1-Gallon Brewers UNITE!

[fuzzy2133]

Looks normal to me. Just the fermentation slowing down and things starting to settle out. Not done still has a nice krusen on top.

 

[DurhamUK]

Thanks, its Only been going 24 Hours so far from done but never seen seperation like that before, ill keep an eye on it

 

[imp81318]

look at post 6006

I do 1.5gal batches in a 2gal bucket to get a 12pack, fits nice in the 1.75gal kegs. They carb up fast even when set to serving pressure.

Thanks, but I'm not really looking to spend that much $$$ for small batch serving. I have a buddy that converted a 5L mini keg to a draft keg for use with regular CO2 setup and picnic faucet. That's kind of more what I was thinking...

 

[ba-brewer]

They a bit spendy, but they connect right to my regular setup so no extra stuff to mess with. I thought about the 5L kegs but it seemed they would need to be replaced after a while, so there is ongoing expense. The cornys are a bit easier to clean.

 

[CheftonUTD]

I'm about to get back into brewing after an 18 month-ish break. I think I might join the 1-Gallon brewers club this time haha .

My previous brewing experiences were with 25L (6.6G) batches of extract brewing. I'm currently living in an unreasonably hot (32c / 90f +) part of Australia and got fed up with only fitting 1 fermenter at a time into my temperature-controlled fridge.
I'm about to move down south, where the weather ranges from 10-20c / 50-68f.
I wont have the fridge anymore, but I reckon I might go for something like 6 * 1G batches in a water-bath with an aquarium heater for the winter. Could be a good way to always have a variety of beers handy.
Maybe do 2 batches side-by-side on brewday and rotate through them as the older ones are ready to bottle.

Plus I'd be able to have a go at AG or BIAB this way too with the equipment I already have

Hmm, you might be onto something with these small batches

 

[pricelessbrewing]

Thanks, but I'm not really looking to spend that much $$$ for small batch serving. I have a buddy that converted a 5L mini keg to a draft keg for use with regular CO2 setup and picnic faucet. That's kind of more what I was thinking...

Pressurived serving containers for small batches are either

1. Expensive, read small kegs.
2. DIY-ish. Hacking a mini keg, which are nice, but don't work long term.
3. Risky: dry ice carbonating. I do it occasionally. DO NOT ATTEMPT WITH GLASS
4. or cant take large volumes. Readlastic casks.

For me, I just bottle carb. Bottling barely takes any time at all for this. Honestly it takes more time to clean and sanitize everything.

Occasionally I'll force carb a bottle or two in a plastic soda bottle with some dry ice, carefully weighed and calculated out. It's easy to do, but requires some care of handling and precise measuring.

There's a coupel guys in the homebrewclub here that us 5L plastic dispensers that carb to lower volumes (like 1.8 vol at most). These work pretty well, but still cost about $20 to setup per dispenser.

 

[Pyg]

I have made 2 single gallon batches centennial blonde and a cream ale.
Both finished fermenting in less than 2 days.
Now my dilemma is I have left over hops 1/2 oz of centennial and cascade

I can either make the same 2 recipes again or find something else easy.

Anyone have a Centennial Smash recipe?
Or a recipe I can make with centennial or cascade or both that only requires me to purchase grain?

 

[jimdkc]

Thanks, but I'm not really looking to spend that much $$$ for small batch serving. I have a buddy that converted a 5L mini keg to a draft keg for use with regular CO2 setup and picnic faucet. That's kind of more what I was thinking...

Keep in mind, those 5L mini kegs are NOT stainless steel. They also have a plastic liner inside which will wear out in about 4 or 5 re-uses... maybe more if you're really lucky... maybe 2 or 3 if you're not! How will you know when it wears out? It will ruin the beer inside it! The available taps and CO2 setups and bungs are leaky and fiddly. I started down that path and got out...

That 1.75 gallon corny... you can use it a lifetime and pass it down to your grandchildren!

 

[Pyg]

Bottles 8 bottles of cream ale.
The hop smell was strong and funky. Like a funky grapefruit. Maybe a little rubbery
1# Pilsen DME
3.2 oz Pilsen malt
3.2 oz flaked corn
3.2oz instant rice
Steep155F for 30 min
Cascade for all 3 staged
5.6 grams for 60 min
2.8 g for 15
2.8 for 5
Pretty sure one oF my kids threw in a pellet of centennial
In my late addition hops.
Hope the funky aroma doesn't interfere with drink ability.
Then again who am I kidding, I will drink it.
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1459095143.886103.jpgView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1459095160.918985.jpg

 

[luizffgarcia]

Guys,

How do you deal with topping off the evaporated water so you will have the full 1 gallon at the end of the boil?

