lol. A few years ago I gave my 5 gallon equipment to my brother. I was very happy to scale down to 1 gallon batches. For me, it’s about the time that it took to deal with larger quantities, whether racking, boiling, cooling, etc. I can make, transfer, bottle, etc. any single 1 gallon batch whenever I’ve got an extra hour or so. Plus, given the limits of my brewing space, the variety is fun. Before, I could only brew 1-2 large batches at a time. Now, I have 5-7 little batches of traditional or experimental stuff in various stages. Going small simply made it more fun for me. Downside is when I make something really good, and only have a gallon of it to drink, keep, and share. 🤷🏻♂️
I think the issue with five gallon batches for beginners is that emotionally it feels less bad if they mess up a smaller quantity. Beginners are (somewhat justifiably) worried that they'll do something wrong. One gallon feels like a more acceptable loss, especially for someone who isn't sure if they really want to get into the hobby.
I definitely hear that! I should maybe do a follow up video of “What to do if a 5 gallon batch goes sideways.” Usually there are several ways of salvaging a batch you don’t love, but that’s definitely not talked about often enough.
one gallon batches weren't making enough product, but my place is too small for five, so I bought a three-gallon fermenter and kept everything else the same. Scaling up was easy; I mostly do one-gallon beer kits and turns out the grains will just as happily mash into three gallons of water as one gallon, with little to no affect on the end product
Here in Sweden it's common to brew in 10L batches (Roughly 2.5 gallons) and it feels like a sweet spot for me, it results in around 30 bottles of beer or little over a dozen wine bottles. Thank you for all the content you make! /Robert
I’m starting out at 2.5 gallons myself. I wanted to start smaller and be able to go into maybe a few 1 gallon containers for secondary. This gave me some food for thought on starting out.
For me, I started as a five gallon brewerand even the occasional ten gallon batch of beer. I made the switch to one gallon batches of mead and beer because i wanted more brewdays for the same amount of bottling time. One gallon batches allow for experimenting and fine tuning recipes. Once I'm satisfied with a mead recipe I will scale up to a fivegallon batch.
I've been doing 5 gallon batches but I wanna scale back. I'm still learning. I made a beer that was regrettable. 6 months of aging made it tolerable. That's still 50 beers that I screwed up. Also, it's HEAVY. I want a video that's 5 gals to 1 gal.
I think maybe 3 gallons might be the max I would be comfortable pushing up to. With 1 gallon, it's nice to be able to keep costs and clutter down, especially when it's just myself consuming it. And I feel like there's just more room for recipe experimentation with small batches. But then I look at my mead already going for next Christmas, and it might have been nice to make 3gal instead of just 1. But my husband would probably have to move the carboys around for me. lol
I think the advantage to starting with 1 gallon is that mistakes are not as painful. It's a lot easier to give up on 1 gallon of mistake than 5 gallons. I would have been very discouraged if I lost that much product early on. Second it allows for more iteration and experimentation. Now that I'm getting more experienced I'm looking forward to brewing larger batches. Especially of beer.
@DointheMost I am a noob to home brewing but I am just using quart-sized mason jars and EC1118. So I've got a little bit of honey and water in one. I juiced a couple of apples for another one. I'm making kombucha in another one. And I have some pineapple rinds to try to make tepache. I love playing around but I can't drink gallons of anything.
9:23 "killer on my old man knees" - I got a folding table for the kids when they were young, but I've been using it in brewing lately. It's very sturdy and adjustable in height. I think adjustable work surfaces are a must as we get older.
Funny you mention this, recently I was doing a lot of batches in a single day and about an hour in I was like, “why am I not using my folding table?” So I brought it into the studio and it made the next four hours and much more manageable.
Not sure I can trust advice from such a clean shaven brewer.. LOL! I actually gravitated to your channel a while back because you make larger batches. I’ve come to the same conclusions about batch size and I’m working on a keezer build right now. Thanks BC, keep it up!
