1 gallon biab?

[HemanBrew]

Hi.

I wonder if there is any opatacles in doing a small 1 gallon biab system?

For now I have done only steeping + extract, but I'm intrested about biab in this small volume.

Put some pictures of you have 1 gallon biab yourself

Ps. Here's a picture of my kettle. (It's 1,58 gallons) .

Thanks for help!

 

[RM-MN]

BIAB scales well but....always a but. Your pot is probably too small to do a full volume, no-sparge batch. You may need to find a way to suspend the bag of wet grains to pour some water over them to get your pre-boil volume. You could dunk the bag in water in your fermenter too if it has a large opening like a bucket.

For instance, I brew a 2 1/2 gallon batch in my 5 gallon (20 qt) pot and need to sparge to get the volume I need as with the grains in the pot with the water will come nearly to the top and leave me with less than 2 gallons of wort when I pull the bag out. There will also be loss of volume during the boil so once I have pulled the bag out and squeezed the wort out of it, I will sparge and squeeze until the pot is nearly to the top before the boil starts. I'll boil off half a gallon and then will further lose beer once fermented due to the trub. The trub in an all grain batch will be more than in an extract batch so I expect to have half a gallon or so of trub.

 

[Immocles]

I regularly do 1G-2.5G biab batches. My first 1G attempt, I used a 3Gallon kettle, and after collecting water (just over 2gallons, but I shoot to end up with slightly over a gallon in my fermenter), and adding grains it was pretty much topped out. It worked, but I have since used my 5Gallon kettle for all brews. I'd suggest to use at least a 3G sized kettle.

Otherwise, I love doing the small 1 gallon brews. It gives me a chance to test out some styles, or have a limited supply of certain styles that I don't want to be overloaded with. I haven't noticed a difference between the 1G recipes that I have scaled up, or the 5G recipes I find online scaled down to a single gallon. Also a big fan of stovetop biab.

 

[downzero]

I did three 1 gallon BIAB experiments in what would normally be hop bags. I used a larger pot to mash and then dumped the wort into a pot about the size of the one you have in your picture. I bottled the beer the weekend before last and will be trying it soon.

After playing around with these 1 gallon batches and BIAB, I can't imagine why anyone would ever mess with extract brewing ever again. Most of the people lurking on this site who haven't ever brewed a batch of beer would probably be better off making a one gallon hop bag BIAB in a soup pot they already own or buy from goodwill versus even messing with brewing extract. Even years into this, I think the process of lautering is probably the most intimidating part of all grain brewing for new brewers. BIAB makes it simple, pull bag out, squeeze bag, boil your wort and proceed to fermentation. Take a gravity reading after the boil, observe OG/calculate efficiency, and you'll have an idea of whether you need to scale up your grain bill a bit for next time or not.

 

[RM-MN]

While most of us who BIAB do it in the pot we intend to boil the wort in, there isn't any real reason you have to do it this way. Any container that is food safe and big enough to hold the grain and water will do for the mash. A cooler, a fermenter bucket, anything that it can fit into and withstand water up to 165 degrees will work. You just have one more vessel to clean at the end. Do the mash, do the sparge (optional), then pour the collected sweet wort into your boil pot. Note that you may still not fit everything into the pot you have and still have room for the foam so it doesn't boil over but you can fit most of it, then use the rest to "top off" as it boils down to fit it. It doesn't need to be boiled for a full hour either, just 30 minutes is sufficient to extract most of the bittering from the hops. I've even seen mention of people in Europe doing the boil in the plastic buckets that they would ferment in by having a heat coil inside it.

 

[Samlbowles]

While most of us who BIAB do it in the pot we intend to boil the wort in, there isn't any real reason you have to do it this way. Any container that is food safe and big enough to hold the grain and water will do for the mash. A cooler, a fermenter bucket, anything that it can fit into and withstand water up to 165 degrees will work. You just have one more vessel to clean at the end. Do the mash, do the sparge (optional), then pour the collected sweet wort into your boil pot. Note that you may still not fit everything into the pot you have and still have room for the foam so it doesn't boil over but you can fit most of it, then use the rest to "top off" as it boils down to fit it. It doesn't need to be boiled for a full hour either, just 30 minutes is sufficient to extract most of the bittering from the hops. I've even seen mention of people in Europe doing the boil in the plastic buckets that they would ferment in by having a heat coil inside it.

