1 gallon brewers - how do you bottle?

I’m splitting a 5 gallon batch into 3 vessels including 2 - 1 gallon jugs. How do you bottle? Right from the jug? Transfer it to a bottling bucket?

I havent done this myself. Went straight to kegs from day one but I dont see why you cant just bottle it straight from the fermentor. Are you just carbing with sugar?

Yeah priming with corn sugar. I wouldn’t mind bottling from the jug letting it settle after mixing the sugar in. Didn’t know if there was a better way. I’m thinking for drilling a spigot hole in a 2 gallon bucket to use for small batches.

I’ve done that a bunch of times where I’ve split off a gallon or two to try different things. To bottle, I’ve either siphoned into an empty gallon jug with priming sugar, and then siphoned from there into bottles, or dosed each bottle with some cane sugar and siphoned directly from the jug into bottles. Both work fine, but you’ll get more oxygen into the beer if you transfer to a clean jug first.

To siphon into bottles, I’ll attach a bottle wand to the end of about 6’ of transfer tubing. Fill the hose up with star-san by submerging it, and then lift it up with the open ends pointing up. Drain about 12" of hose from the end going into the jug, and then start the siphon into an empty container to drain out the star-san. At this point, submerge the wand into some sanitizer to make sure it’s clean, and just start filling bottles.

You have to pay attention to the liquid level in the jug and keep the hose below the liquid and above the trüb, but for 8-10 bottles it’s not too bad. Just have everything ready before you start so you don’t have to stop and risk losing the siphon.

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Great info! Thanks!

I use a 2G bucket that I’ve installed a spigot and a bottling wand. I heat 1 1/2 cups of water in a measuring cup, mix in 2 Tablespoons of sugar, siphon the beer into the bottling bucket, add the priming sugar mixture while the beer is siphoning into the bucket. Then using the bottling wand fill each bottle. Works great for me. Sanitize the siphoning and bottling equipment before starting this of course.

I’ve done a few small 1-gallon batches of cider. For those, since I’m not priming anyway (uncarbonated “still” cider is perfectly good), I’ve poured directly from jug to sanitized bottle with great success. If I was priming I might add the priming sugar to the fermenter, then wait a couple hours, then bottle after the trub settles again. I haven’t tried this but I bet it would work fine.

No signs of oxidation from just pouring it? I’m fermenting a small batch in a wine bottle, and am really tempted to just pour it into a sanitized bottle with some priming sugar but have been concerned with oxidizing it…

does the size of the batch really matter ? I would think you would bottle like you always do

Probably get a bit of oxidation. Tilt the bottle(s) and pour slowly!? If you’re truly concerned about oxygen then just don’t do it that way.

Not that concerned, it’s only one bottle’s worth so not a big loss. Growing up some HF dregs and wanted to see if I could get a similar yeast character or if it was bottled with wine yeast. But that sure would be easier than trying to siphon from a wine bottle!

I was trying to limit the amount of losses. If it was a 5 gallon batch I wouldn’t care. When I’m trying to squeeze out 10 bottles I want all the beer I can get. I ended up using my 3/8 auto siphon with the bottling wand attached. It was a pain to get it started but once I had the first couple bottles filled it worked pretty good. I might get a mini 3/8 auto siphon for the next time.

I’ve used those fizz drops on a one gallon batch, then siphon off the fermenter. Don’t forget to cold crash.