Apartment Brewing, Is It Possible?

[Revvy]

Hey revvy thanks for the pics! I totally forgot that I have a Mr Beer kit sitting in the back of a closet. That shifty plastic keg hasn't been pulling its weight at all! Time to get it fermenting.

I need to scrounge through whatever grains and extracts I've got on hand to see if I can brew something up for it tonight.

Yeah, it's great for 2.5 gallon AG batches....also if you are like me and only have one fridge and no room for a dedicated one for temp control, you CAN lager and/or cold crash in a normal fridge and still have room for food and more importantly beer.

 

[yearlylesson]

I recently came across this company that sells kits specifically to make small 1 gallon batches for people who don't have a lot of space, I thought it was a pretty interesting idea

http://brooklynbrewshop.com/

 

[abroch]

One gallon... hmmmm now that's a thought, especially if I wanted to go all grain. Which I really want to do and from the looks of it, totally possible for an apartment dweller like myself.

Ok storage... I'm not concerned about the equipment, but I am concerned about maintaining a good fermentation temperature. But I guess there's only one way to find out if it's possible.

 

[beerjunky828]

i lived in a 700 sq ft. house with a roommate and was totally able to make beer. I had fermentation going on beside my bed. I had all of my empty equipment in the dining/office space. And I had empty beer bottles in the laundry room. So it is possible.

 

[Revvy]

One gallon... hmmmm now that's a thought, especially if I wanted to go all grain. Which I really want to do and from the looks of it, totally possible for an apartment dweller like myself.

Ok storage... I'm not concerned about the equipment, but I am concerned about maintaining a good fermentation temperature. But I guess there's only one way to find out if it's possible.

As much as I am big on small batch brewing, a gallon (actually 3/4 of a gallon) is a lot of work for little payback unless you are making something like a barleywine where you will end up with only 4 bottles. Or trying to perfect a recipe before scaling it up, where you know you're going to be tweaking it through a few tests until you nail it. You will end up with only about a 6 pack of beer.

Most of my small batch brewing is of the 2.5-3 gallon AG batches, usually in the winter on my stovetop, using an unmodified 2 gallon cooler (which holds 4#'s of grain) or my regular 5 gallon cooler with braid, and either a mr beer keg, a 3 gallon better bottle or a 3 gallon water bottle.

I posted a lot of info in the mr beer thread, including recipes that you may find helpful.

The nice thing about doing 2.5 gallon recipes is that you can split any recipe for 5 gallons exactly in half (including hops) and brew it.

I posted some all grain small batchrecipes here, https://www.homebrewtalk.com/785533-post702.html

And a bit of a primer on AG with pics here https://www.homebrewtalk.com/738927-post659.html

Many of those I show in there were done with an unmodified 2 gallon cooler. But you can do a lot bigger beers with a 5 gallon one. And a 10.00 SS 5 (actually really a 4.5 gallon) gallon pot I got a Dollar general.

One thing that is invaluable for stovetop brewing of ANY kind is fermcap s foam inhibitor. You can have you kettle nearly filled to the brim with a rolling boil and not worry about boilovers.

Fermcap-S Foam Inhibitor- 1 oz. :: Midwest Supplies Homebrewing and Winemaking Supplies

 

[sp1365]

One gallon... hmmmm now that's a thought, especially if I wanted to go all grain. Which I really want to do and from the looks of it, totally possible for an apartment dweller like myself.

Ok storage... I'm not concerned about the equipment, but I am concerned about maintaining a good fermentation temperature. But I guess there's only one way to find out if it's possible.

AG is definitely possible in an apartment and depending on room you can do more than just one gallon. I am currently doing 2.5 gallon brews in my apartment. The hardest part is getting the wort to a boil on an apartment stove. I just finished up my first AG attempt on Saturday and it was a success.

Look up swamp cooler for fermentation temperture control. Revvy has pictures of one on the last page. Swamp coolers work fantastic. Mine is holding steady at 63F using just a Rubbermaid storage container, water, 4 frozen Coke bottles, and 2 towels. Works like a charm.

 

[Revvy]

Look up swamp cooler for fermentation temperture control. Revvy has pictures of one on the last page. Swamp coolers work fantastic. Mine is holding steady at 63F using just a Rubbermaid storage container, water, 4 frozen Coke bottles, and 2 towels. Works like a charm.

I just picked up for 1.00 at a garage sale this summer an aquarium pump and aquarium heater. In the winter my loft is pretty chilly especially during the day when I am gone because it costs and arm and a leg to heat. I am going to try using the heater to warm the water int he swamp bath and use the pump to move the warm water around the fermenters, so hopefully I can kepep the temp pretty consistent on in the mid to high 60's. I usually end up with somewhat sluggish starts brewing in the winter.

 

[sp1365]

I have no idea how my apartment is going to act in the winter. I am in an apartment off campus and I have no idea how the heating in this building is. Unfortunately, I am guessing not that good so in a couple of months I will be trying to do precisely what you are going for Revvy.

 

[Cap'n Jewbeard]

As far as temp control: I just (on Saturday night) discovered something clever. I put my carboy inside a brew bucket, and dumped about gallon of water in the bucket. It makes an insulating layer of water about a half-inch thick all the way around the carboy, and the yeasties seem happy so far. (It's off and krausen-ing). I'll poke a thermometer into the water and see what it's doing for temp control.

Edit: Temp of the water is about 70F, apartment is about 75. So that's nice. If i needed to, I could add cold water twice a day, or something.

 

[DeathBrewer]

ice packs FTW

 

[Pivot]

Like so many others here, I am an apartment brewer and having alot of fun with it. If someone wants to brew, there is no reason to hold back and wait for a house when its very easily done in an apartment. granted I am limited to partial boil extract batches, but what the hell Im having fun so who cares.

 

[DeathBrewer]

No one is limited to extract...check out the partial mash thread in my sig.

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

One solution:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/simple-brewing-est-2009-build-147021/

 

[NYCBrewGuy]

That SimpleBrew build looks incredible. I can only dream of having a system like that in my apartment (~800 sq ft... but the wife's stuff seems to take up 700 of that). That said, apartment brewing isn't so tough if you use a method like DeathBrewer's stovetop partial-mash or BIAB. And outside of the summertime, temp control is pretty easy since my apartment stays in the low 70's/high 60's.

Now if only I could figure out a cheap and small keg system...

 

[Gremlyn]

I do 5 gal AG batches in my apartment, on an electric stove to boot with full boils (I do use a heat stick...). Let no one tell you what you can't do. I'm going to be getting a keezer soon with any luck!