Haw , a Year ! I'll give away a 6 Pack Tote Bag 🛍️ of Bottles from Different Batches to each recepient during Christmas ☃️🎄. Then take a Backpack 🎒 Full to Game 🎯 Night . I Might Drink 🍷 , if I Really Hit IT , a Bottle 🍾 a Week . 🐯🤠
Ive done 1 finished batch so far. Began the hobby this past September. Had a horrible experience with racking, mainly because i dont have the right equipment and space for it, as well as constantly being bumped by either my dogs or my kids. So with that lack if space, im starting the year off with with a 3 gallon FastFerment. Got 2 gallons of traditional with 3 orange zested. Gonna split it up into 2 separate gallins and keep 1 as is, and add vanilla to the second batch. Just started the hobby, live your videos as well as Man Made Mead. Learned an absolute assload of information between you two and cant wait to keep doing it!
Have you ever made a Belgian tripel beer? I just bottled 5 gallons. A very interesting style of beer that's pretty strong and easy drinking. You can get some incredible banana esters if you use the right yeast and get a healthy fermentation.
I have not yet, I need to get back into more ambitious beer brewing. Having a kid has really sucked up all that free time I used to spend in the backyard brewing! 😅
@@DointheMost I made it a point to brew beers from around the world with real ingredients and yeast strains, Irish stout and porter are now my 2 favorite dark beers and Belgian tripel is my favorite strong beer.
Personally I work in one, three or five to six gallon batches. One gallon for experiments or limited resources. Three gallon for fairly certain recipes that may need some work. Five to six gallon for ones I'm confident in. One of my favorite 5.5 gallon batches is five pounds of honey, five gallons of apple juice, five grams of yeast(D47) for a total of 5.5 gallons and a yield of about 55 beer bottles.
@@DointheMost I agree! Sometimes I mix apple juice types or add apples to it like right now. And in my personal opinion, home made cider/cyser is better than the commercial stuff.
I second adding milk crates to any carboy that is filled. Carboy glass brittles over time, you do not want to be handling the neck of a glass object that weighs ~70lbs full. Plenty of stories of people with carboys that shatter trying to move them around. And I also seem to run out of mead rapidly via gifting, so except for maybe my first two batches of mead, I've brewed 5gal since I started. 1gal batches go too fast, I don't have a lot of time to brew so I prefer to brew in volume when I can. If you are going to be bottling 5 gal batches, HIGHLY advise you to get a little diagphram-based wine transfer pump. Decent ones run about $60, but they make bottling day much easier. I say this as a cheapskate, it's absolutely worth your money to get one.
I’ve been thinking about getting some of those little scooters that they have in preschools that the kids sit on to put my carboys on for moving around the house ha ha
I have off topic question. Is it advisable to stabilise wild yeast after fermentación?. I tasted my Pulque yeast dry stone fruits 9% mead ish thing.. Its near done, perfect notes. And i want it carbonated... Suggestions? Ideas?
Just researching outside looking in and video was excellent thanks 😊 ,confusing to pick the right size, starting out I want to make different flavors get my craft game on, if you want a specific maybe go bigger, don't feel saving money is a issue when you know you know your craft switching to a larger vessel would be your game to save time invested, in any trade or hobby you have to earn it first with good videos like yours to help
😂 i've got started on 30 Liters (8 us Gallons) and now i have to make the most container halfe full because i am running out of space to store the bottles😅.
I like batches around 10litres or 2,5 gallons. I’m just above 1 year into this. Messing up 5-6 gallons feels awfull when you use your own produce. 1 gallon feels like a lot of work for little result. Here equipment are at 5 litres though, 1,4 gallons. To double the gallon makes a bigger risult without having to use that much produce. I make wine and ciders, not beer.
I think one of homebrewings best kept secrets is the 3 gallon batch. You get a fair amount of volume without too much added expense. And if you make domething you really love double the recipe and you have a 6 gallon batch. I'm slow transitioning away from 1ga and 5ga and doing only 3ga and 6ga.
