world's smallest batch

[Philipek]

I didn't really know where to put this. Seeing as I used DME instead of crushing, mashing and boiling 200 grams of malt, I thought I'd post here.

I bought a 340 ml bottle of porter and noticed it had a ring of yeast. Rather than just boil up some extract to harvest the yeast, I chucked some hops into some water, boiled it for half an hour then added the extract, and boiled for a further hour, I added some hopped wort to the bottle and transferred it to a sanitized Samuel Smith's bottle, I added the rest to rinse out the rest of the yeast and transferred that over the to the bottle.

I'll ferment in the bottle then when the fermentation finishes, I'll cap it and condition. I've had good results doing this with turbo ciders - do a 20L batch and bottle in 1 and 2L pop bottles, then recharge the bottles with apple juice once the cider's been slurped and let it ferment and condition in the one vessel. On a whim I decided to try this with beer.

Phil

[trucker5774]

It will be interesting to see how much of the yeast head creeps out of the bottle during fermentation.

[boingy]

After fermentation are you going to transfer the beer to a different bottle or just stick a cap on the fermenter bottle?

[Fuggled Mind]

It all sounds very eccentric but I have to admit, I'm interested.

Keep us updated. It's always good to hear about something different.

Cheers

Jason

[Philipek]

I'd be interested as well to see how far the kraeusen climbs up the neck. At the moment it's 1/4 up the neck. As I said, it's a Sam Smith's bottle and it's full up to the shoulder. A lot of ullage, but not much head space for the yeast.

It's 1.040, amber DME, and an all fuggles brew, a pinch at 60 a pinch at 30 and a pinch at 10 - pellets.

Yeah, I'm going to just cap the bottle. Fermented and served from the same vessel. Done this with turbo ciders and they've turned out great. I suppose I should do a side by side bulk ferment and bottle against ferment in the bottle to taste test, but I just want to see if it turns out a drinkable beer. In fact I am doing a side by side. I messed up with my water on my latest all-grain and ended up with 24 litres of 1.038 beer rather than 19 of 1.042 beer. I fermented the extra in a 4L water bottle and have just screwed the lid down on that for it to carbonate and will bottle the stuff that's in the carboy. We'll see what the difference is.

At the moment it's got foil over the top. I don't know if I'll prime or not. As I said, I've done this trick with turbo ciders before in 2L pop bottles and have been meaning to do it with beer for a very long time but never got round to it. With the 2L pop bottle, you can see what's going on and can put it to your ear to hear it fizzing, so I've used that to time when to cap it so it carbonates itself without priming. I can't do that with the super dark, thick, sound insulated Sam Smith's bottle.

[Philipek]

Primed, capped and conditioning.

[Philipek]

I know you're all bursting with curiosity to find out how this one went, so I'll leave you waiting no longer.

I've been struggling with phenolic off-tastes in my beer for over year now, and so I decided to move my brewing out of my kitchen, which gets a little bit hot, damp and steamy, great for creatures to multiply. So I and a friend took one of my latest batch brewed in my massive stainless steel pot atop my 170,000BTU burner, and we shared my bottle of The Smallest Beer in the World. The moment I opened the bottle of beer brewed using my fancy new system I could smell the phenols. It wasn't disgusting but it was a bit of a disappointment. My friend was full of faint praise for this beer, nice flavour, not fizzy enough, not enough head, but nice flavour.

We then shared The Smallest Batch in the World. He absolutely loved it, I would have to say that it's easily the best beer I've ever brewed. It was a bit hoppy, but it was fuggles, so that was great.