One Gallon Batch Brewing Demonstration

This week we follow up the last couple videos with a one gallon batch brewing demonstration. John reviewed his equipment and we took a poll to let the audience pick the hop variety for the one gallon batch brewing demonstration. This week we are happy to put up snippets of video taken during John’s latest one gallon brewing session.

Some observations as a bystander to John’s process:

1. Its quick. Everything heats up faster and moves a little faster when you are only working with 1-2 gallons.
2. John is using a modified brew in a bag technique and he uses a whopping 4qts per pound of brewing water. I would never had guessed it was that high, but the beers don’t ever seem thin or lacking in mouthfeel.
3. John crafts that bittering addition based on alpha acid content to not have too much bitterness right away. He wants to focus on later addition hop character. Rather than use a standard weight batch to batch he calculates what he needs for 25-30 IBUs from the 60minute charge. The rest gets divided into the flavor and aroma additions.
4. The small volume of wort chills easily using the old fashioned pot in the sink method. He was chilled down in less than 20 minutes.
5. Despite the losses to splashing and left over wort he still gets plenty of efficiency and a good gallon plus of wort to ferment. The small bottle ferment is a little full but he doesn’t usually have too much of an issue with blow offs. But he has an extra airlock and starsan spray at the ready should a switch be needed.

There you have it. Its pretty quick and easy. We hope this inspires you to maybe give smaller batch brewing a try. Its a great way to experiment with new recipes, ingredients or yeast varieties. The technique obviously isn’t limited to just SMASH brewing too.

Let us know if you give one gallon brewing a try.

BREW ON!