I really appreciate these kinds of viewer friendly videos, thank you! I went up to 3gal batches a while ago because a friend asked me to make some for his wedding to serve along the wine they would have. Its a perfect size in relation to my space since i have a table in my room with my fermenters on it and sice I just have a standard fridge(and like session meads) i can fit two stacked 1.6gal kegs with a little co2 tank and have a little room for the groceries too 😅 Would love to see some 3gal recipes though it is pretty easy to scale up or down.
I see only 1 Person Commented on Your Clean Shaven 🪒 Face . I know People who Grow a Beard in the Winter ❄️🥶 then Shave 🪒 in the Summer . You were getting a Little Wooly😂. 🐯🤠
Get my book: dointhemost.org/book/
lol. A few years ago I gave my 5 gallon equipment to my brother. I was very happy to scale down to 1 gallon batches. For me, it’s about the time that it took to deal with larger quantities, whether racking, boiling, cooling, etc. I can make, transfer, bottle, etc. any single 1 gallon batch whenever I’ve got an extra hour or so. Plus, given the limits of my brewing space, the variety is fun. Before, I could only brew 1-2 large batches at a time. Now, I have 5-7 little batches of traditional or experimental stuff in various stages. Going small simply made it more fun for me. Downside is when I make something really good, and only have a gallon of it to drink, keep, and share. 🤷🏻♂️
I think the issue with five gallon batches for beginners is that emotionally it feels less bad if they mess up a smaller quantity. Beginners are (somewhat justifiably) worried that they'll do something wrong. One gallon feels like a more acceptable loss, especially for someone who isn't sure if they really want to get into the hobby.
I definitely hear that! I should maybe do a follow up video of “What to do if a 5 gallon batch goes sideways.” Usually there are several ways of salvaging a batch you don’t love, but that’s definitely not talked about often enough.
@@DointheMost That would definitely be a good video!
one gallon batches weren't making enough product, but my place is too small for five, so I bought a three-gallon fermenter and kept everything else the same. Scaling up was easy; I mostly do one-gallon beer kits and turns out the grains will just as happily mash into three gallons of water as one gallon, with little to no affect on the end product
Here in Sweden it's common to brew in 10L batches (Roughly 2.5 gallons) and it feels like a sweet spot for me, it results in around 30 bottles of beer or little over a dozen wine bottles.
Thank you for all the content you make!
/Robert
That’s interesting! Probably similar to how I structure 3-gallon batches sometimes.
I’m starting out at 2.5 gallons myself. I wanted to start smaller and be able to go into maybe a few 1 gallon containers for secondary. This gave me some food for thought on starting out.
For me, I started as a five gallon brewerand even the occasional ten gallon batch of beer. I made the switch to one gallon batches of mead and beer because i wanted more brewdays for the same amount of bottling time. One gallon batches allow for experimenting and fine tuning recipes.
Once I'm satisfied with a mead recipe I will scale up to a fivegallon batch.
I've been doing 5 gallon batches but I wanna scale back. I'm still learning. I made a beer that was regrettable. 6 months of aging made it tolerable. That's still 50 beers that I screwed up. Also, it's HEAVY.
I want a video that's 5 gals to 1 gal.
I think maybe 3 gallons might be the max I would be comfortable pushing up to. With 1 gallon, it's nice to be able to keep costs and clutter down, especially when it's just myself consuming it. And I feel like there's just more room for recipe experimentation with small batches. But then I look at my mead already going for next Christmas, and it might have been nice to make 3gal instead of just 1. But my husband would probably have to move the carboys around for me. lol
Clutter Schmutter.
Go full 6 Gallon.
I have three 3-gallon carboys that stay busy. It’s a great size for lots of things. 👍
I'm glad you made this video. I have been wanting to scale up for some time. This helps. Thanks man.
I think the advantage to starting with 1 gallon is that mistakes are not as painful. It's a lot easier to give up on 1 gallon of mistake than 5 gallons. I would have been very discouraged if I lost that much product early on.
