Secondary fermentation in 1 gallon jugs...adjust additives

[HopHeaven]

Hey guys, new home brewer here and I cant tell you how excited I am to try and learn everything I can (already picked up an read a few books as well as a bunch of sites). Actually my first beer is fermenting as we speak (Saison with some fresh homegrown lemon grass).

Ok so my question. I really want to learn and appreciate what different ingredients bring to a beer so I can further enjoy drinking, brewing, and hopefully soon making my own recipes. I wanted to start easy by adjusting what I added to a secondary fermentation. What I want to do is brew a 5 gallon IPA following the recipes. Then when it comes to the secondary this is my plan. Split the brew into 5 different 1 gallon batches like this: 1: Dry hop according to recipe 2: Dry hop using a different type of hop 3: Add french wood chips 4: Add french wood chips with vanilla beans 5: Add french woodchips soaked in whiskey. Almost all the recipes and information on how much to add into the secondary fermenter is based on 5 gallons. The logical thing(to me) would add 1/5 of the recommended amount for the 1 gallon secondaries yet I remember a friend of mine taking a college course that scaling down or up a recipe isnt as simple as that. Any ideas?


PS: This looks like a great forum and I cant wait to learn as much as I can so I can start contributing more than just questions

 

[CyberErik]

I'm even newer than you are, so I really don't know if this is plausible or not, but I like the idea of splitting up a batch and trying different things, if it wouldn't affect anything else.

 

[scottab]

I'm still pretty new but since you are doing the additives in the secondary you can play with it a bit more without compromising the brew flavor by adding more than the 1/5th additives. Over time the brews mellow so for example with the dry hopping, you get more of an aroma than a flavor though aroma is def part of the flavor. From many things i have read, you can't add too much hops in the dry hop stage since they are not bittering at this point. The wood chips i can't attest to since i have never used them but like i said taste mellows over time. Rather than doing 5 separate things to your brew i would say pick 2 and play around with the quantity of the additions then check how they taste over time.

 

[Calichusetts]

Sure...add slightly more hops than needed, but basically cut everything to 20%