Converting 5 gallon recipe to 1 gallon recipe question.

[Pilot1984]

I was curious about 5 gallon recipe conversions to 1 gallon recipes. I a 5 gallon recipe calls for boiling 2 gallons of wort and then adding to 3 gallons of water is going to have a different results then doing a full 1 gallon boil (because it can be done entirely in the boil pot) and not adding to water later on? Does this addition of water in the 5 gallon recipe play any role in flavor or chemical reactions of the beer or is it done just because most people don't such large boiling pots? A local brew store guy said the addition to water is related to utilization of the hops. Is this true? Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

[DocScott]

Since you are talking about a partial boil, you need to adjust the recipe from a malt and hop standpoint. Normally, assuming full boils (meaning that you are boiling the full volume of wort- no top off) you can scale directly for ingredients. Ie. divide everything by 5. However, if your recipe is calculated for a 2 gallon boil and 3 gallon top off, you'll need to calculate the malts needed for 1 gallon as well as the hops. Hop utilization does depend on volume so you again need to calculate.

Post your recipe and we can help convert it for you. Software like beersmith is great for stuff like this

 

[Pilot1984]

I did divide everything by 5 but does this mean I should also divide the gallon of water by 5 and do the boil with the 2/5 of a gallon of water and then add this to the other 3/5 of a gallon of water to keep the everything the same? Would this translate the same as adding the 2 gallons of boiled wort to 3 gallons like in the 5 gallon recipe?

 

[boydster]

Do the full boil with 1/5 of the wort the way you calculated it. The only thing that won't scale directly is the hops, because you'll get better utilization in a full boil. The best way to figure out how much to change the hops is to use software like BeerSmith or Brewtarget. It's like the old saying goes... Give a man a fish, he'll eat for an hour. Teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime. You can post the recipe and we can figure it out for you, but that would be giving you a fish, so to speak.