recipe looked delicious). I'm thinking the use of a hydrometer will help guide me and give me more of a point of reference, rather than waiting clueless for 2-4 weeks.

 

I'm a big fan of refractometers -

On the front side they're much easier to deal with, and take smaller amounts (and if you get an ATC model, they're not as temp dependant). Great for checking measurements for your SG/OG, as well as sparge sugars. They're also nice if you're adding fruit and need to know how much sugar it will add to the mix.

Hydrometers are great after fermentation. I usually check when racking into the bottling bucket. After a while I verified the hydrometer vs a corrected refractometer until I was comfortable just using the refractometer's offset.

I know there's a lot of folks on here that love to check gravity as it drops, or to rack out immediately after 3 consecutive readings - but to me that's just more possibility of infection, airation, and otherwise unnecessary monkeying around with the product.

You've pitched healthy yeast - provided you have a healthy kruasen, and don't screw around with too hot/ too cold, the yeast will do what the yeast will do until it stops. That's where the magic is (in my mind). Leave it be, get back to it in 20, and enjoy the magic.

 

For me the effect has been better bringing the temp up before the yeast drop out. Also helps take a couple point off the FG too.

I have been trying to catch it 24-48 hours after krusen falls just to be sure no second krusen (2nd active fermentation cycle) forms.

 

Couldn't you just use a wine thief? Or is the liquid not deep enough?

 

I could, but my 10-inch hydrometer will require a substantial amount of wort fro the 1gal, and im worried about pouring from the thief to a test tube, then back into the batch Maybe a refractometer might be best

 

Synap6 - I too started just a few days ag with a BBS kit (Chocolate Maple Porter) and found it to be a breeze:

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/brooklyn-brew-shops-chocolate-maple-porter-tips-advice-492568/

It seems very easy to do so far, as long as one pays attention to the instructions and watches the videos in order to get a feel for the process. I am currently on Day #3 of the fermentation and will be sxchanging the blow-off tube with the air-lock when I get home from work tonight.

In my opinion, it's great for a beginner, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes.

 

For a 1 gallon testing takes a decent amount of beer when I did it definitely will invest in a refractor.I know what I'm putting on my Xmas list

 

You can avoid discarding the amount of beer you drew for testing by ensuring the hydrometer and the hydro testing tube are sanitized with Starsan, and add the contents of the hydro tube back to your bottling bucket after testing. If you are super sanitary and take measures to avoid oxygenating your beer, adding the tube of beer back is OK. Been doing it since day 1.

 

I dont know how it falls out with other peoples opinions but I tend to take my hydrometer readings directly in the 1 gal fermentors

 

A little more on the Brooklyn Brew Shop, now that I'm further into my first brew:

We all know the obvious - space. I've found this concept from BBS to be very "small-space-friendly," in that the only space I've used so far is my stove-top, our kitchen sink, the kitchen counter, and an area in my closet that is the same size as a covered plastic bin/tub. To me, you can't get much better than that, in terms of space.

Another thing I am discovering is that while BBS does sell pre-packaged mixes (nearly all of which look really good, to me), most (if not all) of those mixes are rather flexible, allowing you to push your brew in a particular direction as you please. See this link for just one example of doing one of their kits at least deven different ways, if you want to:

http://brooklynbrewshop.com/themash/summer-wheat-seven-ways/

Even beyond the pre-made mixes, the one-gallon set-up can easily be used for creating your own completely-original recipes. The two books sold by BBS contain around a hundred recipes, all of which are interesting and most of which I'd truly like to try - doing so woulld be a step in my learning about brewing, as I eventually conceptualise and build my own brews entirely from scratch. As you read the book, you can see where they actually took the time to really dive deep into the history and development of beer; it's a unique approach that appeals to me, as I am not a "mad scientist" or "PhD chemist" type....

One last point I would like to make is that I don't see one-gallon-sized batches as "brewing with training wheels" or anything like that. This is real, all-grain brewing of actual beer; the mixes they sell and especially the recipes they offer in their books (the recipes come in both one- and five-gallon amounts) range from the simplest and most basic to complex and historical varieties. Once I find some favourite brews and/or someting I want to have a lot of on-hand, I can "up-size" those favourite recipes for 5-gallon brewing, but I personally don't think of it as "up-grading," just because the batches are bigger. The small, one-gallon-sized batches are perfect for my space and consumption requirements - but even beyond that, they allow me the flexibility of trying different things and really learning some fundamentals about not only brewing beer, but also how different favours and varieities interact with each other, and how adding one thing or another will affect the final product. With a one-gallon batch, you have the freedom to do this, but with a 5-gallon batch, everything needs to go just right, or you've got 50 bottles of wasted effort. This can stunt creativity and development.

Don't get me wrong, I have and am acquiring the equipment necessary for 5-gallon brewing as well, but I absolutely do not think of it as an "up-grade," as if the one-gallon batches are inferior. They're not.

I'm NOT an employee or spokesman for BBS, but at the same time, I believe that they're really onto something with their concept; if someone learning the fundamentals (as I am), I honestly think that they are the way to go.

Ron

 

BBS really was one of the pioneers into small batch brewing - they had fun, easy to make recipes that weren't intimidating or imposing, and really expanded the minds of those that used to the whole Mr. Beer thing (not that Mr Beer is bad, but it's not BBS.) Good to see that they're expanding their recipes and making a go of it.

In other news -

Just got some ingredients for my Harvest Graff! SO PUMPED! Gonna use homegrown hops, and fresh squeezed apple cider (bought a metric crapton of bags of apple from the local orchards, for some variety). Going to be a fun Sat of pressing apples and brewing! Then it's down to the land of Lincoln to go poke holes in whitetails (maybe I'll swing past HBC's for a LIVID!)

 

LIVID will be ready to drink by the weekend! And as the creator, can can tell if I did well with the recipe.

 

It's definitely a great way to do it more often and try different things.

Not to mention that if you put the ingredients together, it's about $6-8 per batch. That goes down if you save yeast and get a good price on base malt. You could easily do $5 batches.

Also, look for places that sell 2 or 4 oz packages of hops (I think Farmhouse and Nikobrew). That's a little cheaper than 1 oz, but not as much commitment as a full pound.

Mr. Beer is also a good way to do small batches. It would be cool if they did all grain recipes.

 

Got chance to compare my Tumbleweed vs SN's Tumbler last night - color's bang on, IBU's taste right on - yeast killed the taste over SN, as well as the wrong chocolate malt. Amazing how much the wrong malt can affect the overall flavor - for lack of better expression, mine seems "dusty", where SN's seems more mild/sweet.

Gonna re-brew with a different chocolate malt and different yeast - something malt forward and try it again.

 

Just brewed up a two gallon batch of an all-New Zealand hop IPA. Came in at 1.071, 17 Brix. It's going to be the second biggest beer to date. Motueka hops smell different in a fruity, citrusy aroma.. I'll be dry-hopping with Motueka , I'm really looking forward to cracking a bottle in a couple months!