Boiling in the fermentor is a unique approach, I have not heard that one before! Can the standard Ale Pail withstand that much heat?

 

[Leezer]

I love making 1G biab batches on my stovetop. My kettle is 3G which works out fine for no sparge, full volume mashing since I typically start with about 2gals of water. I just put a big blanket and a couple thick towels over the kettle to hold the mash temp, put the bag in a collander to drain, use the Little Big Mouth Bubbler for a fermenter. Brewers Friend is great for scaling larger recipes down to a smaller size.

 

[RM-MN]

Boiling in the fermentor is a unique approach, I have not heard that one before! Can the standard Ale Pail withstand that much heat?

HDPE, the plastic the Ale Pails are made of, is supposed to be good to about 250F. I've dumped boiling wort into mine and it held up fine. The sides were just a little soft.

 

[InspectorJon]

I started by doing 1 gallon BIAB batches using a 3 gallon tamale pot and a 5 gallon paint strainer bag from the big box building supply. Worked great and made some fine beers. There is a a very long thread called 1-gallon brewers unite. Check it out.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

very long thread called 1-gallon brewers unite. Check it out.

2019 starts on about page 162: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/1-gallon-brewers-unite.311884/page-162

 

[Aarong2008]

I regularly do 1G-2.5G biab batches. My first 1G attempt, I used a 3Gallon kettle, and after collecting water (just over 2gallons, but I shoot to end up with slightly over a gallon in my fermenter), and adding grains it was pretty much topped out. It worked, but I have since used my 5Gallon kettle for all brews. I'd suggest to use at least a 3G sized kettle.

Otherwise, I love doing the small 1 gallon brews. It gives me a chance to test out some styles, or have a limited supply of certain styles that I don't want to be overloaded with. I haven't noticed a difference between the 1G recipes that I have scaled up, or the 5G recipes I find online scaled down to a single gallon. Also a big fan of stovetop biab.

How long does it take you to do a 1 gallon batch?

 

[Aarong2008]

I like to brew 1 gallon biab batches to dial in recipes that I really enjoy and also because I like a variety. I'm the only one drinking the beer so I don't like having a lot of one recipe.

Today I heated up my oven to the lowest setting (170), placed my 5 gallon pot with my mash in it, turned off my oven closed it. The temp dropped 2 degrees over 40 min. I will be mashing this way going forward.

 

[Immocles]

I’d my normal brew day is close to five hours. From heating and crushing to the end of cleaning up. The times I do one gallon probably knock about an hour or 90m off due to less time heating water and chilling much quicker.

 

[Oginme]

How long does it take you to do a 1 gallon batch?

I knock off a 3 liter stovetop BIAB batch in about 2.5 hours. The longest time is for the mash at 60 minutes. I boil for 30 to 40 minutes depending upon the recipe, chill in a sink to below 100F and transfer to my fermenter to chill the rest of the way in my fermentation chamber. I pitch the yeast about 4 to 6 hours later when I get around to it. I do typically prep the night before and clean up is as easy as cleaning out the one 3-gal pot I use.

 

[SKBugs]

I have a quick question about scaling down to 1 gal in regards to the hops. Should the hops be scaled as per the same ratio as the grains? It looks like quite small amounts in some cases it seems

 

[Oginme]

For the most part, scaling the hops by the ratio of volumes will get you close enough. If you have software (such as BeerSmith) which will allow you to scale the recipe to match different equipment and batch size, then that program will scale the hops to match the IBU based upon not only the ending batch size, but also accounting for different process losses and expected boil gravity. While this is still an approximation, it is much closer than direct ratio on batch size.

And, yes, if you scale down to 1 gallon batch size do expect to be weighing out small amounts of hops. Switching over to measurement of hops in grams will help with precision and ease of measurement.

