1-Gallon Brewers UNITE!

[user 263363]

From the folks at Alvarado Street Brewery who make some amazing imperial stouts:
"We mashed low, around 145, to make sure our wort sugar composition was as simple as possible to get it to "dry" as far as it could go. With these stouts they can stall rather high and leave you with a beer that's unpalatable (but good barrel candidates)."

Looks like I’ve got some more research to do. Thanks!

 

[InspectorJon]

Alvarado Street uses a high percentage of roasted and crystal grains. Maybe 35-45% on their sweet stouts. That's the reason to mash low.

 

[Immocles]

Heya fellow small batchers. Kicking this thread back up for a question.
I had pretty good luck on a simple stout, and have some leftover grains from it so looking to replicate it a bit. My wife just got a shipment of freshly roasted coffee beans, so I figured I’d take a stab at a coffee stout. What’s the easiest protocol on this? I’ve seen cold brew additions, regular coffee additions, and bean additions to fermenter. I think I’d prefer to go the bean in fermenter route. Is there a good rule of thumb for quantity? I was thinking 1.5oz whole bean (probably cracked or slightly ground) addition to primary for 1-2 days before bottling. Batch size slightly over a gallon. Good plan? Too much? Completely wrong direction?

 

[BongoYodeler]

Heya fellow small batchers. Kicking this thread back up for a question.
I had pretty good luck on a simple stout, and have some leftover grains from it so looking to replicate it a bit. My wife just got a shipment of freshly roasted...

I did a 1.25 gallon batch of a coffee stout back in May. There's different ways to handle the coffee, but here's what I did. I put around 2 oz of whole bean vanilla/caramel coffee in a ziplock bag and smacked each bean with a hammer a couple times to break them up without pulverizing them. At the end of the boil I dropped the temp to around 180° and dumped the beans into a sanitized hop sack and just swirled them in the warm wort for about 5 to 10 minutes, and then removed the sack and proceeded as normal. That provided enough flavor such that I still perceived a nice background coffee taste when drinking my last bottle in mid September.

 

[Immocles]

I did a 1.25 gallon batch of a coffee stout back in May. There's different ways to handle the coffee, but here's what I did. I put around 2 oz of whole bean vanilla/caramel coffee in a ziplock bag and smacked each bean with a hammer a couple times to break them up without pulverizing them. At the end of the boil I dropped the temp to around 180° and dumped the beans into a sanitized hop sack and just swirled them in the warm wort for about 5 to 10 minutes, and then removed the sack and proceeded as normal. That provided enough flavor such that I still perceived a nice background coffee taste when drinking my last bottle in mid September.

Hmm, that might be the ticket. Thanks. I’ll jot that down in my notes so I don’t forget it haha. Gotta test out the coffees first to find the right candidate.

 

[InspectorJon]

I just searched "whole bean coffee" in the forum search and there are a lot of answers. This one seams well informed.
Coffee Stout Question..,

 

[dwhite60]

Love the small batches with big bottles. I've never really minded bottling but, it's a lot less of a chore with smaller batches and bigger bottles.

Bottled 2.5 gallons last night. Had ten 740ml Coopers bottles and two 1 liter soda water bottles. Took less than an hour to prep, bottle, and clean up. MUCH more pleasant than bottling five gallons in fifty twelve ounce bottles.

I keep one case of 12 ounce bottles around and I'm not sure why. I've gone to the Cooper's 740ml bottles, 22 ounce bombers, and just a few clear one liters so I can check carbonation levels. Liter bottles are thinner than the Cooper's so I get a better indication of pressure level.

All the Best,
D. White

 

[Al Morse]

Hi all.
I am fairly new to brewing and have been fermenting in 1 gal jugs but I just got a couple of 3 gal carboys. Is there any issue with using a 3 gal fermenter for a 1 gal batch?
Thanks for any help.

I have done 1G in a 5g bucket with no issues.

