1-Gallon Brewers UNITE!

[bford]

The new Brooklyn Brew Shop book is available for preorder on amazon already. The name is Make Some Beer. I have already ordered one myself.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[Owly055]

Hi Owly and Biker Brewer (and anyone else with the demon conical fermenters) - is there any word on when the company might come out with an updated design that takes into account user feedback? I'm so tempted to get one but could wait if a new model is just around the corner...thanks!

I don't think a "new model" is in the works......... My thinking is that considering tooling costs, and the fact that there isn't any competition out there, and the product is successful, and market limited there aren't incentives to make many changes. The only change I expect to see is the spigot.... when they get around to it, and that is merely enlarging the hole to fit a regular brew bucket spigot.......... You can do that with your dremel tool or a sharp knife (as I did), and your LHBS will have the spigots available cheaply. Their real business is selling ingredient kits. I suggest you contact them and ask.........they seem responsive.

Just buy one and mod it by enlarging the spigot hole....... It's only $35.00

H.W.

 

[bford]

I'll probably pick up one of these clear Brewdemon fermenters to try in the next month or two.

 

[Avocado_Power]

A_Power - That book list looks great, though unless you're specifically interested in sours or chasing wild yeast, you could probably drop the Wild Brews. It's fairly focused on that topic. I've got it on my list because, well, I'm just goofy like that (American Sour's is another on my list eventually, but they're both under that main list).

BFord - one 4g cube per bottle, that should work out to around 2.2/bottle. I've been happy with the carb so far, but if you like really carbonated beer you might be disappointed.

Thanks for the tip...I actually haven't even tried sour beers so I really don't know yet whether I like them. What's a good example of a relatively accessible wild yeast sour craft beer out there?

 

[sumbrewindude]

A_Power - Jolly Pumpkin springs to mind immediately, and there's a couple out from Russian River also. If you can't find either of those, you may be able to find Goose Island's Sofie and Matilda, they're a little more common, but you'll have to find the belgian section that's not in a cooler. I prefer Sofie.

HW - if it's easy enough to mod out the BrewDemon, I'd imagine it'd be the first thing I did. Spouts are spouts, but I know I can get the "red" spigot locally for change and it's never bad to have a spare. Combine that with the ease of hooking up a bottling wand to it, I couldn't see a reason to keep the stock one. Any chance you could use a step bit to enlarge the hole concentricly? (I do NOT need another fermenter, I do NOT need another fermenter...)

Got the 4 "new to me" kegs in last night, one had a cut diptube in it so AIH's getting a call. Call me lazy or a spend thrift, but I'm looking forward to trying out kegging with the larger batches. 1gal will all be bottled, though.

Looked down in the cellar, I do believe I've got more beer down there now in bottles than I've ever had before (and that includes college). Maybe it's time to slow down a bit....


Nah.

 

[Owly055]

With the small batch size, keeping beer ahead, but not over running my bottling capacity is a logistical challenge. It means starting a brew as soon as a fermenter is empty. I have 2 2.5 gallon fermenters, and one 1.5 gallon fermenter, and about 36 half liter EZ cap flip top bottles to play with..

Currently I have:
2 bottles of my Melanodin Red left
14 bottles of APA Fuggles plus about 2 more bottles in my one gallon cold crash container
1.5 gallons of "Big Red X" (RedX Carapils, Nelson Sauvin
2.5 gallons of Red Victory (2 row, melanodin, victory, carapils...Magnum & Willamett)
Just going into what amounts to secondary fermentation
2.5 gallons of Amarillo / RedX just beginning primary

Planning a very light summer beer with Moteuka and Calypso in a week or 10 days..... Shooting for that lemon lime fruitiness and low IBUs

Until I have all 36 bottles fill, I'll keep brewing "back to back", then brew just far enough ahead that I have empty bottles in time to crash and bottle.

Anybody else playing this game ;-) .................... Keeping the pipeline full without over running it? Nothing stopping me from buying another case or two of empties, but I want to keep the numbers down.


H.W.

 

[sumbrewindude]

Owly - I like that idea with the Moteuka / Calypso. A hop bursted "session-PA", sort of like New Glarus's Moon Man (which is a fantastic summer beer if you haven't had it, it's pretty local to the midwest) that uses Moteuka. I'd toss some Simcoe in there also, but I'm also becoming a fan of Simcoe - I blame my brewing friend for turning me on to it.

