Smaller batches

Northern Brewer General
1

Im looking to do some smaller batchs so i can experiment with designing recipes without being stuck with 2 cases if its a flop. Is it ok To ferment a 2- 2.5 gallon batch in a five gallon carboy? Its easy to scale a recipe but how would i handle the yeast? would i have to scale that too? not sure if there is consequences to over pitching

2

Yes you can make ales in a 5gal carboy just fine. And just use the full pack of yeast, you might get slightly less character from the higher cell count but overall it comes out about the same. The one thing I do for small batches, is try and reuse the yeast cake since its more of a cost factor with a small batch.

3

I agree with this. Also, if you’re using liquid yeast (or once you start reusing the yeast slurry), you can use Mr. Malty
http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html
to pitch the proper amount of slurry.

4

I used to use these so that I did not tie up a carboy from a full brew. Eventually my experimenting decreased and I gave them to my father when he started brewing so he could experiment.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/2-ga ... enter.html

Call me crazy but I actually have done 1 gallon fermentations using these by drilling a hole and adding the grommet for the bucket lids.

http://www.uline.com/BL_8168/Wide-Mouth-Glass-Jars
5

You’re anything but crazy. Those look a lot easier to deal with than the 1 gallon jugs I see everyone doing small batches in.