Dividing Extract Kits

[tomakana]

Relatively new home brewer here...

I've been doing 1-gallon extract kits so far, with a reasonable amount of success. I'm starting to explore recipes and tweaks, and have a couple of questions.

1. If I have a recipe for a 5-gallon extract brew, is it generally as straight forward as dividing by 5 to get the ingredients for a 1-gallon version? I think I'll have to adjust my water volume to be specific to my setup, but otherwise, if the recipe calls for 5 lbs. of DME, would a 1-gallon version simply use 1 lbs? Would the same conversion apply to the remaining non-liquid ingredients (or for that matter to the liquid required as well)?

2. If the answer to #1 is yes, then could I theoretically buy a 5-gallon kit using DME and make 20% of it at a time? I know you can buy bulk DME and store it, so seems like you could do this with DME from a kit - can you do the same with the steeping grains, hops, etc? If I can, what's the viable storage time for the leftover materials?

Maybe I'm overthinking this, but I kind of see this as a way to use an established recipe and test minor modifications to see what the impact of different things is - this would just prevent having to figure out all the ingredients I need separately. Does this seem like a reasonable action?

Thanks,
TPA

 

[McGarnigle]

For the most part, yes, just divide them up. Use simple conversion. I wouldn't use 1/5th the yeast; I might go a little higher because pitching a bit too much is no big deal.

What can alter things is the relative amount of water you use. E.g., if the original kit assumed partial boil + top-off and you switch to full boil (b/c it is only one gallon), that alters things a little for hop utilization.

Grains: does the kit have one bag containing many types of grains? I would make sure to thoroughly mix them before splitting.

Storage: Crushed grains would be the biggest worry (well, maybe an open packet of yeast would be. DME the least worry.). Grains won't spoil, but they lose freshness from the moment they're crushed. I can't really give you a use-by date. More like one month than one year.

 

[TonyKZ1]

Or if possible you could go ahead and brew the recipe as intended, and then split up the wort afterwards into your fermenters. I've done 5G recipes split into 2 2.5G fermenters this way. Also depending on the vendor, many of them already have 1-2G versions of their 5G recipes.

 

[tomakana]

Thanks, both.

Regarding the grains, one of the challenges with trying to create a 1G version of a 5G recipe is that it's tough to order just a few ounces of each grain you need. I did find that homebrewing.org lets you create a custom blend, so that may solve that problem.

The idea of splitting the wort occurred to me after my original question - main thing I'd have to address there is the size of the brew pot I have and whether I could accomodate the water for a 5G boil (knowing they don't require a full 5G volume for the boil - believe I have a 3G brew pot). When you've done this, have you added water to get to the full 5G before splitting, or are you dividing the wort equally into your 2 fermenters then topping from there?

I may just need to be patient - spouse is already getting a little skeptical of the volume of boxes arriving for the new hobby...I think another brew pot and a couple more fermenters (only have 1G carboys at the moment) may push her over the edge. We'll see.

One more question - from what I can tell, you shouldn't try to save yeast once the packet is opened - is that right?

Thanks,
TPA

 

[TonyKZ1]

Well, when I split the 5G recipe I divided the cooled wort between the two BrewDemon LBC (little brown conical) 3G fermenters equally and then topped up with cold water to bring them a little over the 2.5G mark. I may have already added some cold water to the fermenters first. As for yeast for these two, I split the 11.5G packet between them.

When I've made the 1G batches, I pitch just a little over 2gms or 3/4 tsp of yeast for that 1G recipe. I then seal it back up and put it back in the fridge.

Also, there's vendors that will let you order small amounts of grain. Adventures in Homebrewing allows you to add tenths of pound amounts, Ritebrew allows you to buy grain by the pounds or ounces. I would imagine there are others also that offer this.

 

[tomakana]

Great, thanks! That's what I was figuring. Thanks also for the recommendations on the vendors...I had found Adventures in Homebrewing, but not the other one yet. They'll be pretty useful.

 

[ncbrewer]

The idea of splitting the wort occurred to me after my original question

Maybe I'm missing something, but if you have the option of brewing the whole batch at once, then why would you want to split it? It seems easier to keep it in one fermenter. And it reduces the chance of contaminating the yeast by splitting it up. And a larger fermenter keeps a more stable temperature if you don't have refrigeration and temp controller.

 

[tomakana]

Mostly an issue of available equipment and storage space. A lot of the 5G kits and recipes use a <5G boil size - since I started the hobby thinking I'd stick with 1G recipes for a while, most of my equipment (brew pot, fermenters, carboys, bottleing buckets) are geared towards that. So as long as there's a 5G recipe that has a boil size that fits into my brew pot, I'm fine for that portion of the process. When it comes to the fermenting and bottling, I'd need to split things, or go out and get more stuff to accomdate the larger volumes. I'm sure I'll do that eventually anyway, but probably not in a position to add much more to my set up right now.