1-Gallon Brewers UNITE!

[burninator]

Hey guys, just tried out my first batch of saison after a several-month brewing hiatus (moving to the Philippines) - a 2.5 gallon BIAB batch. Recipe loosely based off of that 1-gallon book (Beer Craft)...

Probably still very young. I'd give a saison a good month to 6 weeks in the bottle and then cold condition for a week.

 

[ericbw]

Hey guys, just tried out my first batch of saison after a several-month brewing hiatus (moving to the Philippines) - a 2.5 gallon BIAB batch. Recipe loosely based off of that 1-gallon book (Beer Craft)...



6 lbs Belgian Pilsner

12.5 oz Wheat

6.2 oz Vienna



0.25 oz magnum at 60 min

0.25 oz magnum at 15 min



Mashed for an hour anywhere from 149 - 152 F

Dunk sparge at 165

Took a freaking hour to cool off due to faulty connecter from wort chiller to sink (lots of improvising).

Threw in one vial of WLP565 (Saison ale yeast).



Fermented for 4 weeks in closet in both 2 gallon bucket and little brown keg. Temps ranged from low to mid 80s.



Bottled some bottles with sugar drops, and bottled others by tossing sugar in "bottling bucket" and stupidly forgetting to have created a simple sugar solution beforehand (this required me to stir the beer for proper dissolving, which pained me).



2 weeks of sitting in warm closet. Tossed a bottle in the fridge for 3 days. Popped it open, and here are the tasting notes (non-professional):



- Great color and carbonation (somehow).

- Visually very appealing, only cloudy when sediment was poured in.

- Refreshing initial taste, but then gives way to a strange, sour aftertaste.

- Boozier taste than expected (though it did not "feel" heavier) - no I did not measure anything.

- Almost no hint of bitterness (yes it's a saison, but still)

- Unfortunately, no interesting and pleasurable tastes present (like citrus or peppercorn) that I was hoping for.

- Someone who tried it said it tasted like a lager.



So guys, any tips? How do I improve this batch next time, particularly to get rid of the strange sour aftertaste? Also, should I add more hops at different boil points?



THANKS!

I think it will improve. Maybe increase the bittering hops a little bit?

 

[Opiate42]

So this was my first recipe, I have no reason or logic to it other than ..... "Hey why not?"

1 gallon batch
3 quarts mash (1 hour @ 152-158, stove top is inconsistent but I manage )
4 quarts sparge @ 170
75 minute boil

Batch one:
1.5 lbs Maris Otter
0.25 lbs Munich Dark
0.25 lbs Crystal 45
0.125 lbs Crystal 150
0.03125 lbs Chocolate malt
0.25 lbs CaraRye
0.1 lbs Rye Flakes

7g Columbus @ 75
7g Columbus @ 45
7g Columbus @30
7g Amarillo @ 15
7g Amarillo @ 5
7g Zythos @ 0

Yeast: Nottingham (re-hydrated for 15-20 minutes prior to pitching)

Batch Two:
Exact same malt bill but with a much smaller hop list (wanted to compare them side by side):
4g Columbus @ 75
4g Amarillo @ 40
2g Zythos @ 5

Batch one: was hoping for a bittersweet malty bastard with some nice rye overtones out of this and mostly succeeded, was not as sweet as I'd hoped but was damn drinkable none the less. Definitely not for people who aren't hop-heads with 42 grams of hops per gallon. Aromatic and bitter the way I like, heavy mouth feel, went down nice. Was afraid that this one was going to be so over the top as to be undrinkable but was happily surprised and was my favourite of the two.

Batch two: This is the one I was hoping for a smoother less sweet taste out of but wasn't quite my cup of tea though my friends and partner enjoyed it quite a bit. Found it too bitter and not flavourful enough, though did get nicer as it warmed and as the pint went down. Had higher hopes but hey.... still wasn't bad.

Carbing: I bottled both with 2tbsp honey and a 1/4 of water, same honey bottle both times. Batch one was perfect, not bombs, nice head.

But batch two foamed over and blew fountains when taking the caps off. Typically lost half a bottle to overflowing foam before I could salvage any of it. Curious how the smaller hop bill somehow aided over-carbing. I don't understand sugars for bottling well enough yet

Also, my closet (literally) for fermenting is usually at an ambient of 70-75F, higher than I'd like but in our tiny apartment there isn't space for a temp-controlled fermentation chamber of any kind. It serves it's purpose of keeping the carboys in the dark and the cats away from knocking them over but that's as much as I can do until we move to a bigger place.

 

[phug]

Did you check the gravity before bottling?


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[Opiate42]

Did you check the gravity before bottling?