 

[ba-brewer]

One thing I noticed when I have a lot of head space in the fermentor is I can get the airlock to sometimes reverse on cooling cycles toward the end of fermentation.

 

[HemanBrew]

Hello fellow 1-galloniers!
I have just started brewing and tasted my first batch (1-gallon wheat beer) while bottling, and I felt pleased about the taste.
Jey! I´ve also started reading this topic from the start. I´m now in page 31 of 170.

Today I´m going to make my second batch that will be APA.
And I just want to check that everything is about right:

So I´ll put BIAB bag and stainer to my kettle (7 litres) and heat about 5 litres / 1,3 gallons of water to steeping temp (68 celcius).
I´ll put the chrystal-grains (200grams) in the kettle.
Lid on and to owen for a 15 minutes.
(is it ok to left the owen on wen using a biab bag? I measured that I can hold the temperature in about 65 celcius when the owen is on)
Take the bag out and squeeze.
Start heating the wort and add (500grams) DME Light.

When boiling:
Adding 20 grams of Mosaic pellet (AA 12,3) like this:
20min 5grams
10min 5grams
5min 5 gams
0min 5grams
I counted that this would give me about 50IBU.

Using only mosaic because for now its all I could get.
(well I have some Saaz left from the wheat beer session also).
I tried to get Citra, but that was run out.
My original recipe told to put 20grams of Citra in batch at 10min.

Chilling in bathtub full of iced coolers.

I wonder should I pour all the turb from the kettle to fermenter, some of it, or not at all?
(In my first batch I left it all in the kettle.)

Yeast: US-05 (about 1/3 of the 11grams package).
Fermentation in 5 litres / 1,3 gallons glassbottle with airlock.

I would be grateful if someone could give some comments, tips, improvements, for my brew-plans.

Ps. Huge respect to all you guys. I have learned so much from this forumtopic. Nice to be here. And Hello to all
And sorry for the huge post.

 

[mirogster]

Hello and welcome into the addiction
For 15 min, you don't need to put it in the oven. Actually you never should (bags can withstand some temps but not the oven heat ). Lid on will suffice.

It's other story with all grain mashing - it should be your next batch btw. Same procedure but bit longer, with pilsner or pale malt instead of DME .
You could filter your final wort, trough cheesecloth/hopsocket (but they're must be sanitized).

Make lots of notes, measurements, pics and taste the wort from time to time
Foremostly enjoy the stuff !!!

 

[HemanBrew]

Hello and welcome into the addiction
For 15 min, you don't need to put it in the oven. Actually you never should (bags can withstand some temps but not the oven heat ). Lid on will suffice.

It's other story with all grain mashing - it should be your next batch btw. Same procedure but bit longer, with pilsner or pale malt instead of DME .
You could filter your final wort, trough cheesecloth/hopsocket (but they're must be sanitized).

Make lots of notes, measurements, pics and taste the wort from time to time
Foremostly enjoy the stuff !!!

But don't many of fullgrain-biab-guys do the mashing in oven? I think I have read about it here...??

And I'm already planning my firs all grain biab. Just want to test the system couple of times with DME first

 

[user 263363]

But don't many of fullgrain-biab-guys do the mashing in oven? I think I have read about it here...??

And I'm already planning my firs all grain biab. Just want to test the system couple of times with DME first

When I do gallon batches I use a 5 gallon paint strainer and preheat the oven to the lowest setting and turn it off right before putting the mash in the oven. Works like a charm. I just wish I could fit my 5.5 gallon pot in there for my larger batches.

 

[Immocles]

I've heard of folks mashing in the oven. Never done it myself, but it sounds like it works well. If thats what's convenient for you, I'd say give it a try. I would preheat the oven to the lowest setting, and then turn it OFF. Don't mash with the oven heat actively turned on.

When I do an extract with a grain steep, I steep the grains while heating up the water. When the water gets to about 160F (my conversion from F to C is terrible...about 65-70C?), I pull the bag out and let it drip for a bit, maybe swirl it around a bit. But if you're just testing out the process, go for it your way. It really shouldn't matter in the end.

