Book recommendation

[Santamarina]

+1 for BeerSmith. It’s the best brewing software out there!

[jfmorris]

Richard Chrz Northern Brewer sells some extract kits for small batches:

https://www.northernbrewer.com/collections/small-batch-kits

Their pricing to me is a little steep! The 1 gallon kits are about 1/2 the cost of the 5 gallon kits. But they have a decent variety.

My favorite Internet supply, Morebeer, seems to only have 5 gallon kits:

https://www.morebeer.com/category/ales.html

Now, this said, if you have a recipe for an extract kit, you can most certainly scale it and buy just the ingredients needed for the size batch you want. I use BeerSmith brewing software to manage my recipes, and it has a scaling function built in. It also has a conversion tool to convert between all-grain and extract as well. Extract recipes basically replace the base malt with an appropriate malt syrup or dried malt extract, and any specialty grains you "steep" versus mashing.

If you get into it, BeerSmith is a great tool for playing around with recipes on paper (well, the computer), and seeing what works within a given beer style.

[Richard Chrz]

Thank you for sharing!

[Richard Chrz]

I did make the purchase a few moments ago on "How to Brew", I also threw in this book as well for reading entertainment. Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing
Book by Brian Polcyn and Michael Ruhlman I will check out that podcast. I have headphones in my ears most of the day anyway. Listening to some Thermodynamics videos on Khan Academy right now.

[jfmorris]

I spent a lot of time in the past listening to podcasts of "Brew Strong" from the Brewing Network. Jamil and John Palmer always kept it interesting!

[Santamarina]

John Palmer’s "How to Brew" is outstanding. It gets into the science but is still easy enough to read for anyone. It’s a great starting place. I read it cover to cover before I brewed my first batch, and continuously referenced it the first handful of of times I brewed.

The other resource that was a huge help to me was The Brewing Network (www.thebrewingnetwork.com). They have a series of podcasts dating back more than a dozen years full of excellent home brewing knowledge.

[AverageJoe]

These are the books I have. The one that is showing the top cover is really tiny one, but the majority of the recipes in it are extract or partial mash.

[AverageJoe]

Richard Chrz this is from my local homebrew store. They sell 1 or 5 gallon kits that come with instructions from the company called Brewers Best. These are what I started on about ten years ago and I now do all grain brewing and some partial mash. You should be able to google a homebrew shop close to you and theoretically they may sell these as well.

https://www.quirkyhomebrew.com/all-products/product-category/beer-ingredient-kits/1-gallon-kits/

[AverageJoe]

Richard Chrz I am not sure how much you have already, but this is a good starter homebrew kit that is done through Northern Brewer. It has everything except the Kettle for $199. They also have a popup that came through when I was on there for an additional 5% off your first order by entering your email address.

https://www.northernbrewer.com/collections/deluxe-beer-brewing-starter-kits/products/deluxe-brewing-starter-kit

[jfmorris]

Richard Chrz I had no idea of your circumstance before. I've got some ideas on how you can deal with larger batches of beer without much lifting involved. Gravity can be used to drain from a pot that has a ball valve into a fermenter on the ground for example. An electric pump can be used to transfer wort or hot water uphill. There are a lot of ways to solve these issues.

[Richard Chrz]

Thank you! I will check that out. I love workarounds! Nice screen name by the way!

[Richard Chrz]

p.s. it is not a bad thing it is just a thing. I always find work around's. Personally, I like to prove what you can do, instead of focusing on what you can not do., as long as it does not add to my wife's to do list in helping me out.

[Richard Chrz]

But, I could likely easily enough get someone to come over and do the heavy lifting. So, not saying it has to be, it would just allow me to be a lot more independent with it.

[Richard Chrz]

So, I have introduced myself here a few places. But, I am currently in an electric wheelchair, and have nerve disease that affects lot's of systems in my body, and strength is one of them, I am trying to use all of this free time I have (I am in the hospital roughly 16 hours a week getting infusions. But, back to strength. I try not to get myself into any situation I can not get myself out of. Lifting 5 gallons of whatever that is hot on a burner is not something I can lift to get out of if need

[jfmorris]

Richard Chrz you can do 1 or 2 gallon batches, but... why?

A 1 gallon glass jug cannot be filled to capacity for fermenting beer, as you need headspace for the krausen - otherwise it will all be foaming out the airlock. 5 gallons is 40 pints of beer, or 52 12 ounce brown bottles. 1 gallon is like 8-10 beers. Considering it takes the same amount of time to brew 1 gallon as to brew 5, its just a lot of effort for little return, in my book.

Grains and malt extract scale pretty linearly, but hop additions do not. And... boil off is a constant for a given pot diameter. So, if you make 5 gallons, and your boil off rate is 1 gallon per hour (mine is around 1.5 gallons boiled off per hour), you have to start with 6. If you do a 1 gallon batch in the same pot, you would need to boil 2, to end with 1. And you have loss due to true (settled out yeast and debris) in the bottom of the fermenter.

Example. I start with 7 gallons. It boils down to 6 gallons, maybe a little less. When I rack to the fermenter, I lose a half gallon to the pot, as you don't want to siphon the stuff that settles out like hop pellets, cold break, etc). So I have 5.5 in the fermenter. When I keg, I lose another half gallon to debris and yeast in the bottom of the fermenter.

I guess I am just saying, yes, you can do a 1 gallon batch, but it won't scale linearly from a 5 gallon recipe. Now, sure - you can split a larger batch into multiple fermenters. I often do 10 gallon batches (13 gallons when I start the boil), and split that into two 7.5 gallon carboys for fermentation, and have two 5 gallon kegs of finished product.

All this reminds me... I gotta get busy brewing for my nieces wedding soon. I got burned out brewing beer for my daughters wedding last summer, gotta repeat this summer.