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Comment by craigching | Hacker News Reader

As someone who used to homebrew but had to quit when I had kids (due to time) this looks like something I could totally get into. I would miss the process, but the idea of getting a good beer without the time sink is very intriguing!

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I was in the same boat and a friend recommended that I scale down the operation to a single gallon at a time. The equipment is a little less unwieldy, so sanitizing time is reduced. The water gets to the right temperature much faster. Less grain == less sparging time. The boil volume is a bit over a gallon, which is easily contained in a modest sized pot, so boil-overs are almost a non-concern. I let the grains steep and then start the bath routine and read books. After that, sparge and start the boil. I can get an all grain batch made on a Tuesday evening.

Plus, the smaller batch sizes let you experiment and you won't be saddled with the 5 gallons of terrible oktoberfest in my basement.

I just made this switch myself. My new tiny SF apartment makes 5-gallon batches impractical, so I brewed my first 1-gallon batch yesterday. I'll see how the results are in a month, but right now I can say that the process is way easier:

- Equipment mostly fits in my dishwasher

- Moving/pouring 1 gallon of liquid is faster, easier, and results in less spillage than 5 gallons

- No need for a wort chiller, since an ice bath is more than effective enough for a 1-gallon batch

- Fermentation control will be a lot cheaper, since a small dorm fridge will fit the fermenter

- As you pointed out: more experimentation because the cost of failure is much lower

Do you do all-grain? Or extracts? If all-grain, how are you mashing?

How are you doing your mashes?

EDIT: Just for clarification, just before my first daughter was born I was doing 15 gallon boils with a converted cooler for a mash tun. It was so much fun! But the time to do all that and cleanup (as you know, cleaning is THE most important part of course and a significant slice of the time) was pretty much a whole Saturday morning and afternoon, prime kid time.

You steep the grains in your brew pot for an hour and then sparge by using an additional pot and a large colander. Brooklyn Brew Shop sells one gallon brew kits, but if you already have brewing supplies, the only thing you would need to add is a one gallon carboy (I buy the gallon jugs of wine at the supermarket, and then just re-use the jugs).

I brew both 5 gallon batches and 1 gallon batches (mostly for experimentation). TO keep the costs down on the gallon batches, I use washed yeast and hops leftover from other recipes. The cool thing about the gallon batches is you can squeeze in an all-grain brew in an evening on a weekday, but the obvious downside is it only yields ~9 beers, which I find to be too small a yield for the amount of effort. Also, if you already have a wort chiller, you won't save that much time compared to a 5 gallon extract brew.

If you are dead set on all grain, others on this thread have mentioned the brew-in-the-bag method. It looks like you just steep the grains (using a really big mesh bag). It looks like this method gets you about 3 gallons, but if you already have a bunch of equipment, you could probably adapt this method to 5 gallons.

I've steeped grains before, but that's pretty significantly different from a real mash. Usually steeping grains was used to enhance a base extract which formed the base of the boil. So you're saying you can just steep grains without using any extract? How do you keep your temps stable to have a good mash? Do you have any links to this method? Or book references? I appreciate your response!

You can get a good amount of conversion just from steeping. A lot of the extract brew kits use unmilled grain, which is good for shelf life but bad for conversion (but still adds flavor), which is probably where you got the impression that steeping doesn't work. I think the primary reason for needing a mash tun is to handle the volume of grain needed for 5+ gallons of brew. If you are brewing less than that, you can get away with steeping in the brew pot, and equipment permitting, sparge using a colander or grain bag. Just add a little extra grain to account for conversion losses.

From my experience, you only loose a few degrees of temp over the hour of steeping in the boil kettle. I usually put a towel or two on top of the lid to help retain heat, and if needed, will pour some hot water in from the tea kettle to keep the temp up, but that is rarely needed.

For a quick, hipstery, overview of the gallon batch method go here, I use this method for my gallon brews, and the results have been really good: http://brooklynbrewshop.com/instructions

I haven't tried this, but here is the brew-in-a-bag method: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brewing/biab-brew-in-a-ba...

I have a buddy in a similar situation as yours (kids, no time to brew). He has a killer setup (15 gallon, all-grain), and his solution was to just cut back to brewing a few times a year, and invite some buddies over to help. I think one gallon brews are best left to people in small apartments or for experimentation. In your situation, I would keep in mind the yield-per-time metric. A 15 gallon brew might take a few hours longer than a gallon brew, but it yields 15x more beers. Gallon brews are a good way to keep your brewing instincts sharp, but it won't keep your fridge full.

Awesome, thanks for the information, I think I'm going to have to try that! :)

Before I sold off my brew equipment (that was a very hard thing to do!) I tried to set something up with my friends where they would store the equipment and I'd come over and brew with them. Amazingly no one wanted to at the time, but to this day they are kicking themselves for not taking advantage of it. I had nice quick-release hoses, a Therminator chiller (that is the one piece of equipment I almost kept, prior to that chilling times were killing me!), an nice 15 gallon polar ware brew pot and I was working on getting either a nice gravity setup or getting a stainless steel fermentor. The latter was in consideration because I'd once bounced a 6 gallon glass carboy off my floor accidentally and split my hands open. Not fun! Man, I miss brewing thinking about all that! :)

EDIT: I think once my kids are just a bit older I might be able to get back to a bigger brew. My kids are 6 and 3 so they still need a lot of attention. But I think once the 3 yo is maybe 6 I could probably do a big brew day again.