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No but one of these days I should start again, stopped gravity checking a while back as I find sample taking on a 1 gallon to be a pain and you risk losing a bottles worth when you only get 8 or 9 to begin with... and I'm semi-lazy

 

[phug]

No but one of these days I should start again, stopped gravity checking a while back as I find sample taking on a 1 gallon to be a pain and you risk losing a bottles worth when you only get 8 or 9 to begin with... and I'm semi-lazy

it's possible one batch hadn't quite hit terminal gravity, in which case it still had some sugars to be et, that added to your primign sugar for a little extra carbonation.

and I'm hoping Santa brings me a sugar-water-kaleidescope-thingy so that I can check my 1 gallon batches more easily to see if they're done fermenting.

 

[30Bones]

it's possible one batch hadn't quite hit terminal gravity, in which case it still had some sugars to be et, that added to your primign sugar for a little extra carbonation.

and I'm hoping Santa brings me a sugar-water-kaleidescope-thingy so that I can check my 1 gallon batches more easily to see if they're done fermenting.

Make sure you take into account the alcohol content will skew the refractometer

 

[phug]

absolutely, but I'll mostly be using it just to check that fermentation is complete, and that there's no change in gravity. For that I'm pretty sure I can get away with no correction calculations. But as I get comfortable, I'll use one of the excel spreadsheets that I've seen that track based off your OG, and then correct for Alcohol.

 

[30Bones]

I have stopped checking FG for the most part if I am confident in my yeast.

 

[Avocado_Power]

Probably still very young. I'd give a saison a good month to 6 weeks in the bottle and then cold condition for a week.

Thanks - I'll try exactly that, as I still have about half of the batch still bottle conditioning. Is there any harm in taking out bottles from the fridge to let them continue to bottle condition at 80 degree temps?

 

[Avocado_Power]

I think it will improve. Maybe increase the bittering hops a little bit?

Yeah, I'm thinking I'll bump the amount up to 0.5 oz Magnum at the 60 min mark.

 

[Avocado_Power]

So this was my first recipe, I have no reason or logic to it other than ..... "Hey why not?"

1 gallon batch
3 quarts mash (1 hour @ 152-158, stove top is inconsistent but I manage )
4 quarts sparge @ 170
75 minute boil

Batch one:
1.5 lbs Maris Otter
0.25 lbs Munich Dark
0.25 lbs Crystal 45
0.125 lbs Crystal 150
0.03125 lbs Chocolate malt
0.25 lbs CaraRye
0.1 lbs Rye Flakes

7g Columbus @ 75
7g Columbus @ 45
7g Columbus @30
7g Amarillo @ 15
7g Amarillo @ 5
7g Zythos @ 0

Yeast: Nottingham (re-hydrated for 15-20 minutes prior to pitching)

Batch Two:
Exact same malt bill but with a much smaller hop list (wanted to compare them side by side):
4g Columbus @ 75
4g Amarillo @ 40
2g Zythos @ 5

Batch one: was hoping for a bittersweet malty bastard with some nice rye overtones out of this and mostly succeeded, was not as sweet as I'd hoped but was damn drinkable none the less. Definitely not for people who aren't hop-heads with 42 grams of hops per gallon. Aromatic and bitter the way I like, heavy mouth feel, went down nice. Was afraid that this one was going to be so over the top as to be undrinkable but was happily surprised and was my favourite of the two.

Batch two: This is the one I was hoping for a smoother less sweet taste out of but wasn't quite my cup of tea though my friends and partner enjoyed it quite a bit. Found it too bitter and not flavourful enough, though did get nicer as it warmed and as the pint went down. Had higher hopes but hey.... still wasn't bad.

Carbing: I bottled both with 2tbsp honey and a 1/4 of water, same honey bottle both times. Batch one was perfect, not bombs, nice head.

But batch two foamed over and blew fountains when taking the caps off. Typically lost half a bottle to overflowing foam before I could salvage any of it. Curious how the smaller hop bill somehow aided over-carbing. I don't understand sugars for bottling well enough yet

Also, my closet (literally) for fermenting is usually at an ambient of 70-75F, higher than I'd like but in our tiny apartment there isn't space for a temp-controlled fermentation chamber of any kind. It serves it's purpose of keeping the carboys in the dark and the cats away from knocking them over but that's as much as I can do until we move to a bigger place.

Wow that is weird how the one with less hops was the more drinkable one - and that is one intriguing malt bill btw! You mentioned that you carbed them the same way, yet the second batch had all the foam. I used to live in an apt with your same set up (ambient temps 70-75), no space for anything. I would usually use sugar drops (no problems until I switched brands and got nothing but endless foaming). I also used honey twice for a BBS and Homebrew Exchange recipe, respectively, and no foaming with honey.

