I’d like to hear from brewers of one-gallon batches about yield. I have made about 12+/- batches now and never get more than 100 ounces of beer into bottles. Since a gallon is 128 ounces, this seems like a lot of waste. How much are others getting and what can I do to improve my yield?
A lot of beer can be lost to the yeast sediment and gravity samples. So, just kick up your batch size to 1.5 gallons and you’ll get your desired 12-pack. That’s basically what I have done. I made a 1.67-gallon batch recently (1/3 of a 5-gallon recipe) and only ended up with 14 bottles. I decided that 14 bottles really isn’t enough since I usually enter all my beers into 2 or 3 competitions, which leaves me with little more than a 6-pack. So I’ve kicked up my batches since to about a 2.1-gallon batch. I ferment in 3-gallon carboys so this works out fine. The math might be more difficult, but I get more tasty beer out at the end. Play around with your batch sizes and equipment until you find what works best for you. If you need to pick up bigger fermenters or whatever to make yourself happy, then of course, just do it.
This! I like the three gallon better bottles for fermenting small batches
I like the idea of upping my batch size to 1/3 of a 5-gallon recipe - I can do that with the equipment I already have. Would I just divide all quantities by three or is it more complicated than that?
When I did 1 gallon batches I usually ended up with 10 bottles after adding the water/bottling sugar mixture to the bottling bucket.
I did exactly the same math as you propose, an even division of the recipe. Recipes that I formulated in 1 gallon batches I scaled up to 5 gallons with consistent results and have since scaled that up to 10 gallons.
I like the idea of upping my batch size to 1/3 of a 5-gallon recipe - I can do that with the equipment I already have. Would I just divide all quantities by three or is it more complicated than that?[/quote]
I would recommend just getting one of the free recipe calculator downloads. I use brewmate there are others. The calculator will allow you to easily up volume, predict gravities, hop IBU’s and many other useful info at the push of a button. They will also keep all you recipes available when ever you want to make a adjustment.
Yes. It really is as simple as that.
I do 1-gallon extract batches to test new hops/ingredients. I start with 1 gallon preboil, do a 15-minute boil, and end up with roughly 0.7-0.8 gallons in my 1-gallon fermenter. After dry hops I generally net 6-7 twelve-ounce bottles (I generally get 6 bottles when I use whirlfloc and 7 bottles with no whirlfloc). It seems like a big loss, but these are generally pilot batches for me so I’m not really worried about that.