Steeping your grains is all there is to it. You still have your specialty roasted grains, but instead of base extract you use a 'base grain'.

I got the basic process from http://www.amazon.com/True-Brews-Craft-Fermented-Kombucha/dp.... As a bonus, it also has instructions for mead, sake, kombucha, soda, fruit wines, and kefir. Each section includes a 'master' recipe and then 4 or 5 specific recipes. After a couple of batches, you will start making your own recipes without even thinking about it. I usually get 10 or 11 bottles from a batch, which is perfect for me. I'm not a daily drinker. The watermelon/mint soda combined with a good gin is dangerously good though, watch out for it.

The book uses the two-pot method that pyoung talks about. With such a small volume of water, the temperature is pretty stable, especially if you use gas. I found that the efficiency was a little lower than what I was used to, so I just used a little bit more grain, which increased my batch costs by about 25 cents. I ended up using a small sports cooler that I already had around - I wrap it in a towel and it stays remarkably stable, plus it has a spout on the bottom that makes sparging easier.

IKEA has 3 gallon pots for $12.

Cider instead? WRT leftovers kids like apple juice and slices. Note that residential juicers are often not thermally sized for hour long juice runs so be careful and work in batches.

You can make this painful by growing your yeast from dry culture for days blah blah or just buy one of those smack bags where you break the inner container and let it boot up.

Once you're done, making applejack is just as illegal as operating a still, so just like fight club, don't talk about it.

I started off in the 90s making meads (my advice, avoid meads) and wines and the first time I made beer with some buddies I was somewhat stunned by how complicated it is. So I'm just saying if you want a nice fermented drink that's simpler than beer, its hard to find anything more complicated than beer, so ...

I am curious as to why you recommend avoiding meads? I made a gallon batch (still fermenting though) and it was by far the easiest brew process I have come across. Basically just heat up some water and dump honey in, then transfer to the carboy and add yeast. I think it took all of 20-30 minutes. Scaling up to a 5 gallon batch would add a trivial amount of time. Was it the taste? I tasted it when I transferred to secondary, and it was tolerable (I would compare it to a funky white wine). Or fermentation time (was told that it needs about six months total)?

If time ever became a big constraint for me, I imagine I would just cut my brewing down to a few big beers a year (high gravity or other styles that call for long fermentation) which would keep the carboys full, but would also stretch out the time between brews. And then I would try and mix in some meads or all extract brews.

Meads are possibly the easiest thing you can brew yourself, second only to things that start fermenting when you don't want them to.

The problem is that straight honey mead is just not all that interesting to drink. It usually does have some of the residual honey character - but who wants to drink a pint of diluted honey?

By the time you get around to tweaking recipes that turn out a product most people would like you're either back at the same level of effort or time you'd have to spend making a regular grape wine.

I've made a handful of meads so far and I don't think I'm going to do another one unless I have a specific recipe in mind - maybe a metheglyn or a braggot.

And that it takes 18 months to get good.

I disagree. I think there's a lot more to mead than "diluted honey." Varietal honey produces different flavors, not to mention all the variations you can produce by adding juices and spices.

It's also one of the few homebrews that can save you money. A good batch of homebrewed beer is often not much cheaper than a good store bought microbrew. Compare this to my local meadery which charges $22 for 750 ml of mead. I can brew 5 gallons (~19,000 ml) of good mead for around $60.

Not really into the Cider, thanks for the suggestion though. I brew beer because I like to drink beer :) I don't find brewing too complicated, just very time consuming, time I no longer have now that I have kids.

Agreed. I've made many wines, including some from grapes growing wild on my own property. But every time I think about trying to brew beer, I look at all the steps it requires and all the time and just buy a 6-pack of something good instead.

In the U.S. it's impossible (at least where I live) to get a beer that is equivalent to something you get in England. What I'm talking about are the "real ales" of England. You get a beer that is 3% to 4%, fresh as hell, served from a hand drawn pump (a cask), kept, yes, a little warmer than you'd expect in the U.S.

In Minnesota there is nothing compared to that. Some places will try to have a cask, but it's not the same (they usually use some sort of swirler to fake the real cask ale head). Our beers are just too high alcohol and force carbonated, it just isn't the same. When I visit England, I can drink 4 to 6 of these real ales and just have a mild buzz. Try that with a 7% IPA that you get here, doesn't work.

So here's a short list of some of my favorite beers from England. If you get a chance, give them a try! You must have them from a good pub (ask around) and they have to be fresh (they will be at a good pub):

Hogsback Traditional English Ale (yes, T.E.A) -- https://www.hogsback.co.uk

Hopback Summer Lightning -- http://www.hopback.co.uk

West Berkshire Good Ol' Boy -- http://www.wbbrew.com

Adnams Southwold Bitter -- http://adnams.co.uk

When I get back into brewing, these are the beers I'm going for ... unless it is indeed possible to "buy a 6-pack of something good instead" ;)

You can definitely get a 'real ale' in the US. It's a shame you can't get it where you live, though. During the summer, there's a place near me that does 'Mother Firkin Thursdays' with a about 10 experimental ales in firkins, most of them around 4% and at 58 degrees. The rest of the year, they just have a few in casks available for the regulars.

In case anyone with kids on the way is worried, I can confirm that once they get to a certain age you can rope them in help with the process. Then you get dad-kid time, a more fun brew and the kids get a respect for the brewing process which may help once they're old enough to drink themselves.

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