Second it allows for more iteration and experimentation.
Now that I'm getting more experienced I'm looking forward to brewing larger batches. Especially of beer.
I like playing around with super small batches like two cups. That way I can do more projects. I'm not making beer though.
Whoa! Would love to hear more about that. Sounds difficult to manage?
@DointheMost I am a noob to home brewing but I am just using quart-sized mason jars and EC1118. So I've got a little bit of honey and water in one. I juiced a couple of apples for another one. I'm making kombucha in another one. And I have some pineapple rinds to try to make tepache. I love playing around but I can't drink gallons of anything.
9:23 "killer on my old man knees" - I got a folding table for the kids when they were young, but I've been using it in brewing lately. It's very sturdy and adjustable in height. I think adjustable work surfaces are a must as we get older.
Funny you mention this, recently I was doing a lot of batches in a single day and about an hour in I was like, “why am I not using my folding table?” So I brought it into the studio and it made the next four hours and much more manageable.
Not sure I can trust advice from such a clean shaven brewer.. LOL! I actually gravitated to your channel a while back because you make larger batches. I’ve come to the same conclusions about batch size and I’m working on a keezer build right now. Thanks BC, keep it up!
Man, I picked the WRONG week to shave. 21F outside right now 😅
Just made my first 5 gallon batch yesterday 😎
👍
"Enough wine for a year from one batch" .... that's adorable 😆
Drink responsibly, I tell myself 😂
Haw , a Year ! I'll give away a 6 Pack Tote Bag 🛍️ of Bottles from Different Batches to each recepient during Christmas ☃️🎄. Then take a Backpack 🎒 Full to Game 🎯 Night . I Might Drink 🍷 , if I Really Hit IT , a Bottle 🍾 a Week .
🐯🤠
Meh, It would last me a weekend
PARTY!
Ive done 1 finished batch so far. Began the hobby this past September. Had a horrible experience with racking, mainly because i dont have the right equipment and space for it, as well as constantly being bumped by either my dogs or my kids. So with that lack if space, im starting the year off with with a 3 gallon FastFerment. Got 2 gallons of traditional with 3 orange zested. Gonna split it up into 2 separate gallins and keep 1 as is, and add vanilla to the second batch. Just started the hobby, live your videos as well as Man Made Mead. Learned an absolute assload of information between you two and cant wait to keep doing it!
Welcome to the hobby! Warning: before you know it, your house will fill up with gear and ingredients 😂
Is there a reason you do not discuss 3 gallon setups?
Have you ever made a Belgian tripel beer? I just bottled 5 gallons. A very interesting style of beer that's pretty strong and easy drinking. You can get some incredible banana esters if you use the right yeast and get a healthy fermentation.
I have not yet, I need to get back into more ambitious beer brewing. Having a kid has really sucked up all that free time I used to spend in the backyard brewing! 😅
@@DointheMost I made it a point to brew beers from around the world with real ingredients and yeast strains, Irish stout and porter are now my 2 favorite dark beers and Belgian tripel is my favorite strong beer.
You are rationalizing. Substituting accepted answered for the truth. In reality, most people don’t have a need for five gallons at one time.
Personally I work in one, three or five to six gallon batches. One gallon for experiments or limited resources. Three gallon for fairly certain recipes that may need some work. Five to six gallon for ones I'm confident in. One of my favorite 5.5 gallon batches is five pounds of honey, five gallons of apple juice, five grams of yeast(D47) for a total of 5.5 gallons and a yield of about 55 beer bottles.
I do love a simple cyser! Honey and apple is 🤌
@@DointheMost I agree! Sometimes I mix apple juice types or add apples to it like right now. And in my personal opinion, home made cider/cyser is better than the commercial stuff.
