Question about 1 gallon brewing

thedudeandwalter · April 15, 2012, 4:38am

Hey all,
So I bought a few one gallon glass jugs from NB, with the intent of doing some small batch brewing. I’ve been pretty concerned about headspace though (or lack thereof) with the small fermenter (I have a blowoff setup just in case). I assumed that the entire glass jug, filled up to the neck, would be a gallon exactly, however, when I filled my brew kettle to the 4 quart mark and then funneled into the jug, it was way below the top. In fact, it didn’t even quite hit the shoulder. Am I missing something here, or are these “gallon” jugs actually larger than one gallon?

Just curious if anyone else has experienced that.

Cheers,
The Dude

andjenliang · April 15, 2012, 8:21am

No they are one gallon you lost some volume from boil off.
Wait i just reread your post and realized that i may have spoke to soon, did you just fill brew kettle and then just put it in? Perhaps you can find another “gallon” jug and see if they hold the same volume.

belpaire · April 15, 2012, 11:04am

1 gallon at the shoulder sounds about right. In 5 gallon carboys the 5 gallon mark is at the shoulder.

dbarton02 · April 16, 2012, 5:44pm

This might be a stupid question to ask on your initial post.

If you’re brewing a scaled down recipe for one gallon of beer, are you boiling and adding ingredients to 1/2 gallon of water to start, and then adding your other 1/2 gallon when cooled?

I ask because you do 2.5 gallons in a kettle, and then add another 2.5 (or thereabout) to make 5 gallons.

Again… stupid question to ask, but I had to ask it.
Stone me if need be!

Cheers!

mplsbrewer · April 16, 2012, 6:10pm

I think the poster above is referring to topping off with water for extract brewing and if the original poster is doing a one gallon batch, even if it is extract, I’m sure they are doing a full boil without adding any additional water.

Not a stupid question at all. I’ve asked plenty of things before that seemed obvious when answered but I just didn’t know.

mplsbrewer · April 16, 2012, 6:15pm

I’ve also just gotten into the small batch process. Mostly because of Ray Daniels book Designing Great Beer. Now I have a ton of recipes I want to try but not enough space/time/liver to do all of them in 5 gallon batch sizes.

So far I’ve done a couple things: Ferment a one gallon batch in a 3 gallon carboy and transfer to a one gallon secondary; ferment a 3 gallon batch in a five gallon carboy and transfer to a 3 gallon secondary and fermenting a 2 gallon batch and transferring to two one gallon secondaries. It all kind of depends on how much of it I want and how experimental I’ve gotten with ingredients.

I for one think it’s worth it get a three gallon carboy or Better Bottle, ferment in there for the needed head space and then transfer to the one gallons. That way there is no worry about blow offs.

dbarton02 · April 16, 2012, 6:44pm

That’s my next step as well.
I have a bunch of 1 gallon jugs that I currently use to ‘flavor’ off my 5 gallon batches. Dry Hop a gallon, add an extract to a gallon, etc.

I’ve not scaled stuff down yet to a 1-3 gallon batch, and it’s probably due to the fact that I’m not sure what would go in to finish it off. I’m so used to 2.5 gallons in a pot, and then adding another 2.5 to make the full batch.

I suppose if I did a 1 gallon, I would just brew with a gallon in the pot, and like you said, top it off since there will be some boil off.

I’ll have to go get myself some 3 gallon carboys…
Always up for another reason to go spend more money at the LHBS

Thanks!