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Tips for brewing small batches of beer

Tips for small batches of beer



Hi, my name is Ryan. I've been brewing for several years and for a while now have been brewing small 1 to 2 gallon batches for experimenting with beer and mead. Below are some tips that may help you brew small batches yourself.

Benefits:

  • The cost of ingredients is less
  • You can fit it in a fridge or closet easier for temp. control
  • It is great for experimenting
  • You can do a full volume boil which makes better beer.
  • It takes less time to bring a gallon or two to a boil and to cool down
  • Bottling time is less (7 to 10 bottles per gallon)

Cons:

  • The fermentation still takes the same amout of time.
  • It may be difficult to scale a recipe down.
  • You only made a couple gallons if it turns out good.
  • The necks are smaller and oak chips or fruits may not fit.
  • About the same amount of clean up.

 

How much does a gallon make?

You will get anywhere from 7 to 10 bottles per gallon depending on the amount of trub. For example my raspberry wheat only gets about 7 bottles but my Irish Red ale made 10 bottles.

Equipment for small batches

I found that no one really sells much in glass jugs anymore. You may find apple juice or jug wine sold in them. I put and add in my company's classified ad site and a found a person who drinks Sangria and had several jugs waiting for recycling. He gave them to me for free and asked that I give him a sample. So far I have nine 1 gallon jugs from him.  I also ferment 2 gallon batches in a 3 gallon carboy. You could buy an ice wine kit which has a 3 gal carboy if you plan to make wine someday.

Other items you might need:

  • Smaller racking cane. Usually the homebrew store has these.
  • A smaller stopper, #6 stopper fits my jugs.
  • Blow off tubing since there is minimal head space.
  • Digital scale - really helpful for scaling.
  • An example of a commercial 1 gallon equipment kit from Ben's Home Brew.

 Making 2 gallons

You can also make 2 gallons very nicely in a 3 gallon carboy with very little worry of blow off. And two gallons gives you much more beer for the work compared to 1 gallon. You can also use a 3 gallon carboy for much more things, like wine and mead.

Cleaning your jugs

I did find that where the handle of the wine jugs meets the side there can be some indentations in the glass. I use a small bristle brush to get that nook extra clean or a bottle brush for the shoulder.  Then follow your normal cleaning and sanitization steps.

Recipe formulation (scaling a recipe down)

Usually I am taking a 5 gallon recipe and divide things by 1/5th. This works best when you convert things to grams. A nice digital scale helps here. I also use recipe software or rather a web site like hopville.com. Try to keep the percent of ingriendents the same along with the OG, IBU, SRM, and other stats. Also make sure you are correcting the IBU's for the volume you are boiling. You should boil a little over 1 gallon to account for evaporation or steeping grains soaking up some wort. 

 

Splitting larger batches

You don't have to brew small. You can also brew a larger batch and split a portion of it off to try some different yeast, or other ingredients. I have made a wheat base beer and split half in to a berrywies and half in to a cherry wheat several times. You can also split them after primary fermentation.

Primary Fermentation

You can primary ferment in the 1 gallon jugs as long as you leave head space or use a blow off tube in to a jug of water.  I would make sure the wort is below the shoulder of the jug. Or find a jug a little larger than your wort volume, like a 1.5 gallon jug or a 3 gallon carboy for 2 gallons of wort.

Temperature control

I use a large plastic garbage can that fits 3 jugs in the bottom. In winter I can then put my heat belt around all three or a heat pad under them. I use a Johnson digital temp controller. In summer I can put an ice pack in the can or put the jugs in my beer fridge if I need to. Still need a fermentation fridge.

Secondary (only for fruit, dry hopping or oak)

If I need to secondary then I will usually transfer into another 1 gallon glass jug. I only secondary for fruit beers or if doing other additions like oak, fruit, hops, etc. For clearer beers I just leave them for about 10 days and bottle.

Yeast

I normally use 2 grams (about half a packet) of dry, rehydrated yeast per 1 gallon. You could probably go a little less to give them more growth. MrMalty.com has a pitching rate calculator if you want to really get accurate. I've confirmed with Jamil that the calculator is still accurate calculating lower volumes. If you are concerned its always better to under pitch than over pitch. I've over pitched and the beer looses lots of body.

Oxygenation

The easiest part of small batch brewing is to shake it to oxygenate the wort. Shake for about 5 minutes.

Priming

I use the HBO priming calculator to calculate how many grams of corn sugar to add to get the proper carbonation per style.

Bottling

You will find that bottling a small batch goes really fast and you really have to pay attention. Have everything setup and in reach.

Results

Well I have had many people love beers that I have made in small batches. Only one has been entered into a BJCP contest so far and scored a 31 and a comment that they would order another one if at the bar.

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Brew small, Brew strong
Ryan Thompson-Jewell