Think Small, part 1

There comes a time in every one gallon brewer’s life, when they ask themselves: why not less? I’m already brewing a cumbersome, impractical amount, why not take it to a freakish extreme? Heck, some of the tricks I employ in brewing so little so well would actually be easier on a smaller scale…

Well, dear readers, that ball of fool’s lightning struck not once, but twice, and the result is the following ***TWO PARTER***!

Part the first: a gallon, split in twain, then split again! Or, a quart

Brewing a quart has one fiendish difficulty: no, not the boil, or even the recipe design, but indeed, keeping the mash to-temp. And while something like my patented Reverse-HERMS® would certainly work, another modern tool works just as well - the Sous Vide temp controller!

That’s right, I bagged the sucker. Oh, and it goes without saying this batch was all grain - without that complication, you just boil, chill, and ferment. But neigh, I wondered if doing even something as exotic as a step mash might be, god forbid, convenient at this scale!

And while the process is documented below, spoiler alert, the large volume of wort involved (relative to the size of the heat bath, of course) made step mashing impractical (it would have taken a good deal of time to hit target temps, and as such, the Helles wort came out way under target - but the Mild was nice!)

The recipe is as follows:

  • 5 oz British Base Malt

  • .5 oz Crystal, 90 SRM

  • .3 oz DRC

  • .3 oz Flaked Oats

  • .2 oz Chocolate Malt

  • .1 oz Black Malt

  • .05 oz EKG, 60 min

  • Add to 2.18 qt (salt treated) water, mash at 150˚ for an hour or so

    • something like .6 g/gal sulfite, .5 g/gal calcium - roughly

  • Strain, boil for 60 minutes; low simmer, with the goal of, you guessed it, 1 qt

  • Ferment at like 65˚-68˚ with a nicely estery british yeast

  • Force carb in a PET bottle with a CarbCap®, or in a keg, or bottle condition with a small amount of, say, invert sugar! ‘Cause fuck you, bud!

Thanks for reading, and brace yourself for part 2 (Less than a quart?? Psycho. No. Out.)