Options For BrewDemon 2 Gallon Conical

[Brockleigh]

I got the BrewDemon 2 Gallon Conical Fermenter for Christmas. I made the lager that came with it (not bad, I probably should have let it ferment for another day though), learned all about bottle conditioning (24 hours is NOT enough), and am looking forward to making the Hellfire Red Ale tonight or tomorrow.

The trouble is that after that, I'm kinda sunk on making any more beer with it. I'm in Canada. BrewDemon doesn't ship to Canada, so I can't get any more beer kits direct from them, and getting them from anywhere else is hella expensive (Walmart Canada and Amazon.ca are charging around $90CDN for just the beer kits, without the fermenter!) So I have a question in two parts:

1) Are there any other manufacturers that make a kit that works with the way BrewDemon is set up? A lot of kits I've looked up are made for 3 or 5 Gallon batches (or larger), or state the beer needs to be transferred to another vessel for secondary fermenting, or other things that don't match up with what's on the BrewDemon instructions. I'd like to keep to those instructions as much as possible, at least while I'm figuring everything out in my newbie state.
2) Say I wanted to look up a recipe and make my own, how much of each ingredient (roughly) should I be looking at for a 2 gallon batch? A lot of the recipes in the posts here are not specific to that size, so if I'm altering a recipe or want to try something of my own, roughly what quantity should I used of each ingredient?

[bpgreen]

Welcome.

You don't need to transfer to a secondary. I've been brewing for more than 10 years and have never used a secondary.

You can use any kit with the Brew Demon. It's just a fermenter. If you buy a 5 gallon kit and divide it in half, you can make two batches. Each batch will be a little stronger than originally designed, but that`s not necessarily a bad thing. You could also use a 3 gallon kit full strength, which would be even stronger.

If you want to buy ingredients and make your own recipes or use recipes that are posted here, you can do that by just scaling them down. For example, if there's a 5 gallon recipe that uses 15 lbs of grain, you could scale that to 6 lbs of grain.

You can also get software for designing recipes. I use BeerSmith (costs money). There are free options, as well. Qbrew used to be pretty popular, but I don't know if it`s still being maintained. One of my brothers uses Brewers Friend.

I'm pretty sure that BeerSmith will automatically adjust a recipe for size. For example, if you have a 5 gallon recipe, you can enter that and then click a few menu options and it will adjust everything to make it a 2 gallon recipe. Brewers Friend may have similar functionality.

[bpgreen]

I forgot to mention that there's another system called Mr Beer that makes small batches. I don't know whether they ship to Canada or not.

Another option is to get a second fermenter and make two batches at once.

[John Sand]

All the things that BPGreen said!
Also, you can find extract recipes in books or online and scale them. You should be able to find supplies at a reasonable price. I always suggest that you start with proven recipes. If you find then online, make sure there's plenty of feedback. "15 Minute Pale Ale" is a good, easy recipe, well proven.
Welcome aboard, keep us posted.

[berryman]

1) Are there any other manufacturers that make a kit that works with the way BrewDemon is set up?

Are you looking for the canned type kits? I only know of brewDemon, coopers/Mb that that do that, there might be others I don't know about. As others have said, you have a fermenter and can ferment anything you want in it and make all kinds of beers.

[mashani]

If the desire is to stick with HMEs, you could use 1/2 of a Coopers or Muntons 5-6 gallon canned extract kit (and there are others as well), and then put the other half in the fridge (covered) and then brew another batch 2 weeks later.

Just a random google search turned up this (I know nothing about them). They have both of the above, and also Mr. Beer kits (since Coopers is Mr. Beer).

https://www.cooperskits.ca/collections/ ... s-2-gallon

[Brockleigh]

Thanks guys. I bought a can of Munton's Red Ale and am trying exactly what you had mentioned. That can will basically make 3 batches in a fermenter of that size. Six days until it's ready to bottle.

The Hellfire Red Ale is bottle-conditioning now and Imma crack one open tomorrow night after work.

I also downloaded QBREW from Screwy Brewer. There's a few recipes on there that I grabbed as well, but I'm looking mainly for Porter recipes (that's kinda my jam). Any recommendations?