I am now starting my boil with over six liters and still end up having to tap off about one liter when i move the wort to the fermenter.

Do you use bigger pots so you will be able to boil like 8 or 9 liters to have the desired 4 liters at the end?

Also, is it a good practice to top off during the boil if my pot is not big enough to handle more water from the beginning? Instead of doing so when moving to the fermenter?

 

[inkman15]

Sorry in advance as I'm sure this has been covered 100x in this thread but after about 20 pages of digging, I couldn't find any examples.

How does everyone scale down their dry hop for 1g batches? The other hop additions are easy to figure out since there are IBU contributions but the dry hop is harder. I guess there's a balance to be struck between creating great aroma and not introducing too much trub into such a small batch.

On my last 5 gallon IPA, I dry hopped with 4.5oz. Would you simply divide by 5 and use something like .9oz here?

 

[treacheroustexan]

Bottles 8 bottles of cream ale.
The hop smell was strong and funky. Like a funky grapefruit. Maybe a little rubbery
1# Pilsen DME
3.2 oz Pilsen malt
3.2 oz flaked corn
3.2oz instant rice
Steep155F for 30 min
Cascade for all 3 staged
5.6 grams for 60 min
2.8 g for 15
2.8 for 5
Pretty sure one oF my kids threw in a pellet of centennial
In my late addition hops.
Hope the funky aroma doesn't interfere with drink ability.
Then again who am I kidding, I will drink it.
View attachment 347265View attachment 347266

How do you think this would be "dry hopped" with jalapenos?

 

[ayrlander]

Guys,

How do you deal with topping off the evaporated water so you will have the full 1 gallon at the end of the boil?

I am now starting my boil with over six liters and still end up having to tap off about one liter when i move the wort to the fermenter.

Do you use bigger pots so you will be able to boil like 8 or 9 liters to have the desired 4 liters at the end?

Also, is it a good practice to top off during the boil if my pot is not big enough to handle more water from the beginning? Instead of doing so when moving to the fermenter?

Generally, I try to have enough water in the pot to cover boil evaporation and trub in the fermenter, so when I'm done I have 1 gallon of beer in bottles. I was using a 2 gallon pot at first, but it was too tight a squeeze and boilovers were frequent so I moved to a larger pot.

Topping off in the boil kettle might effect your hop utilization, just something you'd have to account for in your recipe. What you're doing is a partial boil, look for that term online and you'll find lots of info.

 

[phug]

For dry hopping just divide the weight. I would not factor the AA

 

[luizffgarcia]

Generally, I try to have enough water in the pot to cover boil evaporation and trub in the fermenter, so when I'm done I have 1 gallon of beer in bottles. I was using a 2 gallon pot at first, but it was too tight a squeeze and boilovers were frequent so I moved to a larger pot.

Topping off in the boil kettle might effect your hop utilization, just something you'd have to account for in your recipe. What you're doing is a partial boil, look for that term online and you'll find lots of info.

Thanks for the tip, i never intended on doing partial boils, i thought topping off was something you have to do sometimes depending on the evaporation rates...

From now on i will try to go with more water and do a full boil instead.

 

[Opiate42]

I made a possible boo boo. Or something awesome. Or something in between. Not sure yet.

Made a "leftovers" IPA on the weekend with leftover hops and base malts I had kicking around, had a 'couple' beers while brewing and put in what amounted to be about 200g of 45L candi sugar into the boil. Didn't plan on it.

Just sorta......kept pouring.

Using BRY-97, which seems to be bubbling okay but considering a lot of recipes call for a pound of sugar in a 5 gallon batch was worried that almost a half pound in a single gallon would be way too much of a good thing. Also wondering if I'm making my yeast sugar drunk and that it may stall.

Will post up the recipe for giggles when I find my notebook.

EDIT: Annnnnnnnd I forgot to look up my notes.

But! The BRY-97 is bubbling away like mad. This is going to be interesting.

EDIT EDIT: Been a week and the BRY-97 is still bubbling nice and steady.

