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nbolmer said:
Is mocking 1 gallon brewers actually a thing? In 15 years, I've never seen someone upbraided simply for brewing smaller. Weird.

A Homebrew club I was in actually had a really fun competition - to brew one pint of beer, all grain. I have to tell you, it is a ton of fun devising a way to mash and boil in tiny quantities. I made a miniature 3 tier pyrex system, and scaled down a recipe that I had made many times. Turned out nearly identical to the 10 gallon version.
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I have seen posts questioning why people waste their time with small batches. Seems to be a thing to some degree.
 
The considerations for batch size are personal. If you love good beer but only enjoy 1 or 2 per week (and you're not sharing) 1 gal batches make good sense. 5 gal batches work for me to establish a "pipeline". However I do like 1 gal batches for experimental purposes. Brew day take me about 5 hours for all grain whereas a 1 gal experiment might take 3 depending on method. Recently made a 1 gal no-boil from oversparge of a 5 gal batch, came out good leading to further experiment.

Brew Day takes me about 3-4 hours, which includes cleanup.
 
For me one gallon brewing ties in with the “you aren’t going to save any money homebrewing thread”. My equipment including replacements and minor upgrades has cost me around $200. Small batch brewing helps me keep my capital cost down. The way I like to brew, it keeps my ingredient cost down. I can bottle and clean them scrupulously without wanting to die halfway through the batch of bottles. It all fits pretty well in my kitchen. My glasstop stove gives me a good rolling boil, but much more and I just wouldn’t have the BTUs.
 
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Griffin495 said:
I miss this thread, too. It's what got me into doing small one gallon batches. I just brewed a single hops and dry malt (SHaME) batch on Monday. 15 minute boil, took an hour and twenty minutes from start to finish with everything cleaned up. 1 lb light DME (half added at 170F, the other half added at flame out), 11 g Motueka at 15 minutes and 17.35 g at flame out (for a total of 1 oz). Used some leftover Notty I had floating around. 3rd time I've done this all with different hops. The first two came out pretty good. Should be around 4.25%ABV and 30 IBUs. Not sure on the ABV, that's just according to software. I didn't bother to take an OG and won't take a FG either.
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Lol so this is just a bit of Tongue-in-Cheek humor... But this thread is dedicated to you nano-batch guys defending yourselves and then you go and use a method called SHaME! I just thought it was rather funny and worth a little harmless dig! ;)
 
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Michael_Calgary said:
Lol so this is just a bit of Tongue-in-Cheek humor... But this thread is dedicated to you nano-batch guys defending your yourselves and then you go and use a method called SHaME! I just thought it was rather funny and worth a little harmless dig! ;)
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I think the term is ironic and funny. To me it’s sort of a self-deprecating way to give the finger to conformity. One of my favorite things about brewing is that I can do it exactly how I want and people can say it’s wrong or bad, but they aren’t standing in my kitchen with me. I mean you can literally make spit beer and other homebrewers want to try it and are curious how it turned out. Sure malting your own grain is balls on the table, but even if someone brews every weekend and is actively changing things up and working towards achieving their idea of perfection, they’ll never get there. That’s why I think these bottle caps I got are so fitting. There is no Mt. Everest in brewing. Even the guy I mentioned earlier with the growing beer podcast did his version of perfection and after he finished, there is a new Mt. Everest
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AZCoolerBrewer said:
I think the term is ironic and funny. To me it’s sort of a self-deprecating way to give the finger to conformity. One of my favorite things about brewing is that I can do it exactly how I want and people can say it’s wrong or bad, but they aren’t standing in my kitchen with me. I mean you can literally make spit beer and other homebrewers want to try it and are curious how it turned out. Sure malting your own grain is balls on the table, but even if someone brews every weekend and is actively changing things up and working towards achieving their idea of perfection, they’ll never get there. That’s why I think these bottle caps I got are so fitting. There is no Mt. Everest in brewing. Even the guy I mentioned earlier with the growing beer podcast did his version of perfection and after he finished, there is a new Mt. EverestView attachment 575642
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You said it all man! I bet there would be people who would scoff at my 5 Gal process..(although I am trying to conform to correct processes) but Guess what? I am making the best beer of my life and that is all that matters.
 