I brew every weekend, that's 1.5gal fermenting into 3 carboys, one bottling/flipped into another beer the day after. Even drinking a bottle a night I didn't expect to get over-run like this. It did help that the wife scarfed up most of the FB, and I've put LIVID on lockdown because it's too easy to have more than one.

I saw a post on here not long ago about tossing marginal beers to make room for good ones. I'm on the fence about that, I think that unless you've really screwed it up, you should at least keep a sixer and let it age out - so that's what I've done with a couple of mine. I'd hate to think that in 4 months what was once terrible might be amazing and I'd only have 6 bottles of it, but it's not like I can't make it again.

 

[Owly055]

Owly - I like that idea with the Moteuka / Calypso. A hop bursted "session-PA", sort of like New Glarus's Moon Man (which is a fantastic summer beer if you haven't had it, it's pretty local to the midwest) that uses Moteuka. I'd toss some Simcoe in there also, but I'm also becoming a fan of Simcoe - I blame my brewing friend for turning me on to it.

I brew every weekend, that's 1.5gal fermenting into 3 carboys, one bottling/flipped into another beer the day after. Even drinking a bottle a night I didn't expect to get over-run like this. It did help that the wife scarfed up most of the FB, and I've put LIVID on lockdown because it's too easy to have more than one.

I saw a post on here not long ago about tossing marginal beers to make room for good ones. I'm on the fence about that, I think that unless you've really screwed it up, you should at least keep a sixer and let it age out - so that's what I've done with a couple of mine. I'd hate to think that in 4 months what was once terrible might be amazing and I'd only have 6 bottles of it, but it's not like I can't make it again.

It's amazing how many beers I've made so far in a short time.......... none of them have thus far turned out to be dogs. I do ONLY all grain, and as often as not, I don't know what I'm going to do until shortly before I brew. I buy grains and hops, and put together what I can from what I have........ I've yet to use a "recipe". There seem to be a few things you can do to avoid a disaster......... I use Brewer's Friend, and watch my IBUs to stay in a range that works for me, and I read a lot about grains and hops. One of the more interesting beers I made this way....... a 1.5 gallon batch using left overs...... I had a small amount of 2 row.. 2.25 pounds, some Northern Brewer and some East Kent Goldings. Not enough grain for 1.5 gallons of beer, so I added some partially cooked rice to the mash and 6 oz of honey. The resulting hop combination and light colored beer ended up with a flavor almost like Saaz. It got me interested in experimenting with beers with a low malt presence...... Beers where the malt is very much in the background, and the hops carry the beer. I like Northern Brewer a lot.

H.W.

 

[matthewmurray]

I weighed 2.3g per cube.

 

[Owly055]

A_Power - Jolly Pumpkin springs to mind immediately, and there's a couple out from Russian River also. If you can't find either of those, you may be able to find Goose Island's Sofie and Matilda, they're a little more common, but you'll have to find the belgian section that's not in a cooler. I prefer Sofie.

HW - if it's easy enough to mod out the BrewDemon, I'd imagine it'd be the first thing I did. Spouts are spouts, but I know I can get the "red" spigot locally for change and it's never bad to have a spare. Combine that with the ease of hooking up a bottling wand to it, I couldn't see a reason to keep the stock one. Any chance you could use a step bit to enlarge the hole concentricly? (I do NOT need another fermenter, I do NOT need another fermenter...)

Got the 4 "new to me" kegs in last night, one had a cut diptube in it so AIH's getting a call. Call me lazy or a spend thrift, but I'm looking forward to trying out kegging with the larger batches. 1gal will all be bottled, though.

Looked down in the cellar, I do believe I've got more beer down there now in bottles than I've ever had before (and that includes college). Maybe it's time to slow down a bit....


Nah.

I would strongly recommend against using any kind of drill bit on this stuff..... it would be difficult to control in thin plastic. I used a scalpel...... an exacto knife would work well if you take your time, also a die grinder or dremmel tool with a suitable bit. Be careful... take your time, but remember a replacement tank is $13........ so don't be afraid.

H.W.

 

[sumbrewindude]

Oh wow - I didn't think they were that thin. Exercise caution for sure, good to know that replacement tanks are too bad though.

 

[Renoun]

I've been able to carefully port Better Bottles with a sharp step bit. It is probably something you could do to a Brew Damon too. I'd just recommend avoiding hole saws.

