One Gallon Brewery

[bosium]

I absolutely love it. I have also been doing 1-gallon brews lately, to experiment with recipes and to make some beers that I wouldn't necessarily want 5 gallons of. At the moment I use a grain bag and just mash and boil on my stovetop in a 11L stockpot. To maintain temp whilst mashing, I just pop it in the oven. To chill, put it in the sink in an icebath. I ferment in a 5 litre better bottle demijohn, and from that I usually get just short of two six-packs of 350ml bottles.

The downside I have is that I have no way of filtering out the protein break. I just let it go into the FV for the moment until I can think of a better plan. The other issue I've had is the beers I've made this way have come out quite sweet compared to the calculated IBU level that Beersmith tells me. I think my hop utilisation must be pretty low in this system for some reason I can't explain. Have you found that with yours?

Your setup is much slicker, if I wasn't spending so much time trying to trick out my 5-gallon brewery I'd probably have a stab at something like yours (pity you can't buy one like yours off the shelf, it would make a fantastic pilot system.)

[boingy]

I absolutely love it. I have also been doing 1-gallon brews lately, to experiment with recipes and to make some beers that I wouldn't necessarily want 5 gallons of. At the moment I use a grain bag and just mash and boil on my stovetop in a 11L stockpot. To maintain temp whilst mashing, I just pop it in the oven. To chill, put it in the sink in an icebath. I ferment in a 5 litre better bottle demijohn, and from that I usually get just short of two six-packs of 350ml bottles.

The downside I have is that I have no way of filtering out the protein break. I just let it go into the FV for the moment until I can think of a better plan. The other issue I've had is the beers I've made this way have come out quite sweet compared to the calculated IBU level that Beersmith tells me. I think my hop utilisation must be pretty low in this system for some reason I can't explain. Have you found that with yours?

Your setup is much slicker, if I wasn't spending so much time trying to trick out my 5-gallon brewery I'd probably have a stab at something like yours (pity you can't buy one like yours off the shelf, it would make a fantastic pilot system.)

Your sweetness might be caused by the slightly vague temperature control during the mash and also by the already mentioned problems of accurately weighing out hops for such a small brew length. I don't make small batches but if I did then I think I would probably stick to 2 gallons as a minimum. Anything less than that and I'd be in danger of being able to drink the beer faster than I could brew it.

Nice kit though. Lots of work gone in there.

[Horatio]

Great pilot plant idea! I'm going to build one too, thanks for the inspiration.

[bosium]

Your sweetness might be caused by the slightly vague temperature control during the mash and also by the already mentioned problems of accurately weighing out hops for such a small brew length.

Well my temperature control is pretty precise actually, and it stays very constant from being put in the oven, but I agree the accuracy of the hop weighing could have something to do with it (still, I used low-alpha hops and weighed out on a digital gram scale so can't be more than 1g out).

I made two supposedly +-40 IBU beers and they came out more like 25 IBU, so something is definitely amiss. Could be the pack of Bobek I used in both, but could it also be low utilisation due to the small boil volume?

[drmick]

Hi Granville

don't suppose you have a picture of the sparge arm do you? Is it just a T-junction with two pieces of pipe coming out of it with holes in?

In process of drawing up a shopping list of what I need to buy - was thinking of possibly using 2.5 gallon fermenting buckets for both the HLT and the mashtun but that depends on how to fit the sparge arm to the plastic lid?

Cheers

Michael

[gdanby]

Hi Granville

don't suppose you have a picture of the sparge arm do you? Is it just a T-junction with two pieces of pipe coming out of it with holes in?

In process of drawing up a shopping list of what I need to buy - was thinking of possibly using 2.5 gallon fermenting buckets for both the HLT and the mashtun but that depends on how to fit the sparge arm to the plastic lid?

Cheers

Michael

The lid of the mash tun is only 19cm diameter, so I struggled to fit in any sort of well engineered sparge arm. In the end, I just went for a short length of 15mm copper tube with a few 1.5mm holes and a stop end. Its held to the lid by 2 15mm pipe holders. It works fine and I haven't had any problems channelling, but I've always kept the water level slightly above the grain level. Another task is to put a small sight window in the top so I can do this with less effort.