 

[Antonio Martinez]

Another benefit of smaller BIAB batches is the ability to use your oven to help maintain mash temps. The lowest setting on mine is 175 so I stick a meat thermometer in to determine when to kill the heat. I can't take credit for this idea but it works well in my experience. Also I've posted it before I believe but aside from this thread there is a great community dedicated to BIAB at biabrewer.info

Cheers,
Tony

 

[CascadesBrewer]

This year I got into brewing 2.5 gal BIAB (with at least one 2.0 gal BIAB...along with 5 gal BIAB). I recently did my first 1 gal BIAB batches. Man, that is a lot of work for just 1 gal of beer! I overlapped the batches, and only did a 30 min boil (60 min mash) and it took about 4 hours for both. I got a full 1 gal into each fermenter, which still only yielded 9 to 10 bottles.

I would definitely look at ways to push beyond the 1 gal batch size (especially if using a 1 gal jug that yields 7-8 bottles). I like my 3 gal Fermonster fermenters, which would be a fine size for a 2 gal batch. A 1.6 gal batch split into a pair of 1 gal jugs would likely yield 14 or 15 beers.

Walmart sells a thin 4 gal stainless pot for around $12, and you can get a decent quality 5 gal stainless pot for $30 to $60. Aluminum or enamel pots are an option as well.

I don't want to discourage anyone from trying 1 gal BAIB, but in my experience you can get 50% to 100% more beer with almost the same amount of effort still keeping costs at a minimum.

 

[Antonio Martinez]

@CascadesBrewer makes great points. I started out with 1 gallon batches, which allowed me to determine whether I liked what I was making and the hobby in general. Since then I've scaled up my brew kettle three times (3 gallon, 5.5 gallon, and now 10 gallon). In hind site if I had it to do all over again, I would have began with a 10 gallon kettle making 5-7ish gallons of beer. Sure the recipe may cost you slightly more but you get so much more beer to drink/share for the same amount of work. Worst comes to worst you post your equipment up on a site such as this and recoup some of those costs if you don't enjoy it. Just another two cents to consider.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Always interesting to read personal experiences regarding batch size brewed.

Personally, I'm not a fan of "how many bottles of beer can I get from a 1 gal carboy". 1 gal carboys work well for fermenting a six pack (for example, Basic Brewing's "Hop Sampler"). When I want a 12 pack, a 2 gal food grade bucket works well.

I also suspect that most people who brew small batches don't estimate "bottles brewed per hour of effort".

 

[Oginme]

Always interesting to read personal experiences regarding batch size brewed.

Personally, I'm not a fan of "how many bottles of beer can I get from a 1 gal carboy". 1 gal carboys work well for fermenting a six pack (for example, Basic Brewing's "Hop Sampler"). When I want a 12 pack, a 2 gal food grade bucket works well.

I also suspect that most people who brew small batches don't estimate "bottles brewed per hour of effort".

Agreed. When i brew a small batch (3L) it is because it is something that I want to sample or try then adjust, and I do not want a case or two of bottles to have to work through.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

Looks like the OP moved over to the 1-Gallon thread: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/1-gallon-brewers-unite.311884/page-170#post-8751081

I am a huge fan of those Little Big Mouth Bubbler fermenters that hold 1.5 total, so you can maybe end up with a full gal of finished beer (and bottle directly from the spigot). I wish there were more options for quality fermenters in the 1.5 to 2 gal size (other than food grade 2 gal pails).

 

[Antonio Martinez]

@CascadesBrewer, have you seen the 3 gallon stainless mini bucket fermenter from SS Brewrech? The biggest complaint I've seen about it is that the base isn't attached. Anvil also has a similar 4 gallon option where the base is built-in. Both seem like decent options for fermenting smaller batches.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

@CascadesBrewer, have you seen the 3 gallon stainless mini bucket fermenter from SS Brewrech? The biggest complaint I've seen about it is that the base isn't attached. Anvil also has a similar 4 gallon option where the base is built-in. Both seem like decent options for fermenting smaller batches.

Overall I am pretty happy with the pair of 3 gal ported Fermonster fermenters I picked up. Speidel makes a pretty nice looking fermenter that is 3.2 gals. There are 3 gal glass carboys out there as well for a good price. The SS Brewtech does look nice (it just sits on the base?), and the $130 price tag is not terrible, but hard to justify if you want multiple (say to support split batches or side by side experiment batches). I just have not see a lot of options in the 2 gal range.