 

[sumbrewindude]

WooHOO! I finally graduated to 3gal batches.

Brew day took the same amount of time, though this one was more putzy than ever on the prep side. Made a Tangerine Saison, using the orange schedule that was posted on here earlier (Thanks D-USA!), but put with a wheat/pilsner base with Belle Saison yeast and Citra hops. If you don't own a microplane for zest, get one. I'm so glad I forgot the wife had bought one a while back, it made zesting up a couple tangerines about as easy as you can get.

So - 5 good sized tangerines, a couple's worth of zest and an ounce of Citra and this thing smells AMAZING going into the fermenter. Crazy high Plato too - 15.5, which is way above my projected 13.5. I have no idea how it got up there.... I still am going to dryhop in a couple weeks anyway, and after using Citra for the first time, I can see why it has a fanbase.

As a final word, induction plates kick ass. Now to get my basement "brewery" fully setup and rolling!

 

[sumbrewindude]

Eh, figured out my oopsie - I screwed up the cardinal rule of cooking; sample the ingredients. The tangerines I used were crazy high in sugar - really, really sweet. That plus the amount I used pushed the OG way up over what I had planned for.

Soooooooo - well, it'll be interesting and higher ABV than to style. I hope it doesn't end up hot, it's going to suck staring at it in a bottle for a few months waiting for the booze to calm down.

 

[1fast636]

Figured you guys will beable to help me on this, I have a RIS I'm bottling soon I want to bottle 1 gallon with cold pressed coffee, how much coffee to 1 gal is rule of thum and how much priming sugar ( wasn't sure if the coffee would effect sugar amounts)

 

[fuzzy2133]

Figured you guys will beable to help me on this, I have a RIS I'm bottling soon I want to bottle 1 gallon with cold pressed coffee, how much coffee to 1 gal is rule of thum and how much priming sugar ( wasn't sure if the coffee would effect sugar amounts)

Yes depending on how much coffee you add it will change your volume to bottle and that changes the amount of sugar you will need for batch priming. If you are using carb tabs just follow the directions.

How much coffee to add is taste preference since you could use a darker coffee roast than what others might like. Most people will recommend taking a 4-6oz sample and add measured amounts of coffee to it till you like it and scale that up to your batch size. Also don't forget to note the beer sample size and how much coffee you add each time (this is where I would screw up).

 

[1fast636]

Figured it was preference but wasn't sure, thanks for the help

 

[bleme]

A guy from the club let me try one of his awesome coffee stouts the other day. For a 5 gallon batch, I believe he "dry hopped" 4oz and then added 24oz of cold brewed coffee at bottling.

 

[1fast636]

4 oz of coffee grounds then the cold brewed at bottling? so for a gallon would be 3/4 of an oz "dry hopped" and 38.4g of cold brewed

 

[bleme]

He used 24oz of liquid cold-brewed coffee at bottling. He didn't say how strong he made it. He also used a blend of Sumatra and another type of coffee. The music was loud so I couldn't make out that 2nd type, but he did follow up saying that they weren't his favorite coffees, just ones he knew he could repeat if he liked the beer.

 

[Frankbo25]

I tested my 2nd ever brew yesterday after 1 week in the bottle and some worrying due to some auto siphon hiccups during bottling. I wasnt expecting much just wanted to see how things had progressed after one week. I was pleasantly surprised. It tasted real good with decent, but not ready, carbonation . I'm excited about how good they will be after a couple more weeks.
I used the NB 1 gallon extract kit and am ready to order another.

 

[sumbrewindude]

I tested my 2nd ever brew yesterday after 1 week in the bottle and some worrying due to some auto siphon hiccups during bottling. I wasnt expecting much just wanted to see how things had progressed after one week. I was pleasantly surprised. It tasted real good with decent, but not ready, carbonation . I'm excited about how good they will be after a couple more weeks.
I used the NB 1 gallon extract kit and am ready to order another.

Awesome to hear Frank!

I'm sitting on one last brew before I order again, and I'm torn on what recipes to play with now. I'm thinking an ESB for sure, and either a brown/porter/Hefe, maybe a Belgian - I've yet to play with those...

Decisions, decisions...

