1 gallon batches

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sjbable

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Hello everyone. First post here. I am new to the game and have a quick question. i have done 6 or 7 batches so far. My friend from work have a big christmas party every year and i told him this year i would bring a 5 gallon keg with me full of beer of his choice. After a little talk i let him pick 3 beers that he wanted to try first so i thought i would make 3, 1 gallon batches and let him pick.

The question is, do i just divide the 5 gallon batch ingredients by 5? That seems too easy. Is the yeast a little diff? Is the fermentation diff? I will be putting them in growlers with bungs and air locks.

Thanks in advance for any input!:mug:

never mind guys, i should have searched the forums first. i found what i needed!
 
Dividing everything by 5 will be pretty close to the final product.

+1

Even the hops, a lot of folks believe that hop utilzation is different in smaller batches, but I believe the differences are so negligable that we'd never notice. 12 ibus and 13.5 ibus for example would be below our pallete's ability to descen the difference, so just dividing by 5 (or 1/2 for 2.5 gallon batches) is the easiest method.

Sjbable, if you're interesting in doing smaller batches, its a great opportunity to try all grain brewing. It's really easy to do as small stovetop batches, with the barest minimum of new equipment.

I put together a little primer on doing it here.
 
Water will likely be different. Depending on your setup, I could see you might well boil off much more water (relatively) with 1 gallon batches instead of 5. Everything else should be pretty close, though.
 
i also heard of a trick by adding LME or DME at the end of the boil. Anyone do this, and does it do anything diff then adding it when called for?
 
i also heard of a trick by adding LME or DME at the end of the boil. Anyone do this, and does it do anything diff then adding it when called for?

Search for Late Extract Additions and you'll get a ton of information. The idea is to get better hop utilization. I have found that adding the balance of my extract at flame out also helps drop the temperature of the wort (faster cooling to pitching temperatures) and I've had no boil overs since going with late extract addition.

There is a way to calculate the right amount of extract to have in the boil (there is an example in Brewing Classic Styles), but my experience has been that for most styles, it is right around 1/2 of the total.
 
Cool thanks. We have an awesome home brew store down the road. i think i'll go there and see if they'll put some stuff together for 1 gallon batches.
 
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