Whats your typical batch size?

Scoper50 · Post by **Scoper50** » Sat Jan 13, 2018 8:44 am

What is your typical batch size when brewing? I have now brewed One, Two, and Five gallon batches. I gotta say that I'm a fan of the two gallon batch. A lot of guys would say that it doesn't take that much more work to just do five gallons but the problem is you end up with soooo much beer and I always want to brew more. I'm afraid that I'll end up with 40 cases of beer in my basement just waiting to be drunk.

When you visit online brewing stores and even brick and mortar brew shops the 5 gallon kits are standard. You can get anything you want in a five gallon kit, but the options seem pretty limited if you only want to brew 1 or 2 gallons. I think this should change. I want more options. Does anybody have a suggestion for a place that sells 2 or 2.5 gallon recipe kits? The only 2 places I have found so far are Northern Brewer which has a very limited selection and a place called love2brew.com that wanted to charge me $21 for shipping so I cancelled the order.

RandyG · Post by **RandyG** » Sat Jan 13, 2018 9:16 am

For me,it's all about variety. The 5 gal. batch can be too much of one kind for me. I brew Mr.B, BrewDemon sized batches. I'm lucky,I have 3 LHBS within a 30-45 minute drive,so I usually buy a 3.3lb Breiss LME tub or a Muntons 3.3. Also 8 oz. of steeping grains,and an oz. of hops.Most batches use Saf-05 yeast. Last summer(I go on hiatus b/c of temp control),I had over a dozen different brews to pick from.They are mostly 5+% abv. I also brew lighter versions using 2 lbs. DME,steeping grains and an oz. of hops.They come out around 4.1-4.4% abv.Really nice Lawnmower Beers. Anyway,2 gallon is the way to go for me. Good luck and Cheers

Inkleg · Post by **Inkleg** » Sat Jan 13, 2018 9:27 am

I agree that 5 gallons is a lot of beer to have on had if you're the only one drinking. One option that I use to do when I was bottling was to give it away when I had too much on hand. Now that I'm kegging free beer doesn't happen very often.

I'd suggest getting some kind of brewing hardware/recipe builder. I use BeerSmith and love it. Others will chime in on what they use I'm sure.
BeerSmith has a recipe scale feature. Most all recipes you find online are geared to 5 gallons. You could load any recipe in BS and with one click scale it to any size you want. From there you could order grains, LME, DME, hops, yeast in the amount needed.

I know Andrew at my LHBS Operation Homebrew will ship any size recipe you want. He has a line of beer kits that he has made up and sell pretty well. These are geared to 5 gallons, but if his shipping is reasonable I'm sure he would scale them to any size for you.

John Sand · Post by **John Sand** » Sat Jan 13, 2018 9:46 am

Hi Scoper. I have done many 2, 3 and 5 gallon batches, a couple of 1, 7.5, and 10. While I mostly brew 5 gallons, I liked the variety and education from brewing 2 gallons every couple of weeks. Five is the standard size, most kits come in that size. I order two or three kits at a time, especially on sale. I tend to break up the ingredients to make different recipes, you can split them into smaller batches. Get a good scale, and split the grains, extract, hops and even yeast.

Dawg LB Steve · Post by **Dawg LB Steve** » Sat Jan 13, 2018 10:25 am

Now usually 5.5 gallon some 11 gallon. I keg and have room for 8-10 kegs, mostly 5 g kegs, have a couple 2.5's and two 7.5's.

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Post by **Beer-lord** » Sat Jan 13, 2018 11:09 am

I do 6 gallon batches due to hop loss since many of my beers have a good deal of hops. Also I find that BIAB brewing leaves a bit more junk behind so there’s some loss there too.

berryman · Post by **berryman** » Sat Jan 13, 2018 4:45 pm

I do almost all 5 and 5 1/2 gallons. I still have 4 MB LBK fermenters and have used them for smaller Hop SMaSH test batches. I like to be able to get 2 cases of 12 oz from each batch and can easy with 5 gals.

FedoraDave · Post by **FedoraDave** » Sat Jan 13, 2018 7:50 pm

I do 2.5 and 5 gallon batches. I have two 3g carboys, and one 5g carboy, and I ferment my beer for 3 weeks. I brew every week (I'm kind of obsessive about this hobby), so I'm turning over a carboy every 3 weeks.

My brewing software of choice is BrewToad, but there are plenty of good ones out there. So I'm wondering if you're ready to pull the trigger and start formulating recipes on your own. You don't need to depend on kits, and I find it fun to research a style, determine how I'm going to create a recipe for that style, and then plug the ingredients into BrewToad and tinker with it. Starting with some recipes for a basic IPA or blonde ale would produce good beer and give you some confidence in branching out.

