1 Gallon all grain batches (beercraftr.com)

[Kassad]

Has anyone visited the site beercraftr.com?

They have a recipe book that is strictly one gallon all-grain recipes. It's wonderful, and I am itching to try one for my first all-grain batch.

However when reading through the recipes, all of them have a mash profile of at least 9.5 quarts, some are 11 quarts. I realize this is a no-sparge full volume boil, but it still seems like too much strike water. 9.5 quarts is 2.375 gallons, or 9 liters. For a 60 minute boil, even with grain absorption, trub, etc I can't see getting from 2.375 gallons down to a 1 gallon. And this is the low end, they have recipes calling for 11.4 quarts, or 2.85 gallons.

 

[chickypad]

Does seem a little high on the losses, but it could be the author boils in a big pot with lots of boil off, and then maybe aims for more than 1 gal to the fermenter to get 1 gal finished. I never even bother looking at the water amounts when borrowing or tweaking someone else's recipe as they rarely apply. Instead you should adjust a given recipe for your own expected losses, and eventually you should try to figure out your own efficiency which will also alter things. Of course the first time through you may have to guestimate numbers then measure for next time. For example with BIAB I lose about 1/3 quart per lb of grain (.08 gal/lb). My 5 gal pot only boils off about 2/3 gal per hr so assuming your pot is smaller likely less than that. Software or a calculator can help once you do some run throughs and have numbers. The good news is that you can adapt any recipe to your system this way, you don't need to limit yourself specifically to published 1 gal recipes.

 

[Kassad]

Does seem a little high on the losses, but it could be the author boils in a big pot with lots of boil off, and then maybe aims for more than 1 gal to the fermenter to get 1 gal finished. I never even bother looking at the water amounts when borrowing or tweaking someone else's recipe as they rarely apply. Instead you should adjust a given recipe for your own expected losses, and eventually you should try to figure out your own efficiency which will also alter things. Of course the first time through you may have to guestimate numbers then measure for next time. For example with BIAB I lose about 1/3 quart per lb of grain (.08 gal/lb). My 5 gal pot only boils off about 2/3 gal per hr so assuming your pot is smaller likely less than that. Software or a calculator can help once you do some run throughs and have numbers. The good news is that you can adapt any recipe to your system this way, you don't need to limit yourself specifically to published 1 gal recipes.

Would I be going in the wrong direction to determine my boil off rate if I just boiled 2 gallons of water for an hour (a rolling boil) and compared pre-boil and post-boil volumes? Since I've never done AG I don't know how having grains in the water affect the water loss, but I did it and I lost a lot more water than I thought I would. Pre-boil water = 2 gallons. After a 60 minute rolling boil I lost .9 gallons, so I went from 2 gallons down to 1.1 gallons, but again this was with plain water, no grains, nothing else.
This might support the amount of water in those 1 gallon AG batches.

 

[chickypad]

That's a good way to estimate, as long as you try to keep the same level of rolling boil.

 

[treacheroustexan]

I notice a lot of the recipes are 90 minute boils. Could be the reason?

 

[TonyKZ1]

That and if I remember right, I'm also a subscriber and get his updated recipe books and info, in the past he said something about re-configuring his 1G recipes to actually be 1.25G instead. Send him a message, invite him to this topic & forum. He's pretty easy to talk with and helpful too.

 

[MaryB]

1 gallon fermenter can have 1/8 gallon trub loss(from my days of doing small batches)... and a little extra gets you 10 full bottles a batch... maybe 11