 

[HemanBrew]

Well, my brewday is finished now. It took only 2h15mins including cleaning, so that was fast!

I had a few mistakes that might spoil the purity of the beer:
-While cooling the wort I accidentally spilled water from shower to the wort, but not much
-when removing the hopsock I accidentally got some bath water to wort because the other half of the sock was wet from the bath.
-when I took the wort sample to measure the OG, I forgot to spray starsan to the scoop bottom. Only sprayed to inside the scoop.

I hope there won't spoil my beer with unwanted infections. We'll see.

 

[Ahks]

At least you know the mistakes you made and can prevent them next time. [emoji106]

 

[jimdkc]

I hope there won't spoil my beer with unwanted infections. We'll see.

While those are things you'll want to try to avoid in the future, you probably MADE BEER!!!!

 

[Nick Z]

I'm going to start brewing beer soon and I will be making one gallon batches for the foreseeable future. I want to try different recipes and I don't have enough space or enough people for five gallon batches.

I also think I can do all grain in one gallon batches with the regular kitchen equipment I have and a normal stove.

I have taken a look at a few recipes and I'm not sure how to scale them down to 1/5th. But I also don't have a clue what I'm doing with beer in general.

 

[ba-brewer]

In general you can take a recipe and divide by 5 and get you pretty close. A program like beersmith is helpful in recipe design and scaling a recipe.

Austin Home brew has 1gal all grain recipe kits.
https://www.austinhomebrew.com/All-Grain-One-Gallon-Recipe-Kits_c_324.html

 

[Nick Z]

Thank you. I'll look into those. I am thinking I will need to figure out how to make from a recipe and not a kit at some point. The simplicity of the kits is tempting but they get expensive and I'm not sure I'm learning much.

If anyone knows of a source of good one gallon recipes (all grain or extract) or has already properly converted 5 gallon to 1 gallon it would be appreciated.

I do fear it may not be as simple as just dividing by five though. You can't always just cut down a recipe in baking. Beer may be similar.

In general you can take a recipe and divide by 5 and get you pretty close. A program like beersmith is helpful in recipe design and scaling a recipe.

Austin Home brew has 1gal all grain recipe kits.
https://www.austinhomebrew.com/All-Grain-One-Gallon-Recipe-Kits_c_324.html

 

[mashpaddled]

Thank you. I'll look into those. I am thinking I will need to figure out how to make from a recipe and not a kit at some point. The simplicity of the kits is tempting but they get expensive and I'm not sure I'm learning much.

If anyone knows of a source of good one gallon recipes (all grain or extract) or has already properly converted 5 gallon to 1 gallon it would be appreciated.

I do fear it may not be as simple as just dividing by five though. You can't always just cut down a recipe in baking. Beer may be similar.

Hops, malt and yeast can scale linearly at homebrew recipes but you probably need to adjust water volumes. If you boil in a pot with a larger surface to volume ratio than a five gallon batch then you will get a higher percentage of boiloff. You will also have a larger percentage of dead volume if you lose the same amount of wort on a one gallon batch as you would a five gallon batch. Beersmith makes those conversions easy but you need to know what volume you lose on whatever your one gallon system is or will be versus a larger system.

Also, here are some one gallon recipes.

 

[ba-brewer]

Thank you. I'll look into those. I am thinking I will need to figure out how to make from a recipe and not a kit at some point. The simplicity of the kits is tempting but they get expensive and I'm not sure I'm learning much.

If anyone knows of a source of good one gallon recipes (all grain or extract) or has already properly converted 5 gallon to 1 gallon it would be appreciated.

I do fear it may not be as simple as just dividing by five though. You can't always just cut down a recipe in baking. Beer may be similar.

Like mashpaddled mentioned, the things that dont scale are system specific and no matter the recipe needs to be compensated for as no two setup are exact the same.