This leads me to believe that the overcarbonation has something to do with your closet temp. The only time I had a bottle bomb was when I was fermenting in the spring and one day it was unseasonably warm, and my closet temps passed 80. BOOM went a 32 oz growler, which was 25% of my 1-gallon batch. So maybe your second batch was bottle conditioning in ambient temps that were higher than your first batch, and that was what led to excessive foaming?

 

[sumbrewindude]

A_Power - I hope you're not bottle conditioning in growlers, they're not pressure rated - they can, and will (as you've seen first hand) go boom if you're trying to pressurized them for carbonation. You can get some bombers (22.5oz) or if you have a market that has 1L glass bottled water, they are pressure rated and can be capped with a standard bottle cap.

All else fails, use plastic - but bottle carbing in a growler is a recipe for glass shards and spilled beer.

In other news, went to fill a bomber for a beer party tomorrow night and the keg kicked on me again! I'm digging kegs, but I hate not knowing when it's going to kick on me, like when I'm 5oz into a bomber and it starts spewing foam everywhere....

That makes 3 empty kegs and only one fermenter going right now - time to get brewing!

 

[Opiate42]

it's possible one batch hadn't quite hit terminal gravity, in which case it still had some sugars to be et, that added to your primign sugar for a little extra carbonation.

and I'm hoping Santa brings me a sugar-water-kaleidescope-thingy so that I can check my 1 gallon batches more easily to see if they're done fermenting.

Curious, had both batches brewed only days apart in the same closet and bottled after the same amount of days apart too. So confuzzled.

What is this magical device you speak of? :

I'm basically using a small flashlight to see if any bubbles are travelling through the liquid, not the best idea but what I got.

Make sure you take into account the alcohol content will skew the refractometer

Oh, that magical device, another toy I need

Wow that is weird how the one with less hops was the more drinkable one - and that is one intriguing malt bill btw! You mentioned that you carbed them the same way, yet the second batch had all the foam. I used to live in an apt with your same set up (ambient temps 70-75), no space for anything. I would usually use sugar drops (no problems until I switched brands and got nothing but endless foaming). I also used honey twice for a BBS and Homebrew Exchange recipe, respectively, and no foaming with honey.

This leads me to believe that the overcarbonation has something to do with your closet temp. The only time I had a bottle bomb was when I was fermenting in the spring and one day it was unseasonably warm, and my closet temps passed 80. BOOM went a 32 oz growler, which was 25% of my 1-gallon batch. So maybe your second batch was bottle conditioning in ambient temps that were higher than your first batch, and that was what led to excessive foaming?

Thanks I literally couldn't stop adding things to the malt list. Too excited.

Yah I found both quite drinkable actually (was super sad about the volume loss to foam) but the more hoppy more to my tastes. The less hoppy my partner and some friends preferred.

I'd used the same honey in each. My thought is leaning towards some temp variances in the mash led to the terminal gravity not being entirely where it should have been at the time although to my untrained eye it looked okay. My cheapass apartment electric stove top is pretty inconsistent.

 

[vivalavince]

Thoughts on my first recipe?

Brew Method: Extract
Style Name: American IPA
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 1 gallons (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 1.5 gallons
Boil Gravity: 1.043
Efficiency: 35% (steeping grains only)

STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.065
Final Gravity: 1.015
ABV (standard): 6.5%
IBU (tinseth): 58.25
SRM (morey): 8.55

FERMENTABLES:
1.5 lb - Dry Malt Extract - Extra Light (90.9%)

STEEPING GRAINS:
0.15 lb - American - Caramel / Crystal 60L (9.1%)

HOPS:
3 g - Mosaic, Type: Pellet, AA: 11.5, Use: First Wort, IBU: 14.89
5 g - Mosaic, Type: Pellet, AA: 11.5, Use: Boil for 15 min, IBU: 20.33
5 g - Mosaic, Type: Pellet, AA: 11.5, Use: Boil for 10 min, IBU: 14.86
5 g - Mosaic, Type: Pellet, AA: 11.5, Use: Boil for 5 min, IBU: 8.17
5 g - Mosaic, Type: Pellet, AA: 11.5, Use: Dry Hop for 7 days

YEAST:
White Labs - California Ale Yeast WLP001
Starter: No
Form: Liquid
Attenuation (avg): 76.5%
Flocculation: Medium
Optimum Temp: 68 - 73 F

 

[Calichusetts]

As a hop head, minimum I'd do a 5 gram addition at flameout or at least up the dry hop, otherwise...looks tasty

 

[sumbrewindude]

Vivalavince -

If it were mine, I'd drop the 15min addition, move the 5min addtion to flame out and double it then whirlpool, and then double the dry hop.
So - 3g FWH, 5g 10min, 10g 0m with whirlpool, 10g DH

Other than that, rock on. :rockin:

 

[vivalavince]

Would it be worth it to partial mash .15lbs of light munich with 1.5lbs of extra light DME?