 

[mkh]

Tasted my 4th kit last night. Bourbon Barrel Porter kit from Northern Brewer. Has been in the bottle for just over a week. Carbonation is not there yet, but last time mine got way over carbonated so just wanted to test one. Flavor wise, it is pretty solid, though I think I realize these barrel type beers aren't totally for me. Def oak flavor, little strong on the alcohol (I don't do any gravity testing so I have no clue the %). Overall a solid, drinkable beer which after just 4 tries is all I'm looking for. Might do a full grain next.

 

[Calichusetts]

Tasted my 4th kit last night. Bourbon Barrel Porter kit from Northern Brewer. Has been in the bottle for just over a week. Carbonation is not there yet, but last time mine got way over carbonated so just wanted to test one. Flavor wise, it is pretty solid, though I think I realize these barrel type beers aren't totally for me. Def oak flavor, little strong on the alcohol (I don't do any gravity testing so I have no clue the %). Overall a solid, drinkable beer which after just 4 tries is all I'm looking for. Might do a full grain next.

You really want to give any oaked beer some time to mellow and age. Especially if this is a 1 gallon. You will wish that you held on to that bottle when you finish your last and realize how good it gets.

I'd also recommend starting to take gravity readings if you go all grain. Just so you have a better grasp of what is happening in your process and what outcomes you like or don't like.

 

[mkh]

You really want to give any oaked beer some time to mellow and age. Especially if this is a 1 gallon. You will wish that you held on to that bottle when you finish your last and realize how good it gets.

I'd also recommend starting to take gravity readings if you go all grain. Just so you have a better grasp of what is happening in your process and what outcomes you like or don't like.

Guess I'd need to move it to the fridge though to keep it from overcarbonating then let it age?

I probably will look into that. I am heading to Northern Brewer this weekend and need to pick up some things anyway so I'll probably ask about that. I've read up on the process and everything.

 

[Flboy]

Small batches, man am I slow sometimes! Have only been doing 5 gal batches and have moved to all grain. Been dying because of poor technique/skills! Mashing taking too long, temps way too high, spilled the spent grains (barefoot), boil over, too much wort for carboy. To add to the confusion, I just bought a Corona mill and 50# sack of malt at the same time. Oh yes, first try at BIAB too! Been so discouraged have not brewed any beer in 3 weeks! DUH! Cut my batches in half! Perfect timing too, have scored an almost limitless supply of 1 gal and 3 gal food grade buckets with gasket-ed lids!

 

[bleme]

Guess I'd need to move it to the fridge though to keep it from overcarbonating then let it age?



I probably will look into that. I am heading to Northern Brewer this weekend and need to pick up some things anyway so I'll probably ask about that. I've read up on the process and everything.

As long as you put in the correct amount of priming sugar, it won't over carbonate. I opened an Imperial Stout the other day that has been 70F for over a year. I didn't really like it at 1 month old as it had a real harsh bite to it but age mellowed it wonderfully!

 

[sumbrewindude]

^^^ Yep, just leave it in the basement (or somewhere out of the light and stable temps in the lower 70's/upper 60's).

I've got my one and only foray into oaking STILL sitting in the bottles (9 as of this count), and have a note to open one up in June and try it out. Initially it was terrible - so bad it was nicknamed "No2 Pencil" by the guys that tried it. Recipe was okay, but the oak just ran it over. I'm a couple months past that brew date and it's getting better the longer it sits.

Just the way it works I guess.

 

[Ash1616]

Quick question, has anyone ever used a 8- bottle Wine Cooler to Lager a One Gallon brew?

I'm giving it a shot but the only issue is that there is not enough head space in the cooler for an airlock. Instead I'm going to try to use a blow-off for the entire fermentation process.

Fingers crossed!!!

 

[sumbrewindude]

Quick question, has anyone ever used a 8- bottle Wine Cooler to Lager a One Gallon brew?

I'm giving it a shot but the only issue is that there is not enough head space in the cooler for an airlock. Instead I'm going to try to use a blow-off for the entire fermentation process.

Fingers crossed!!!

That'll work fine, Ash.

Don't forget, you can also lager in the bottle after primary - so once you've gone through fermentation and the diacetal rest, bottle up and stick 'em in the fridge to lager.

I believe Yooper had on here a good rule of thumb, one week of lagering for every 0.01 of drop from OG to FG. Eg, if you go from 1.050 to 1.010, that'd be a .04 difference so 4 weeks of lagering.

Have fun!