The first thing to do is run a boil off test using just water with the pot you plan to use.

I would do BIAB for one gallon batches and use 0.1gal/pound grain absorption to start as you can always add a little water later.

Nothing wrong with doing a kit or two for the first couple brews then just buy the ingredient after that. Buying raw ingredients is cheaper in the long run but the first couple may be more as would have some extra stuff.

What sort of recipe are you looking to brew first?​

 

[CascadesBrewer]

Thank you. I'll look into those. I am thinking I will need to figure out how to make from a recipe and not a kit at some point. The simplicity of the kits is tempting but they get expensive and I'm not sure I'm learning much.

First off I would say there are lots of things to learn about brewing besides recipe creation. I understand the appeal of creating your own recipe...but I don't feel any shame in cooking a Thanksgiving dinner using recipes from a book...usually with a few items from boxes/cans or the frozen section.

If you want to create/tweak your own recipes, I would highly advocate learning how to use brewing software. I use BeerSmith but there are several other popular options. With all-grain brewing, even brewing a 5 gal recipe is seldom just following a recipe exactly, as efficiency from system to system can vary widely. Also, often a "5 gal batch" is based off 5.5 gals into the fermenter, where a "1 gal batch" might be 0.8 gals into a 1 gal jug. It is very helpful to be able to adapt and build recipes to fit your exact system and batch size.

 

[Nick Z]

Like mashpaddled mentioned, the things that dont scale are system specific and no matter the recipe needs to be compensated for as no two setup are exact the same.

The first thing to do is run a boil off test using just water with the pot you plan to use.

I would do BIAB for one gallon batches and use 0.1gal/pound grain absorption to start as you can always add a little water later.

Nothing wrong with doing a kit or two for the first couple brews then just buy the ingredient after that. Buying raw ingredients is cheaper in the long run but the first couple may be more as would have some extra stuff.

What sort of recipe are you looking to brew first?​

I ordered a Brooklyn Brew Shop kit. The Everyday IPA. Oddly, it is an all grain kit. So my first beer will be all grain. After that I will probably look at some extract recipes. But I would like to move to all grain at some point. It appeals to the gardener in me. But, at least for the time being, I don't want to buy a wort chiller or huge buckets and the like. That's one of the reasons I think one gallon batches will do nicely for a while. I can probably cool them in an ice bath and use a normal colander for straining.

I don't plan on making my own recipes. I wouldn't have a clue where to start.

As for what I would like to brew.... that is the question, isn't it? I know a few commercial beers I like. I'm not necessarily looking to clone them but they might give me a starting point for what kind of recipes to try:

Black Butte porter, just about any strong IPA, Obsidian Stout, Guinness, sometimes hefeweizen. I know that's a short list. I know more about what I don't like. I'm not fond of stuff like Budweiser, Coors, Michelob, etc. I know many people love those beers and more power to them. But to me they just don't have much flavor. And I am accustomed to higher alcohol beers.

This is probably a byproduct of living in Oregon and having all the microbreweries around. I didn't grow up on Coors Light. I grew up on Deschutes, Full Sail, etc.

In case it isn't obvious I actually know very little about beer. Home brewing will probably be my education.

 

[ba-brewer]

Most IPAs have a variety of different hops, but a 1gal batch will not need much so you have a bunch of open packages to deal with. Things like porters and stouts have a variety of malts but few types of hops. That is the benefit to a kit in you dont have to store odds and ends.

Many hops can be used by them self, look into SMASH (Single Malt And Single Hops) recipes. It is a good way to get a feel of what a particular hop brings to a beer. If you like mirror pond you could do something fairly close using a good pale ale malt and cascade hops.

Most kits have a recipe included, it is easier to make mods to an existing recipe than to start from zero.

It sounds like you have a plan, do a all grain and extract and see what you like better and fits your situation.

I normally brew all grain but I just did a couple 1 gal batches to test some yeast. I am thinking about doing more extract 1gal batches if these come out OK.

