How to Brew a Small Batch

[tlarham]

I've decided to try brewing up a small batch of barleywine to store away for a year, and to play with a recipe or two.

Formulating a recipe doesn't seem a hard task, but I've got some questions about mashing and sparging techniques for small batches.

Super simple recipe: 8# Pale 1#Crystal mashed in a 5 gallon cooler.

With a 9# grain bill, my mash-in should be 2.8 gallons of water -- according to beersmith. That leaves me with only a 1.2 gallon sparge. Now I normally batch sparge -- but that seems too little water to do an effective batch sparge.

So am I relegated to fly sparging with the smaller batches?

Thanks for the help!

-- T

 

[kuphish]

What boil volume and volume into the fermenter are you shooting for?

 

[tlarham]

I'd like to end up with about ~2 gallons when it's all said and bottled. My calc's say I need a boil volume of about 2.2 to end up with 2 in the fermenter. I then figure I'll lose some in between fermentation and bottling.

 

[malkore]

what is your target OG? I ask because I use 9lbs of grain to make 5 gallons of wort that's 1.044 (my kolsch).

9lbs for 2 gallons should be something like 1.070 OG

 

[KingBrianI]

You can sparge more and boil longer. Barleywines are traditionally boiled for a long time anyway, which causes a lot of the complex caramel flavors.

 

[Schnitzengiggle]

what is your target OG? I ask because I use 9lbs of grain to make 5 gallons of wort that's 1.044 (my kolsch).

9lbs for 2 gallons should be something like 1.070 OG

He mentioned a Barleywine.