I don't want to pressure you. If you're not ready to jump the broom, that's okay, too. But if you do want to dip a toe into recipe formulation, this is the place to ask questions and get good solid advice. We're all Borg here, and we're all about the beer.

dbrowning · Post by **dbrowning** » Sat Jan 13, 2018 7:57 pm

Usually 5.5 gallon
3 +or- sometimes
And I have done a few experimental 1 gallon

mashani · Post by **mashani** » Sun Jan 14, 2018 2:30 am

I do 2.5, 3, and sometimes 4, 5, or 6 gallon batches.

Mostly 2.5 or 3, but last year I did a good number of 5+ batches.

My 2.5 or 3 gallon batches might be AG, they might be PM or Steep + Extract, and for some simple Belgians it might even just be very fresh pilsner extract and sugar - it just depends on what I've got on hand and how ambitious I feel / how much time I have on hand.

All of my 4+ batches are PM or Steep with Extract, and a cold water top up (2 gallons of top up!) in the fermenters. I don't/cant effectively boil more then 3.75 gallons of wort. This could be rectified if I really wanted to do so, but I haven't felt the need, the bulk fresh extract I get from MoreBeer makes excellent beer.

I might do a 4 vs. a 5 if I'm brewing a high gravity / high abv beer. I might do a 6 if I'm brewing a low abv session beer that I know I'm going to drink a lot of fast (summer post run/bike/swim beer).

I say fermenters because I split 5+ gallon batches between two fermenters. (I have three 3 gallon fermenters).

Sometimes I do a 2-3 gallon batch of AG but then instead of actually brewing with what I made, I boil it, cool it, split it into 2 or 3 or 4 containers, freeze all but one of them, and then use them as a PM base for future beers. That lets me take a long brew day and then use the results for more partial extract batches in the future where all those batches are very fast/short brew days.

This works great btw. You just have to make sure that whatever it is you make is a good PM base for other beers. You can even make different kinds of beers by leaving out say the crystal malt and then steeping various types of crystal for various future beers and still end up with shorter brew days.

HerbMeowing · Post by **HerbMeowing** » Sun Jan 14, 2018 9:55 pm

My guiding principle: production ~= consumption

In my brew closet ....
1G isn't worth the time and effort.
5G is way too much one recipe.
The MrB LBK (2.45G - 9L) is just right.

Kealia · Post by **Kealia** » Mon Jan 15, 2018 12:35 pm

I did MrB batches for about a year before moving to all grain where I kept the batch size the same. After about 2 years of that, I moved to 5-gallon batches because it became easier to share large batches. I literally give away about half of what I brew, which is part of the fun for me. I like variety too, which I handle via commercial beer.

Scoper50 · Post by **Scoper50** » Tue Jan 16, 2018 4:12 pm

FedoraDave wrote:I do 2.5 and 5 gallon batches. I have two 3g carboys, and one 5g carboy, and I ferment my beer for 3 weeks. I brew every week (I'm kind of obsessive about this hobby), so I'm turning over a carboy every 3 weeks.

My brewing software of choice is BrewToad, but there are plenty of good ones out there. So I'm wondering if you're ready to pull the trigger and start formulating recipes on your own. You don't need to depend on kits, and I find it fun to research a style, determine how I'm going to create a recipe for that style, and then plug the ingredients into BrewToad and tinker with it. Starting with some recipes for a basic IPA or blonde ale would produce good beer and give you some confidence in branching out.

I don't want to pressure you. If you're not ready to jump the broom, that's okay, too. But if you do want to dip a toe into recipe formulation, this is the place to ask questions and get good solid advice. We're all Borg here, and we're all about the beer.

Thats actually a really good idea. I don't think I'm ready to formulate my own recipe yet but I could take a recipe from one of you guys or online and just get ingredients. I would assume that buying individual ingredients is probably cheaper than buying a kit anyway.

berryman · Post by **berryman** » Tue Jan 16, 2018 4:30 pm

Scoper50 wrote: I don't think I'm ready to formulate my own recipe yet but I could take a recipe from one of you guys or online and just get ingredients. I would assume that buying individual ingredients is probably cheaper than buying a kit anyway.

I would suggest to try a grain steep, sounds hard but as easy as making tea, the next hurdle would be using some DME and can be a challenge the first few times, but once over that obstacle you are well on your way and can go from there as ever far you want to take your brewing hobby.

John Sand · Post by **John Sand** » Tue Jan 16, 2018 5:05 pm

Scoper, the kits are great. Steeping grains is an easy next step. I relied heavily on proven recipes, I still do. It can be tempting to go mad scientist, but I think you are wise to stick to tried and true until you get a real feel for the ingredients. If you want suggestions on a particular style, let us know. I find that a great book for brewing recipes is Brewing Classic Styles, it has award winning extract recipes, with all grain versions, and a discussion or each style.