Recipe:
488g 2-row
282g Maris Otter
171g Vienna
87g golden promise

60 minute mash at 152F
90 minute boil

3g Fuggle @ 90
3g Hallertau Mit @ 90
4g Hallertau Mit @ 60
3g Hallertau Mit @ 45
3g Chinook @ 30
5g Chinook @ 15
200G 45L candi sugar @ 15
1/8 tsp yeast nutrient @ 15
5g Chinook @ 10
8g Chinook @ 5

Rehydrated BRY-97 with sugar

 

[ericbw]

Guys,

How do you deal with topping off the evaporated water so you will have the full 1 gallon at the end of the boil?

I am now starting my boil with over six liters and still end up having to tap off about one liter when i move the wort to the fermenter.

Do you use bigger pots so you will be able to boil like 8 or 9 liters to have the desired 4 liters at the end?

Also, is it a good practice to top off during the boil if my pot is not big enough to handle more water from the beginning? Instead of doing so when moving to the fermenter?

I just top up with cold water in the fermenter. Once you get used to how much you lose, you can put it in the fermenter and then add the cooled wort. I do larger batches and usually come up about 2Q low.

 

[Opiate42]

Anyone ever tried a decoction mash on a 1 gallon batch? Thinking about trying a 3-step decoction on an oktoberfest recipe but have never done one before.

 

[jimdkc]

Anyone ever tried a decoction mash on a 1 gallon batch? Thinking about trying a 3-step decoction on an oktoberfest recipe but have never done one before.

Never tried it... but, no reason it shouldn't work! Would be an interesting experiment!

 

[Opiate42]

Never tried it... but, no reason it shouldn't work! Would be an interesting experiment!

Yah just thinking of my tiny kitchen and how I'd possibly do it and all the while three cats underfoot.

Am currently mashing a white ipa, going to toss about 20g if chopped ginger into the boil. Damn it smells nice!

 

[jjeffers09]

Sorry in advance as I'm sure this has been covered 100x in this thread but after about 20 pages of digging, I couldn't find any examples.

How does everyone scale down their dry hop for 1g batches? The other hop additions are easy to figure out since there are IBU contributions but the dry hop is harder. I guess there's a balance to be struck between creating great aroma and not introducing too much trub into such a small batch.

On my last 5 gallon IPA, I dry hopped with 4.5oz. Would you simply divide by 5 and use something like .9oz here?

yup. or at your shop have them weigh it out from oz to grams. better units to work with. 1" vs 1/12' same thing, just not as easy to pull off at home

 

[jfor48]

For me id love to do 5 gallon batches. I just didnt have the money in order to get the 5 gallon kit. So im starting with the 1 gallon batches and will slowly replace everything with the equipment i need for 5 gallon batches.

 

[JThw8]

Im currently doing 5 gallon batches but honestly I want to start doing 1 gallon just because to learn means to experiment. I dont want to be stuck with 50 bottles of something terrible because I was experimenting

 

[Lepetitnormand]

Well after more than a month of not brewing (ok lets face it 2 months), I finally had time to brew this morning and will have some more time for another one tomorrow morning.

Today was the Table Beer recipe from the Brooklyn brew shop book. Now that the beer is in the fermenter I can ponder what went well and not so well ...

The good part I had an efficiency of 70 % (double crushed grain). I know for some of you that might be low but my previous all grain was at 54% so there is progress. Tomorrow the grain will have been crushed only once so I will see what difference it will make in that department.

Now for the place where I want to see some improvement tomorrow : 3h 45 min brew day ...

I would love to shave those 45 minutes if possible.

7am start getting water to striking temp
7:35 am start mashing
8:35 am start bringing water to a boil
8:52 am start of boil
9:52 am end of boil
10:26 am stop cooling the wort
10:45 am all done clean up done

Now there is a few step where I believe I can do better :

Getting to mash temp, I am always afraid to go above strike temp and end up going slowly, I guess I will have to do a mix of high temp at first and then slowing down when reaching strike temps zone.

Cooling the wort I was limited in ice as I had to keep some for tomorrow, hopefully without limitation I will be able to cool faster my wort.

And maybe if I am a bit adventurous a shorter mashing time by checking on the conversion by testing it ... I shall see on that one.

Alright I am all ready for the Chamomile blonde recipe tomorrow (without chamomile).