Michael_Calgary said:
Well I say MORE POWER TO YOU!! lol I brew 5 and 10 gallon batches. (and I Keg exclusively) Honestly, I can be done in 4 hours including cleanup. However, that would be rushing. I too enjoy the process. All of it. So my brew days are normally quite leisurely. This is "my" time away from kids, wife etc...(Not that I feel I need to be away from them.. but you get what I mean.) All I can say is, enjoy the process, enjoy your finished product and keep on Rockin'!!!
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I don't drink that much. A gallon works fine. Maybe one day I'll do fivers but for now, mini batches work great for me. That being said, once I find a good kit or the formula for Guiness beer, that will probably change.
 
Revvy said:
Honestly Jeff, I haven't seen many brewers turn their noses up and small batch brewing, and if they do, we hit them with a rolled up newspaper. Over the last few years small batch brewing has been looked at as being OK....Even one gallon batches thanks to the Brooklyn Brew Kits.

The basic brewing folks I think went a long way into given 1 gallon batches cache.

Plus it's never been sneered at for wine/mead and cider makers. I gallon batches are quite common on that front.

I prefer 2.5 gallon batches for small batch beer brewing, because 2.5 gallons = 1 case of beer.

But there's nothing wrong with 1 gallon batches if folks want to brew them. In fact I'm looking for some 1 gallon wine jugs as we speak.
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I also do similar volumes with a simple 5-gallon pot with BIAB. Like those basic brewing videos!
 
I settled on 3 gallon batches a long time ago. Its a happy medium between the 1 and the 5. I Started out doing 5 gallon batches like everyone else. But as others have said, I found I didn’t go through the beer quickly enough.

I use a 5 gallon glass carboy as a primary fermenter and 3 gallon glass carboy for secondary. I was lucky enough to find a few 3 gallon corny kegs too.

The time and effort for 1 gal vs 3 gal vs 5 gal batches is not significant. Cost of ingredients is a bigger factor for me, especially yeast. I prefer using liquid yeast. I think they are $8 or more now for Wyeast or White Labs. Thats alot to spend for a 1 gallon batch, even if you re-pitch more than once.

I’m curious, those doing 1 gallon batches, what are you using for fermentation vessels? And are you just bottling? I don’t know of any kegs that small except the 5L minikegs. I tried those before and didn’t have alot of success with them. I’m not sure if the party pigs are still around and I forget what size those were.

Nothing wrong with smaller batch sizes. Thats the great thing - everybody can make what they want and how much they want. Its whatever works for you.
 
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I have been doing 1 gallon batches to experiment lately, and the one thing I have found to be a real pain in the arse is bottling. I use a bottling bucket and contact wand, but the bucket is for 5 gallon batches. I barely get a bottle done before I am having to tilt the bucket. Anyone have any brilliant ideas for a bottling setup for 1-2 gallon batches?

Thinking I might shift to 2 gallons for experiments. The one gallon batches end up being a disappointing amount of beer for a successful experiment when you drink that first one and realize you only have ~7 left.
 
Griffin495 said:
Go to Lowe's (or other home fixer store) and pick you up a 2G food safe bucket for $3.50 and drill a hole in it for your spout and bottle from there.
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Interesting - the HD is a lot closer, and their buckets are not food grade, I just sort of assumed that the whole home improvement market would be about the same. Thanks for that.
 
There are plenty of online recipe calculators or software you can buy. Better to use one of these than divide a 5 gallon recipe by 5. Not all ingredients scale linear. I like Beertools.com. They have an online calculator and software you can buy and download. They are one of the few I know of that also work for macs. The software you can buy, I mean. You have to create an account and sign in, but it’s free. $25 to buy their software. I have it, worth every cent. They also have a large recipe database of user submitted recipes.
 
