Minimum batch possible?

[Jimmy24]

Quick question, what's the least amount of beer I can make in one batch? I want to experiment with different recipes with the last amount of product possible. Two reasons, I can make a lot of recipes without wasting too much product and I can use trial and error to my full advantage.

Will be making only IPA's if that's important.

Best,

Jim

 

[McKnuckle]

Depends on your vessels. You need something to mash in, boil in, and ferment in. Also the fermenter needs to be easy to bottle from. And don’t forget to compensate for a minimal amount of evaporation, maybe 1/2 gallon or less.

You’ll need accurate scales to weigh hops and grain to the 1/10 of a gram. Water too, actually. The margin of error in measuring is very small - big differences result from small discrepancies.

With tiny batches it can be incredibly simple to move water, grain, and wort around. But the vessels are the limiting factor.

 

[IslandLizard]

You can make 32 oz (1 quart) batches.* That will yield two 12 oz bottles of beer. The remaining 8 oz will be taken up by trub left in the fermenter and perhaps one 3-4 oz sample, if that.

* A batch is the volume that goes into your fermenter. You can use 42 oz to 1/2 gallon containers (bottles, jugs, jars, etc.) as fermenters.

As @McKnuckle says, small deviations anywhere can have relatively large consequences, due to the small batch size.

Are you doing extract brews?
Do you want to try different hops and hopping schedules? Tell us more about your experiment.

 

[mongoose33]

Not saying you should do this, but....interesting idea. You *can* do 1-liter batches...

My son is a volunteer for a museum that does adult nights. They recently did a beer brewing night. What he did was make 19 liters of wort (5 gallons), then split it into 2-liter plastic pop bottles, one liter per bottle. They were given to participants along with a latex balloon with a pinhole poked in it, and instructions. The wort had yeast already added.

They took that home, put the balloon on the top, and put it in a warm place. It ferments, then after a couple weeks, decanted into 500 ml diet coke bottles (cleaned and sanitized) with a fizz drop in the bottom. Then after 3 weeks in a room temp spot, put in fridge for a couple days and VOILA! Beer! Decant off the yeast in the bottom of the bottle, and there you are.

The point of that was to introduce people to beer brewing cheaply yet effectively.

*******

We knew this would work because prior to his going live with it, I did it at home. It works.

Now, I'm not saying you should brew 1-liter batches, but it's certainly a small amount of beer in a "fermenter." Not sure I'd want to go any smaller.

Here are a couple of pics of that process; at some point I'm probably going to do a "introduce people to beer brewing" thing using a similar model. The biggest problem is getting the bottles.

*********

I kept the 2-liter bottle covered so I didn't get light-struck beer; same with the clear bottles, kept them in the dark.

The clear bottles had 2 batches. I'd brewed up a SMASH, to make it easy to reproduce. I took a liter of that and filled the 2-liter "fermenter." The rest I kept in my Spike conical. When both were done fermenting, I filled two of the little bottles with beer from the conical, and two from the 2-liter fermenter. All had carb drops in them.

Then I waited. The beer turned out surprisingly good.

So, it's clear that 1-liter batches can be done. Not sure how you'd easily scale down to that level, but that's your problem.

Good luck, let us know how it goes for you, whatever you do.

 

[Qhrumphf]

A local craft brewery did an April Fools gag of custom "femtobrewery" batches, making like a single taster glass at a time.

As said, if you can measure accurately and find appropriate containers for fermentation and packaging, you can go pretty much as small as you want.

But to me, not worth the time. Takes almost as long to brew 1 liter as it does to brew 19 liters as it does to brew 40 hectoliters.

And, as said, with small batches small errors make bigger and bigger differences.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Quick question, what's the least amount of beer I can make in one batch? I want to experiment with different recipes with the last amount of product possible. Two reasons, I can make a lot of recipes without wasting too much product and I can use trial and error to my full advantage.

Will be making only IPA's if that's important.

3 qt wort in a one gallon carboy yields a six pack (maybe seven bottles) with plenty of space for dry hoping.

If you're working with extract: 1 lb DME, 2 oz sugar in 3 qt water is OG 65.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

3 qt wort in a one gallon carboy yields a six pack (maybe seven bottles) with plenty of space for dry hoping.

If you're working with extract: 1 lb DME, 2 oz sugar in 3 qt water is OG 65.

I have been doing some hop sampler batches following a similar process discussed on Basic Brewing Radio (the podcast and videos). 1 lb of DME (no sugar), added to 3 qt water, brought just to a boil, add 1 oz hops/kill heat/steep 20 minutes, chill, and ferment. I get about 7 bottles out of that.

I did not feel like I was getting enough hop aroma, so the last batch I added 1/3 oz hops, boiled for 10 minutes, added 1/3 oz hops, chilled, added 1/3 oz to fermenter (I added 8 oz more water to account for the 10 min boil).

I have been doing some stove top BIAB 2 and 2.5 gal batches lately to try out ingredients and process changes and to tune recipes. I picked up a pair of 3 gal Fermonster fermenters (with a spigot to make bottling from primary easy). I feel like this is a good size batch for this purpose.

On a similar note, I plan to try out the "Hot Steep Method". The basic idea is to do a mini mash in a thermos to evaluate grains. I would like to try this with a scaled down grain bill for a recipe to see how it works. I am not sure how close it would taste to the final beer. Add in some hops, and you might be able to come close to tuning a full recipe in a 1/2 liter size.

http://beersmith.com/blog/2017/06/23/sensory-evaluation-of-grains-for-brewing-the-new-asbc-method/

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

For the "Hop Steep Method", http://blog.brewingwithbriess.com/the-hot-steep-method-step-by-step-instructions/ may also be of interest.