 

[ohiobeer29]

A lot of great recipe's here

 

[Synap6]

I decided to retire my carboys.
I used a Mr Beer little brown keg for the first time, and bottled from it yesterday in a breeze. I also had another 1-gal batch in a carboy i had to bottle right after, and that was uber annoying to do alone.

So, between having to use a blow off tube, then an airlock, then cleaning all the necessary gear like autosiphon, tube, bottling wand, then having a rough time siphoning alone while holdong the wand and making sure the bottle doesnt overflow, all the while also making sure that the siphon doesnt hit the trub as i try and do all those things one handed, THEN having to clean it all including the krausen off the carboy and the dripping mess on the floor, i said screw it.

Bought a second little brown keg online. I bottle straight out of the spigot and thats that.
Hats off to you guys for sticking to 1-gal carboys, i just cant handle the headache.. It almost turns me off when i should instead be thrilled.

 

[oceanbrew]

I occasionally brew one gallon batches, but never beer, usually wine, braggot, or mead.

 

[kombat]

having a rough time siphoning alone while holdong the wand and making sure the bottle doesnt overflow, all the while also making sure that the siphon doesnt hit the trub as i try and do all those things one handed,

Why not just use a bottling bucket, just like you do with 5 gallon batches?

I got a little 2.5 gallon plastic tub from the bakery at the grocery store (the cake frosting comes in them, they'll give them away for free when empty since they just recycle them anyway). I attached a simple spigot from my LHBS and built a little wooden jig to prop up the rear of the bucket (to help me get every last drop), I stick the bottling wand in the spigot and fill bottles with no headaches.

 

[BigRock947]

Why not just use a bottling bucket, just like you do with 5 gallon batches?

I got a little 2.5 gallon plastic tub from the bakery at the grocery store (the cake frosting comes in them, they'll give them away for free when empty since they just recycle them anyway). I attached a simple spigot from my LHBS and built a little wooden jig to prop up the rear of the bucket (to help me get every last drop), I stick the bottling wand in the spigot and fill bottles with no headaches.

This....

Or you could go to your home improvement store to get a 2 gallon bucket. Either way....

 

[30Bones]

Or just use the bottling bucket most already have for 5 gallon batches.


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[pointcity-homebrew]

I just bottled my Eggnog Stout, using my bottling bucket without issue.

This was my first AG as well as my first stout, it smelled fine and tasted like flat beer so I guess it was a success, or at least a drinkable beer.

 

[jdanderson1449]

So, without reading this entire thread, here's a question: when adapting a larger volume recipe to a 1 gallon batch, do I also adjust times? That seems a little silly but, you could potentially lose a lot of volume but to get hop utilization don't boiling times have to remain at least an hour?

 

[burninator]

So, without reading this entire thread, here's a question: when adapting a larger volume recipe to a 1 gallon batch, do I also adjust times? That seems a little silly but, you could potentially lose a lot of volume but to get hop utilization don't boiling times have to remain at least an hour?

That's generally the way it's done. Mash and boil times stay constant, while boil off increases, as a percentage of total volume. I generally use two gallons of water on a one gallon batch.

 

[jdanderson1449]

Thanks. I'm trying to get all the details worked out so that I can start brewing small batches for experimentation and it was a little unclear. I'm pretty stoked to start a batch of framboise for my wife.

 

[30Bones]

Thanks. I'm trying to get all the details worked out so that I can start brewing small batches for experimentation and it was a little unclear. I'm pretty stoked to start a batch of framboise for my wife.

It's a ton of fun. I do 2 gallon batches, but the principles are the same. Haven't gotten into experimenting just yet. I dialed my BIAB setup with two simple IPA batches thus far.


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[fuzzy2133]

Why not just use a bottling bucket, just like you do with 5 gallon batches?

I got a little 2.5 gallon plastic tub from the bakery at the grocery store (the cake frosting comes in them, they'll give them away for free when empty since they just recycle them anyway). I attached a simple spigot from my LHBS and built a little wooden jig to prop up the rear of the bucket (to help me get every last drop), I stick the bottling wand in the spigot and fill bottles with no headaches.

This....

Or you could go to your home improvement store to get a 2 gallon bucket. Either way....

Or just use the bottling bucket most already have for 5 gallon batches.


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Some bottling bucket spigots have threads that are close enough that you can put a PVC 90 on it to act as a dip tube.