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DownstairsBrewing said:
Interesting - the HD is a lot closer, and their buckets are not food grade, I just sort of assumed that the whole home improvement market would be about the same. Thanks for that.
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My mother in law works in the bakery at a grocery store and gave me a 2 gallon frosting bucket. It took me a while with some goof off to get all the sticker residue off the outside. I punched a one and a half inch hole on the lid. I don’t clip on the lid when I’m bottling it’s just a dust cover. My mini auto-syphon touches the bottom. I put a towel underneath the bucket away from where my auto syphon rests and then start bottling.
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I'm going to do a 1 gallon batch today. Experimental wheat beer. I have extra yeast and hops to use up but kegs are completely full and I wanna brew something.
 
Frosting buckets from the bakery in grocery stores work great. I've got 3 2.5 gallon ones that I use. Never bothered to wash off the stickers though.

I'll be doing a one gallon blonde ale tomorrow based off the recipe from Brewing Classic Styles.
 
My sub-one-gallon batch of Barleywine has cleared up in the bottles. Normally, I would give one a try at this point, but I only have one taster bottle and then I’ll stash the rest to save for Christmas. I’ll wait until next Thursday and put my taster in the fridge and then see how it turned out next Sunday.
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bwible said:
I settled on 3 gallon batches a long time ago. Its a happy medium between the 1 and the 5. I Started out doing 5 gallon batches like everyone else. But as others have said, I found I didn’t go through the beer quickly enough.


I use a 5 gallon glass carboy as a primary fermenter and 3 gallon glass carboy for secondary. I was lucky enough to find a few 3 gallon corny kegs too.

The time and effort for 1 gal vs 3 gal vs 5 gal batches is not significant. Cost of ingredients is a bigger factor for me, especially yeast. I prefer using liquid yeast. I think they are $8 or more now for Wyeast or White Labs. Thats alot to spend for a 1 gallon batch, even if you re-pitch more than once.

I’m curious, those doing 1 gallon batches, what are you using for fermentation vessels? And are you just bottling? I don’t know of any kegs that small except the 5L minikegs. I tried those before and didn’t have alot of success with them. I’m not sure if the party pigs are still around and I forget what size those were.

Nothing wrong with smaller batch sizes. Thats the great thing - everybody can make what they want and how much they want. Its whatever works for you.
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While don't do 1 gallon batches.. I use the minikeg for camping or bringing beer out of my house. Love them!
 

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Over the weekend, I knocked out a 1 gallon batch of blonde ale and a 2 gallon batch of APA from Brewing Classic Styles. We're getting into the 100+ temps here in the DFW, so for me its time to put away the propane burner and start brewing smaller batches on the stove in the comfort of AC. Considering either racking the blonde onto fruit (raspberries or blueberries) or maybe bottling half and racking the second half onto the fruit. What do y'all think? Either way, the next batch is going to be an American wheat beer that will get racked onto fruit in the secondary.
 
Put this in the Equipment thread, got no answers amid all the discussions of 20 gallon equipment...maybe this is a more likely audience:

Looking at one of these for my smaller trial batches, particularly for the yeast harvesting. I am finding I like doing smaller batches for the variety, but 1 gallon is just a little too small. Looking at reviews, it appears that at least at first each of the FastFerment units had some quality control/production problems.

Anyone have any experience with these, positive or negative?
 
You might also check out the BrewDemon and Mr. Beer fermenters, as the Brewdemon can handle 2.5G+ and the Mr. Beer 2G+. I've fermented 1G, 2G, 2.5G and split a 5G batch between two of the BD fermenters. They're usually easily available and affordable when other people upgrade to 5G+ brewing.
 