The best way to learn to brew is to brew often.

 

[Nick Z]

I would like to try making a clone of Guinness but with a higher ABV and little more bitterness. Though the two characteristics might not go together.

Yes, I like Mirror Pond. I wouldn't making something like that.

I'll probably keep most of my energy in cider but I want to try fermenting a variety of things.

I got the Complete Joy of Homebrewing and How to Brew and am reading them now. It all seems rather complicated at the moment but hopefully it will click into place.

 

[mirogster]

Guys, for scaling recipes down, from 5 gal (or more). Do not limit yourselves to premade kits!
As someone suggested, there's a brewing software, which will help immensely!

Few factors need to be taken into consideration during scaling down (all grain):
Efficiency (yours!); OG, IBU, and eventually color (from the original recipe).

I'm using 2 apps: Beersmith and Brewfather (well it's not an entirely traditional app [emoji6] ). Both can easily allow any recipe manipulations and more. So no need for guesswork!

After few batches (all grain), you'll know the drill. Brewing such amounts is easily achievable on the stovetop (eventually letting the mash conversion in the oven - warmed up but not ON all the time! - it will serve as an guarantee for stabile temp environment). Cooling in sink full of cold water & ice. Fermenting (yeast makes beer, brewer only a wort) in the coollest place at home/diy styrofoam chamber/old fridge.

Those are standardized procedures of many, many homebrewers! [emoji6]. Really no need to feel intimidated, it's not a rocket science. More like juggling with lots of factors [emoji2].

 

[Leezer]

@Nick Z I bought a book by Brooklyn Brew Shop of interesting one gallon all grain recipes. I also use Brewers Friend to scale down recipes from this forum. When first starting out I liked the one gallon kits ( extract I believe) from Craft a Brew. A good thing about starting with kits is you can get used to the process first but moving on to recipes really opens up your options.

 

[Nick Z]

@Nick Z I bought a book by Brooklyn Brew Shop of interesting one gallon all grain recipes. I also use Brewers Friend to scale down recipes from this forum. When first starting out I liked the one gallon kits ( extract I believe) from Craft a Brew. A good thing about starting with kits is you can get used to the process first but moving on to recipes really opens up your options.

I'll look into that book, thank you. I am getting conflicting information though. The guy who owns my local home brew shop is definitely a knowledgeable and experienced dude. Nice guy too.

And he is telling me not to worry about the freshness of liquid and powdered malt extract. Yet I am hearing all kinds of concerns on podcasts and here about the freshness of extract. I think the extract he is selling from large containers is pretty fresh because his customers go through it pretty fast.

I think I would like to do both all grain and extract. I'm not married to one approach or another. But from what little I've read all grain can really open up your options as to what you can make. And I'm going to have to learn to do things like mashing and sparging (I still don't know the lingo) sooner or later.

One of the big advantages I see in sticking with one gallon batches for now is to keep costs down. If I find something people really like I may get a three gallon carboy and make a three gallon batch of it. I can always use the carboy for cider or (when summer comes around again) wine.

 

[Squatchyj]

Thank you. I'll look into those. I am thinking I will need to figure out how to make from a recipe and not a kit at some point. The simplicity of the kits is tempting but they get expensive and I'm not sure I'm learning much.

If anyone knows of a source of good one gallon recipes (all grain or extract) or has already properly converted 5 gallon to 1 gallon it would be appreciated.

I do fear it may not be as simple as just dividing by five though. You can't always just cut down a recipe in baking. Beer may be similar.

Brewersfriend.com has a good recipe catalog for all sizes and a good recipe builder that you can scale from 1-whatever gallons you want and it will change all of your ingredients quantities. Go to the search tab at the top and a drop down with "recipes" will be there. I like to make 1-2 gallon batches at a time since my wife isn't a beer person typically and I don't want a ton of beer bottles sitting around. I have a couple of kegs for larger batches.