Have a great Saturday guys

 

[ChocolateMaltyBalls]

A 20-30min mash will save some time, you could also look into short boils (I've never done it). Aside from that I think you won't see much time savings without some equipment investment. Temp control and chilling are good areas to look at. [emoji481]

 

[55x11]

Well after more than a month of not brewing (ok lets face it 2 months), I finally had time to brew this morning and will have some more time for another one tomorrow morning.

Today was the Table Beer recipe from the Brooklyn brew shop book. Now that the beer is in the fermenter I can ponder what went well and not so well ...

The good part I had an efficiency of 70 % (double crushed grain). I know for some of you that might be low but my previous all grain was at 54% so there is progress. Tomorrow the grain will have been crushed only once so I will see what difference it will make in that department.

Now for the place where I want to see some improvement tomorrow : 3h 45 min brew day ...

I would love to shave those 45 minutes if possible.

7am start getting water to striking temp
7:35 am start mashing
8:35 am start bringing water to a boil
8:52 am start of boil
9:52 am end of boil
10:26 am stop cooling the wort
10:45 am all done clean up done

Now there is a few step where I believe I can do better :

Getting to mash temp, I am always afraid to go above strike temp and end up going slowly, I guess I will have to do a mix of high temp at first and then slowing down when reaching strike temps zone.

Cooling the wort I was limited in ice as I had to keep some for tomorrow, hopefully without limitation I will be able to cool faster my wort.

And maybe if I am a bit adventurous a shorter mashing time by checking on the conversion by testing it ... I shall see on that one.

Alright I am all ready for the Chamomile blonde recipe tomorrow (without chamomile).

Have a great Saturday guys

That's pretty efficient already. Have you considered overnight mashing? That's a huge time saver

 

[pricelessbrewing]

34 minutes to cool your wort seems a bit much. I use a chiller and get it under 10 minutes most days.

Otherwise you're doing pretty well. Not much you can do besides cut your mash or boil times down to 30/45.

 

[Lepetitnormand]

Hey Guys,

Well the second brew is over and there is some progress, and learning done.

On the efficiency front, I got 65% with single crush compared to 70% with double crush yesterday, I guess the next brew day in 2 weeks will see a double crush being done on the grain, also I will review my recipe to account for a 70% efficiency.

On the brew time it went like this :

7am start getting water to striking temp
7:15 am start mashing
8:15 am start bringing water to a boil
8:27 am start of boil
9:27 am end of boil
9:50 am stop cooling the wort
9:55 am all done clean up done

compared to yesterday :

7am start getting water to striking temp
7:35 am start mashing
8:35 am start bringing water to a boil
8:52 am start of boil
9:52 am end of boil
10:26 am stop cooling the wort
10:45 am all done clean up done,

I definitely used my time better, nailed my strike temp easily and got a little bit more hands on on the cooling part, not sure how I spent 15 minutes clean up yesterday and only 5 today with the same amount of cleaning ....


Oh well yesterday's brew is happily bubbling away with S33, first time using it .

Now I need to plan my next brew ...

 

[Lepetitnormand]

I use a chiller and get it under 10 minutes most days.

I can only dream of it ... maybe one day

Otherwise you're doing pretty well. Not much you can do besides cut your mash or boil times down to 30/45.

I think I will do the next two brew the same way to see if I am repeatable in my process and then will start to mess with the mash. I could play with multiple parameters at a time, but really , I will keep that for my work in the lab and use the KISS method at home.

That's pretty efficient already. Have you considered overnight mashing? That's a huge time saver

Nope I have not considered this yet, the important part for me is to be able to brew on Saturday morning when everyone is OUT of the house so that nobody complain about the smell, even the mash smell bother my daughter

 

[pricelessbrewing]

When adjusting crush, the main parameter changing is your conversion efficiency.

Whenever you're troubleshooting, I highly recommend separating it out and not looking at overall mash/brewhouse efficiency except for recipe scaling. Moreover this will separate differences in lautering due to unequal stirring, sparging, or differences in grain bills.

If you have a refractometer, then you can take readings every 5 minutes to note your conversion rate. I stop 10 minutes after I get full extraction (35 minutes, so 45 minutes) for most beers. If I have a particularly large grain bill (read: thick mash thickness) I do a full 60 or 75, but only if the thickness is <1.5 qt/lb.

If you want to play with boil times, it's pretty easy to cut it down to 45 minutes. The only thing you'll have to do is adjust your bittering addition.