After taking some time off I decided I’m ready to start brewing again. However I want to brew 1 gallon batches and not 5 gallon batches. I want to do full boil 1 gallon batches. I want to use glass. Is a 3 gallon carboy ideal for fermentation? I don’t want to worry about a blow off tube or anything. I figure a 1 gallon jug is too small.
A three gallon carboy should work fine for a one gallon batch as long as you’re doing primary only. The CO2 will purge the headspace during primary but if you’re going to secondary in it I’d flush it with CO2 first. Why not do a 2 or 2.5 gallon batch? A 2.5 gallon batch would make it easy to just cut a standard recipe in half. I do 3 gallon batches most of the time. All grain in a five gallon Orange cooler. I ferment three gallons in a six gallon big mouth fermenter.
That’s not a bad idea to do 2.5 gallons. How do you go about storing the other half of the ingredients?
I think the 2.5 gal idea is good. You just don’t get enough for the effort with a 1 gal batch, unless your goal is purely experimentation.
Hops and dry yeast will keep in the fridge for months, liquid yeast loses viability daily, even when in cold storage… If you’re doing extract, the syrup will keep in the fridge for a good while, although when I did extract, I never stored it over about 2 months before using, but never noticed a problem. If you’re doing all grain, and I highly recommend BIAB, order you grains uncrushed and they will keep almost indefinitely if you keep them airtight, room temp or lower, and dry. Then just crush them as you need them. All you need is a mill if you don’t already have one. If you do BIAB, you can even get away with buying a cheap Corona mill–about $30.
I just came off of a similar hiatus because from January till about two weeks ago I’ve been working 7 days a week. It’s definitely good to be back in the game. Good luck at whatever you decide to do.
:cheers:
Ron
