Quick question about brewing apfelwein in smaller containers

[Shoeby]

My wife picked up a Vino Home Winemaking kit at a yard sale today This puppy was as seen on tv from the 1970's. It looks like the capacity is 1.5 Gallons.

The brewing barrel is similar to the old style Mr. Beer's which have an airlock. The only exception is the size difference. I believe those are 2.5 gallons and this is 1.5 Gallons.

The recipe calls for 5 gallons of apple juice, 2 lbs of dextrose, and 1 5 gram packet of montrechet wine yeast.

What do you guys think would be a proper mix for my small batch. I wanted to get started with a small batch while I'm waiting for my "real" brew materials to come in.

I was thinking 1 gallon of juice, 1/2 a pound of dex and 1/2 a packet of yeast. Sound fairly reasonable?

 

[Nurmey]

Welcome to HBT!

Use the whole packet of yeast. They are good for 1 to 5 gallons of wine or beer and yeast has no shelf life after it has been opened.

 

[Monghetti]

I think I would go ahead and pitch the whole packet of Montrachet. I just bottled my first apfelwein (6 gallon batch) and I used two packets of Montrachet. I figured that one packet could probably handle 6 gallons, but to be sure that it fermented out completely I went with two.

 

[Shoeby]

Awesome gang! Thank you most kindly for the quick replies. I'm so excited, I'm like bouncing off the walls! This is better than christmas! Unless santa brings me some more homebrewing supplies!

 

[gingerdawg]

2 lbs of corn sugar is 32 oz. so 32/5 gallons equals 6.4 oz of corn sugar per gallon.

 

[SeamusMac]

I added 2 oz. of dextrose to my 1100mL batch of Apfelwein that I started on Friday evening. My dextrose addition equals about 7 oz. per gallon of apple juice. the juice had an OG of 1.046 and the dextrose boosted it to 1.058. I pitched an entire packet of Lalvin EC-1118 into my tiny fermenting vessel and it took off in record time! If it ferments down to 1.000 I'll get 7.6% ABV, which I'm very happy with

1.000 is pretty dry though, so I'll undoubtedly back-sweeten it with some honey or apple juice once I stabilize it.