 

[ESBrewer]

For standard 1h boil, unless you add pure water during the boil, the boil-off volume really limits the the batch size. Without the boil-off (with some very accurate scales) u could probably go down to 10 milliliters or so. If you want to scale up later in a reliable way, I wouldn't go below 1 gallon boil volume. But post boil you could split the wort to make 0.5 or 1 quart fermentations with varying yeast strains, dry hops, finings etc. Just make sure that you have enough beer for tasting and ensure that you can reliably measure the hops.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

For the "Hop Steep Method", http://blog.brewingwithbriess.com/the-hot-steep-method-step-by-step-instructions/ may also be of interest.

Thanks. In the past, all the articles on the Briess site pointed over to protected ASBC pages. This video is useful as well:


I gave it a try this evening with some Crisp Maris Otter vs Great Western 2 Row. The difference is about what you would expect (the MO is darker with a touch of biscuit character). I probably ground the grain too fine (I have a burr mill). The first cone coffee filter I tried worked better but is not big enough to hold the entire volume; the second one was bigger but drained very slow. I could see value in this process for trying out malt combinations and ratios.

 

[madscientist451]

Here's a video to show how its done:

 

[Lefou]

I just had to log in to upvote mongoose33's post. This is exactly how I got started doing cider and homebrew wines.
This method would probably be the most economical and simple way to do small sample batch brewing without making a relatively expensive investment on a basic brewing kit.
If the brew bug bites you don't expect to simply brew IPA styles for long. Curiosity may get the better of you.

 

[Soulshine2]

Quick question, what's the least amount of beer I can make in one batch? I want to experiment with different recipes with the last amount of product possible. Two reasons, I can make a lot of recipes without wasting too much product and I can use trial and error to my full advantage.

Will be making only IPA's if that's important.

Best,

Jim

I would think 1 gallon would be the smallest batch size I would attempt. You'd get around at least a 6 pack to try. That way your ingredient list is small volumes .

 

[Lefou]

I would think 1 gallon would be the smallest batch size I would attempt. You'd get around at least a 6 pack to try. That way your ingredient list is small volumes .

Yes, and by weight the single most expensive ingredient would probably end up being the yeast.

 

[cnash]

Look at brooklyn brew shop for 1 gallon kits to get started then you can start developing your own recipes.
This is how I started and the 1 gallon batches are fun to do, I have since upgraded but it's a great way to start with all-grain brewing at a smaller level.

 

[IslandLizard]

Look at brooklyn brew shop for 1 gallon kits to get started then you can start developing your own recipes.
This is how I started and the 1 gallon batches are fun to do, I have since upgraded but it's a great way to start with all-grain brewing at a smaller level.

But for less than 1/4 of the price of such kits you can buy your own ingredients and brew any 1 gallon batch yourself. There are plenty of (tested) recipes around.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

Yes, and by weight the single most expensive ingredient would probably end up being the yeast.

Not sure if the OP is listening...but while we are on the topic...I harvest yeast slurry from the bottom of my fermenter after kegging/bottling. I picked up a mix of canning jar sizes (16 oz, 8 oz, and 4 oz). For my "1 gal" (more like 3/4 gal) hop sampler batches I have been pitching about 4 oz of slurry (actually around 3 oz after I decant some liquid from the top). I just filled the 4 oz jars for the first time last weekend (I had been using half of a 8 oz jar and then topping with distilled water). I have got my $8 worth out of that pack of WLP001 I purchased in Jan!

You could also add 1/4 of a pack of dried yeast, then seal up the pack.

 

[TechFanMD]

I think the issue is that yeast comes in a packet (dry) and works well for ~5gal, or you could just use a bit and save the rest for a short period. Or buy liquid yeast which can be for any volume, you can do a starter and save some....but it's more expensive. Either way, you're either stuck buying enough yeast for a 5G batch, or you aren't going to be experimenting so much (which is the point, right?) because you'll be using the same yeast over and over until it is gone.

Also, hops tend to come in 1oz increments, so you'll have leftovers there too. This is also fine, but will need to be considered in how much experimentation you can do while still using up supplies before they degrade.

For these reasons, I think 1 gallon is the smallest batch that makes much sense unless you don't want to change a lot of factors between batches, or if you can buy ingredients in smaller quantities (such as a brew shop with bulk hops).

 

[IslandLizard]

Also, hops tend to come in 1oz increments, so you'll have leftovers there too.

Generally with small batches yes. But hops can be flushed, resealed, vacuum packed, etc. Deterioration is minimal when kept frozen.

Will be making only IPA's if that's important.

1 oz for smaller than 1 gallon batch experiments seems very doable. Use half at 10', 5', or flameout/whirlpool/hopstand. The rest for dry hop. Bitter with 'an inch (or 2) worth of pellets' or so of Warrior or Magnum.

 

[cnash]

But for less than 1/4 of the price of such kits you can buy your own ingredients and brew any 1 gallon batch yourself. There are plenty of (tested) recipes around.

It's not much cheaper. Just ingredient kits from them are around $15 which isn't too bad to start.
When I started I didn't want to put together my own recipe, pre-made kits were perfect until I felt I had the process down pretty well.

 

[Soulshine2]

Yes, and by weight the single most expensive ingredient would probably end up being the yeast.

maybe, if he splits the yeast among 5 - 1 gallon batches if the yeast is compatible to the recipe....it'll work out.