At 27 hours, my SHaME beer is in full krausen. The yeast Wyeast 1728 has a very pleasant smell like Kings Hawaiian rolls. I was going to name this beer Nooner, but then I remembered that Sierra Nevada has a session ale called Nooner already. Also the IBUs are a little higher than I had planned. For that reason it is an IPA now. I think it will be quite nice though. Since it’s unexpectedly nice and easy, but you pay the price later, I’m calling this beer “Walk of Shame”.
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bwible said:
I’m curious, those doing 1 gallon batches, what are you using for fermentation vessels? And are you just bottling? I don’t know of any kegs that small except the 5L minikegs. I tried those before and didn’t have alot of success with them. I’m not sure if the party pigs are still around and I forget what size those were.
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For fermenting, I have a lot of 1 gallon jugs. I have a couple of these 1.4 gallon Little Big Mouth Bubblers:

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And, I lucked out and found a couple of large jars with plastic lids similar to the Little Big Mouth at an Old Time Pottery store. I only saw them once, bought them, and haven't seen anything like them since. I bought 4 of them, 2 - 2.6 Gallon (10L), and 2 - 3.2 Gallon (12L) gallon.

I also have 3-, 5-, and 6.5-gallon glass carboys. I like to primary 3 gallon batches in a 5-gallon carboy, then secondary in a 3-gallon.

I dabbled with 5L minikegs. More trouble and expense than they're worth! I have some 1.75-, 2.5-, and 3-Gallon Ball-Lock Kegs. These small kegs are quite expensive. But, I do mostly bottle. (I've always actually enjoyed bottling... not sure why people don't like to do it!)
 
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+1 to the Little Big Mouth Bubbler, loved it when I was doing one gallon batches. Wish they made one twice that size for 2G batches. Just bought a couple 1.75 gal ball locks but haven’t had a chance to try them yet.
 
I'm wanting to do a 1 gallon batch on the cheap.

I was thinking

1 pound of amber dme
.2 ounces of cascade hops for 60 minutes
and some sort of ale yeast

Will this work?
 
I know that this is very contrarian but boiling DME for an hour will waaaayyy overcook the extract. Might it not make more sense to boil the hops in water for however long you want to boil them and then simply add the boiling hopped water to the malt? (If you argue that you need a lower pH water to more fully isomerize the hops then add a drop or two of lemon juice). The malt itself should be all but sterile so boiling it to kill LAB or wild yeast is not the issue, and the production of an "amber" malt is in and of itself an end product and is not as if you had to boil the wort to concentrate the sugars to obtain better efficiency. Efficiency has been taken care of by the extract manufacturer. Just add less water if you want a higher starting gravity.
 
bernardsmith said:
I know that this is very contrarian but boiling DME for an hour will waaaayyy overcook the extract.
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I'm not convinced that it's contrarian - it's more likely that it just isn't talked about. 15 minute boils go back to at least June 2013: http://beerandwinejournal.com/15-minute-pale-ale/, and there are a number of homebrew stores that have a couple of kits based on this concept.

bernardsmith said:
Might it not make more sense to boil the hops in water for however long you want to boil them and then simply add the boiling hopped water to the malt? (If you argue that you need a lower pH water to more fully isomerize the hops then add a drop or two of lemon juice). T
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It might - but it's a very non-standard technique (boiling the hops in water) with a often scorned base malt (DME/LME). Much 'safer' to brew using wort a/b (aka Palmer Brewing Method) with an OG of 22 (or 44)

bernardsmith said:
The malt itself should be all but sterile so boiling it to kill LAB or wild yeast is not the issue, and the production of an "amber" malt is in and of itself an end product and is not as if you had to boil the wort to concentrate the sugars to obtain better efficiency.
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Pasteurization is easy to achieve as a side effect of boiling for hop isomerization.

Basic Brewing Radio in 2018 has done a number of "no boil" hop experiments (for example: April 23, 2018 - No-Boil Juicy Pale Ale). And there are likely to be others who are doing similar time / temperature variations (probably in the range of 15 to 30 minutes at 170 - 200 F).
 
RPh_Guy said:
I disagree with your anticontrarianism.

Guessing most extract brewers boil it (again).
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Agreed that most extract brewers boil it (again) for at least 15 minutes and those who brew with kits will often boil as long as 60 minutes. If the kit gives them a good brewing experience, is the boil time a problem?

Gallon batches are great for "quick & quaffable" beers - delightful summer time beers can be made in less than an hour with a 1 lb light DME & a oz of Citra hops (per gallon of water). No need to boil, just achieve pasteurization and heat enough to get some bitterness from the hops.
 

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