Very First Brew Day

[StateRoad84]

Just opened the Saison au Miel after only five days after bottling and it tasted fantastic!

 

[StewMakesBrew]

I understand the desire to limit gear, be able to do it in the kitchen, etc., but 1 gallon of home brew hardly seems worth the effort. I've been doing 5 gallon batches from the very beginning and I go through so damn much beer (a 5 gallon keg a month) between myself, my sons and my friends) that I'm considering bouncing up to 10 gallon batches.

 

[r4dyce]

I understand the desire to limit gear, be able to do it in the kitchen, etc., but 1 gallon of home brew hardly seems worth the effort. I've been doing 5 gallon batches from the very beginning and I go through so damn much beer (a 5 gallon keg a month) between myself, my sons and my friends) that I'm considering bouncing up to 10 gallon batches.

I get that side of it too, but I absolutely love brewing small batches. I have all the gear to do up to 5 but I very rarely brew anything over 2.5 gallons. 2 Main reasons
1. Is I just don't need that much beer. I really don't want 50 of the same beer. But that's just my situation. I don't drink a ton and I don't have a bunch of people around readily to share it with. 10 bottles will last me a month.
2. Easiness and variety. Variety is way more important to me than quantity. Even commercial stuff I rarely buy the same beer more than once or twice. I'd rather try something new. Doing 1 gal all grain batches I can keep everything in my kitchen , easily brew on weeknights, do multiple brew days in an afternoon, and could even run multiple mashes simultaneously on my stove top. Small batch starts to get pretty cheap too when a 1oz bag of hops lasts multiple batches, and you're only using half a yeast pack, even less if you reuse.

I dunno, sorry didn't mean to sound preachy. Great thing about the brewing hobby is it's certainly scalable and everyone can get into in by whatever means they find best.

 

[MizzouFermentationScience]

another new brewer with an unhealthy relationship with sanitation. If anyone ever told me to sanitize my scissors I would immediately stab them directly in the eyeball. Be reasonably clean and it will all work out.

 

[BrewKnurd]

another new brewer with an unhealthy relationship with sanitation. If anyone ever told me to sanitize my scissors I would immediately stab them directly in the eyeball. Be reasonably clean and it will all work out.

So you'll be stabbing the good folks at white labs if you ever run into them, I assume.

 

[StateRoad84]

I get that side of it too, but I absolutely love brewing small batches. I have all the gear to do up to 5 but I very rarely brew anything over 2.5 gallons. 2 Main reasons
1. Is I just don't need that much beer. I really don't want 50 of the same beer. But that's just my situation. I don't drink a ton and I don't have a bunch of people around readily to share it with. 10 bottles will last me a month.
2. Easiness and variety. Variety is way more important to me than quantity. Even commercial stuff I rarely buy the same beer more than once or twice. I'd rather try something new. Doing 1 gal all grain batches I can keep everything in my kitchen , easily brew on weeknights, do multiple brew days in an afternoon, and could even run multiple mashes simultaneously on my stove top. Small batch starts to get pretty cheap too when a 1oz bag of hops lasts multiple batches, and you're only using half a yeast pack, even less if you reuse.

I dunno, sorry didn't mean to sound preachy. Great thing about the brewing hobby is it's certainly scalable and everyone can get into in by whatever means they find best.

My last AG batch I only pitched 2.5 grams out of an 11.5 gram packet of US-05. The kits suggest pitching half the packet, I still contend that is over-pitching. I went by a pitch calculator, it took longer to get going but was the most active ferm I have witnessed so far.

 

[r4dyce]

My last AG batch I only pitched 2.5 grams out of an 11.5 gram packet of US-05. The kits suggest pitching half the packet, I still contend that is over-pitching. I went by a pitch calculator, it took longer to get going but was the most active ferm I have witnessed so far.

Oh yea, it's absolutely over-pitching. I've done the same thing before but more often I just don't take the time to measure and just throw in roughly half or a dry or wet pack. To my knowledge , and I might be wrong, there's no real negative side effects of over pitching other than using up more yeast. My fermentations are always active and rapid. I like to take good notes on my brew days but I'm definitely not as scientific as I could be. I've been very satisfied with my results so far so I haven't felt the need to dig into minutia of pitch rate, mash pH, water chemistry etc.

Back to the OP that's another thing you will find about brewing: on the surface you can make it as simple as you want. But, there's tons and tons of depth to it and you can dig in and get as geeky into the science of it as you want to, but you don't have to.

 

[MizzouFermentationScience]

So you'll be stabbing the good folks at white labs if you ever run into them, I assume.

Absolutely. Explain to me the reasoning that a clean, dry surface of scissors harbors 1. A significant load of fermentative microbes 2. Microbes that would/could grow in wort next to BILLIONS of specially selected sach with kill factors and placed in their ideal medium. The dirtiest surface in your house is probably your cell phone, should we boil them before checking our brew timers?

 

[BrewKnurd]

The dirtiest surface in your house is probably your cell phone, should we boil them before checking our brew timers?

I mean, if you're going to throw your cell phone into your fermentation, you should probably do something to deal with those microbes first. I assume that's not your plan, tho. Not, I assume, do you plan on dunking your hand in your wort after grabbing your filthy phone.

Admittedly, that's a lot of assumptions for me to make.

 

[Bullshivit-brew]

I understand the desire to limit gear, be able to do it in the kitchen, etc., but 1 gallon of home brew hardly seems worth the effort. I've been doing 5 gallon batches from the very beginning and I go through so damn much beer (a 5 gallon keg a month) between myself, my sons and my friends) that I'm considering bouncing up to 10 gallon batches.

Man I kill a 5gal keg every 2 weeks! time to get a 10 gal set up

Glad you are having fun and your beer is coming out good. Be careful this hobby will consume you