I actually just picked up a 1 gal jar from my local homebrew shop for making larger starters (https://mylhbs.com/1-Gallon-Wide-Mouth-Glass-Carboy-11787/). It was like $7 with lid with a hole for an airlock. I just measured the volume and it looks like it has about 16 oz of headspace above the 1 gal mark.

I see this other thread on 1 Gal BIAB pops up for me in the links at the bottom of the page: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/small-batch-1-gallon-biab.462474/

 

[Antonio Martinez]

Have you had any flavor transfer with the Fermonsters? I considered those the better bottles and the speidels but decided I'll be purchasing the 7 gal Anvil bucket fermenter soon and hopefully never need to replace it. You're right though, they're aren't many different options for 2 gallon brewers. Not sure if they still offer it but a while back Northern Brewer had a set of 4 1 gal fermenters.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

Have you had any flavor transfer with the Fermonsters?

Like flavors from one batch impacting another batch. I cannot say I have. I found that buckets tend to carry smells more than the PET based Fermonsters, but even then I never encountered any flavor carry over (though it has been MANY years since I fermented in a bucket). I did have a few infected batches for the first time in a long time and I suspect it was due to the spigots. I have since learned to disassemble them to clean and sanitize them.

A Stainless fermenter is somewhere on my to-purchase list. That would require me to build a collar for my fermentation freezer. Fermenting in kegs is something I have pondered.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

Back to the topic of the thread...I brewed a 1 gal BIAB batch today. This was a Single Grain Pale Ale made with Pilsner malt. I guess when I am not juggling 2 batches at once (and I skipped messing with pH readings) it is a little more calm.

Milled my grains...2 lbs Pilsner and 1.2 oz Acidulated Malt. (so technically not a single grain batch??)

I used my el-cheapo 3 gal stainless pot I got from Walmart for less than $10. This one: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Mainstays-Stainless-Steel-12-Quart-Stockpot-with-Lid/37320202 I am using a $10 straining bag that I got years ago to line my bucket lauter tun, but it seems like a good fit for this pot. I have a large mesh bag that is sold for steeping grain or hops that would probably work well too.

I guess I did not take any pics, but I decided to try using my oven to hold the mash temp. I preheated my oven to 170F (the lowest setting) then killed the heat before putting in the pot. I figured opening the door would let out a reasonable amount of heat, but I don't have a good way to check the oven temp. I stirred at 30 min, then after 60 minutes it was a reasonable 148.4F.

Drained in a colander over the top of the pot and squeezed out some of the liquid using a spoon. (For 2.5 gal batches I set this colander over a 5 gal bucket.)

Here I am adding the 10 min hop charge (and Irish Moss). This 3 gal pot has lots of room for both the mash and boiling.

Chilled in an ice bath down to 70F. A tip that has worked well for me is to add cool tap water to bring the temp down to 160F, then drain off that warm water and refill with cool tap water with ice. This wastes a little water but uses a lot less ice.

The beer is in my fermenter in my lower level. These are some containers from Walmart that I drilled for a spigot and bung. On one hand I love this fermenter, but on the other hand I have had issues with getting a good seal at the spigot and tension tightening the spigot causing the hard plastic to crack. For the price and effort, I would just get a glass Little Big Mouth Bubbler. Another option is to just not add a spigot, but I like the ease of bottling from the fermenter with the spigot.

I came in just below my target gravity, but I also had to dump some wort to give some headspace in my fermenter. I tweaked some settings in BeerSmith to bring the strike water volume down from 1.7 to 1.6 gals. I probably hit around 65% efficiency.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

A tip that has worked well for me is to add cool tap water to bring the temp down to 160F, then drain off that warm water and refill with cool tap water with ice. This wastes a little water but uses a lot less ice.

With a 1-gal-ish batch, it's not hard for me to drop the wort temperature from boiling to below 170F in a couple of minutes (to around 130F in five-ish minutes). Start with around two gallons of chilled water (~ 40 F) and couple of minutes of wort stirring (just enough to keep the wort moving). Wort in motion chills faster than "stationary" wort; stirring the water batch occasionally will also help.

Differential between wort temperature and water bath is also a key factor, especially when cooling the wort down from 80-ish to 65F.