On my 29l mash tun, I've got a similar arrangement to what you're suggesting and its always worked well in the past:

[drmick]

thanks for the picture - I always find it much easier to work out what to do when I have a picture to look at.

Got the Friday before the bank holiday off work so I have four days to construct something and give it a test run or two. Hopefully I will have my temperature control sorted out for fermenting by then as well.

Cheers
Michael

[chris13]

Stanless steel mesh could be take from a fryng pan anti splatter thing too we have them poundland.

[faulknerm]

Taking inspiration from this wonderful build, I've decided to have a go myself.

I'm going with an all plastic/electric approach - and have just ordered 3 x 1gal fermenting buckets (to use as hlt, mt and fermenter) and 1 x 2gal to use as the boiler.

Will add some pictures of my progress once things are all set up.

The plan is to use this, alongside my 5gal setup, to experiment with recipe's...

[HighHops]

Hi GerGranville!

You should copyright this and go on Dragon's Den. I would buy one. It's the junior chemistry set every boy dreams of. I think even Deborah Meaden would invest in this one!
I am almost in to the same thing as you (translation: "I'm a beer geek too"), but without the kit. For starters, memissus likes experimenting too and she might let me experiment twice a month, but four times a week is out of the question.

On the weekends when I'm not brewing, like tonight, for starters I made a couple of pints of wort with DME and fuggles early doors. I left it to cool while we watched the footy and drank several bottles of Youngs Kew Gold, Worthies White Shield, Hopback summer lightnin and Fullers 1845. I've just made my starters from the dregs and with a little nursing and scaling up into the bottom of 4 demi-johns through the week, next weekend I'll make a 6 gallon AG brew of IPA with challenger and fuggles. 1 gallon of worthies (my favourite), 1 gallon of Youngs, 1 gallon of Fullers, 1 gallon of hopback in demijohns will commence on top of tonight's starters as well as the main batch which will be pitched on to half of last weeks old fv cake once I rack the last lot off.

This is the only way I can experiment and my investigations have to be in yeast not hops, because even if I had your kit I wouldn't have the time to keep me et al supplied with the beer!
I like the sparge inside the lid. I might do that. I like your hop strainer. V. neat design. Well done. I might try that to bunny hop my bottom mounted boiler element. Mine is too big.

Everyone's knicking your ideas! Thanx!! You're wasted on beer. Like most of us!!

[bosium]

I'm hopefully ordering myself some stock pots soon to make a similar system. I wish I could find a small, deep cooler box to use as a MLT but they're like hens' teeth.

[gdanby]

Thanks for all the great comments!

Thought I'd show you my babies:



Just finished picking my hops and drying them. Got about 1kg in total of Challanger. Tried 4 different recipes (an IPA, a standard bitter, a strong bitter and a light bitter) and planning to have a blind tasting in a few weeks with some neighbours to see which one is best. Whichever wins I'll make a 10gallon batch of.

[Yeasty Rob]

Have to say this is really inspiring

I want to slowly get into AG brewing but was going to wait until I could build up all the kit to have a go, but this is a great idea for getting into the basics and trying out a few batches without fear of being left with 40 pints of rough beginners beer.

[adm]

That's brilliant!

[Brotherton Lad]

It's all very good stuff and I'll have a go soon at experimental smaller brews.

Yeasty Rob, just my opinion, I too was apprehensive about going all grain, even though I'd done kits since 1974 on and off. However, I learnt so much on here since joining in Feb, I think, that I took the plunge in April. My very first AG brew (5 gall) sold the concept to me. There is a quantum shift in taste, mouth feel and satisfaction at a job well done.
So, if you're tempted, try to avoid buying equipment just for very small scale brewing, but go for the standard 5 gallon outfit and do some bog standard classic beers. I've yet to make a bad AG brew, though I'm still looking for the 'one', bobek ales are looking good though. Loads for you to learn there and then down-size for your tinkering phase.