My favorite channel on UA-cam
🥰
I second adding milk crates to any carboy that is filled. Carboy glass brittles over time, you do not want to be handling the neck of a glass object that weighs ~70lbs full. Plenty of stories of people with carboys that shatter trying to move them around. And I also seem to run out of mead rapidly via gifting, so except for maybe my first two batches of mead, I've brewed 5gal since I started. 1gal batches go too fast, I don't have a lot of time to brew so I prefer to brew in volume when I can.
If you are going to be bottling 5 gal batches, HIGHLY advise you to get a little diagphram-based wine transfer pump. Decent ones run about $60, but they make bottling day much easier. I say this as a cheapskate, it's absolutely worth your money to get one.
All right, not first, but still significant.
You’re always significant in my heart
@@DointheMost 😂😘
Good to up grade! I upgraded to S.S. stainless steel. and do 10 gallon batches. pumps end packing heavy carboys! Trolleys help move Glass carboys!
I’ve been thinking about getting some of those little scooters that they have in preschools that the kids sit on to put my carboys on for moving around the house ha ha
I have off topic question. Is it advisable to stabilise wild yeast after fermentación?. I tasted my Pulque yeast dry stone fruits 9% mead ish thing.. Its near done, perfect notes. And i want it carbonated... Suggestions? Ideas?
Just researching outside looking in and video was excellent thanks 😊 ,confusing to pick the right size, starting out I want to make different flavors get my craft game on, if you want a specific maybe go bigger, don't feel saving money is a issue when you know you know your craft switching to a larger vessel would be your game to save time invested, in any trade or hobby you have to earn it first with good videos like yours to help
I use 1 gallon batches for testing recipes that are a bit risky, like using strange spices in a mead or making hopped apple cider
I'll Brew in Larger Batches , then Experiment 🥼🧪 with Adjunks in 1Gallon Carboys .
🐯🤠
😂 i've got started on 30 Liters (8 us Gallons) and now i have to make the most container halfe full because i am running out of space to store the bottles😅.
Fair, I have bottles in two closets, and the garage. Haha.
I often Brew in 5 or 6 gallon batches & store it 1 gal. jugs. 🍺😏
I like batches around 10litres or 2,5 gallons. I’m just above 1 year into this. Messing up 5-6 gallons feels awfull when you use your own produce. 1 gallon feels like a lot of work for little result. Here equipment are at 5 litres though, 1,4 gallons. To double the gallon makes a bigger risult without having to use that much produce. I make wine and ciders, not beer.
Is it feasible to brew 5 gallons of beer or mead in a food safe plastic jerry can rather than a carboy?
Where's Project Pat! Great tips here. Moving carboys is always sketchy.
Here I IS 🎉.
🐯🤠
I know im not the only person who sings the old intro song
I think one of homebrewings best kept secrets is the 3 gallon batch. You get a fair amount of volume without too much added expense. And if you make domething you really love double the recipe and you have a 6 gallon batch. I'm slow transitioning away from 1ga and 5ga and doing only 3ga and 6ga.
I really appreciate these kinds of viewer friendly videos, thank you! I went up to 3gal batches a while ago because a friend asked me to make some for his wedding to serve along the wine they would have. Its a perfect size in relation to my space since i have a table in my room with my fermenters on it and sice I just have a standard fridge(and like session meads) i can fit two stacked 1.6gal kegs with a little co2 tank and have a little room for the groceries too 😅
Would love to see some 3gal recipes though it is pretty easy to scale up or down.
Really Appreciate Your Video , Thanks !
🐯🤠
I see only 1 Person Commented on Your Clean Shaven 🪒 Face . I know People who Grow a Beard in the Winter ❄️🥶 then Shave 🪒 in the Summer . You were getting a Little Wooly😂.
🐯🤠
Thanks!
Thank YOU!
Battle of OU QBs on MNF. Who are you going with?
First-ish
Ish 😂
FIRST
Darn you!!!!
💩
💥🤯🎉🎊⚡✨🌟⭐💫👍.
🐯🤠
🤯💥🎉🎊⚡✨🌟⭐💫👍
🐯🤠