Best size fermenters

[James0816]

New to home brewing here and pretty much doing meads and ciders at the moment.

I like to do "test" batches (1 gallon) to start to get a feel for the recipe. Wouldn't want to ruin a whole five gallon batch.

I've been using one gallon carboys as primary's but now starting to rethink this as I'm not getting a "true" one gallon batch. I know I can use them as secondaries so no equipment is lost.

What does everyone recommend for good small batch fermenters?

Thanks

 

[mredge73]

I use my old Mr Beer:
https://www.mrbeer.com/lbk-fermenter

You can also find 1.5-2 gallon glass tea pitchers at Walmart under $20 each.
You could also find food safe 1.5 gallon buckets at most HBS and online retailers.

 

[El Nino]

Little Big Mouth bubbler for Northern Brewer is about 1.4 gallons. It's a cinch to clean too since the cover is screw off. I wish they made a 3g version

 

[Leezer]

For one gallon batches I really like using the Little Big Mouth Bubbler. It holds 1.4G so you can aim for a one gallon finished output with enough extra headspace during fermentation. I mainly do 2 or 2.5G batches now and use a 3G Better Bottle, or a 3G food-grade plastic bucket I found online. Had to add my own hole in the lid for an airlock.

 

[aprichman]

When I was making kombucha I used a 2.5 gallon glass jar. It would probably be an ideal primary fermentation vessel for wines, ciders, and meads. After primary you could use a couple of 1 gallon jugs for secondary.

I haven't made kombucha in a long time, I might give the jar a clean and start some mead!

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

I use 2 one gallon glass carboys. It’s enough to make it worth it for me but still small enough to keep everything indoors and all grain. I get 16-20 beers, average 18 depending on how big the beer is. My trub layer is much bigger with a high gravity beer, because the thicker wort doesn’t allow the cold break to sink into my brew kettle, so a lot more gets into the fermentors. Using two fermentors allows me to do some interesting things, like my last brew was a partigyle and I have my big beer in one fermentor and my smaller beer in the other. Potentially, I could pitch two different yeasts into each fermentor. Generally though, I just use both to make the same beer.