Water calls - all grain 1 gallon

[Brewer #96154]

Hi -

I am in a lockdown with limited kit and live in Africa so we can't order it online or have it locally in shops.


This is a first time brew and I managed to beg, borrow and steal some old grain (Maris Otter), old yeast (S-04) and old hops (Fuggles). Using a 7.5L (1.9gal) pot for the mash and boil.

Assuming I can work out a recipe for an ale with my ingredients (any suggestions would be awesome), how do I work out what water to start my mash with and how much to sparge water to use to bring it up to volume (excluding maybe some volume to add cold water and ice for cooling). I want to fermenter 1 gallon. Thanks.

 

[BrainYYC]

Hey man, this video will not give you the quantities but does give kind of a general overview of one of the processes that could work for a 1 gallon batch and the temps involved.

I've done a few 1 gallon batches and used these volumes of water to get about 1 gallon into the fermentor:

2.4 liters for mash
3.8 liters for sparge

Some incredibly knowledgeable people on this forum - Im sure someone will help with a recipe, and further advice - praying your yeast still has some legs! Good luck!

 

[4Bentley]

I would start with 1.5 qts per pound of grain. You will need 2-3 lbs depending on how strong you want it. I would sparge enough to have about 1.2 - 1.3 gal for a 60 min boil. You can use the recipe builder on this site to dial in what you need.

 

[BrewPatgonia]

Hello.
use 2 ltrs of water at 194 deg.F to mash 1.7 lbs of maris otter at 152 degF for 1 hour
use 7.5 ltrs of 173 degF water to sparge the grain
pre boil, you should have about 8.2 ltrs of wort. and you will boil this down to 4 ltrs in one hour timeframe.
boil for 1 hour, add .4 oz fuggles at beginning of boil (preboil sg 1.021, post boil sg 1.047)
add .2 oz of fuggles at 15 min. These will give you 41 IBU.

chill your wort as you can, when as cool as possible (less than 74 degF if possible, and closer to 62 degF is better.. pitch your dry yeast.

this would give you a pale ale..roughly 4.9% ABV. obviously sanitize everything.
this is simplifying everything, there is a lot more to it.. but watch some videos and you should do alright.
good luck.

edit: considering the volume of your boil kettle, 7.5 ltrs, only sparge enough to get about 85% full in your boil kettle... don't use the entire volume of sparge water... just get boil kettle somewhere near full and hopefully you will not sparge enough to get below 1.008 sg wort coming from the mash tun... you will boil this and end up with about 1 gallon of wort to pitch your yeast into. I am assuming that you don't have the method to determine any specific gravities.... etc. but this should start you on your way and give you a beer to enjoy. *hopefully, when you mention 'old' items... they aren't really that old.

 

[Brewer #96154]

T

I would start with 1.5 qts per pound of grain. You will need 2-3 lbs depending on how strong you want it. I would sparge enough to have about 1.2 - 1.3 gal for a 60 min boil. You can use the recipe builder on this site to dial in what you need.

Thanks very much. Will have a look at the recipe builder

 

[Brewer #96154]

Hello.
use 2 ltrs of water at 194 deg.F to mash 1.7 lbs of maris otter at 152 degF for 1 hour
use 7.5 ltrs of 173 degF water to sparge the grain
pre boil, you should have about 8.2 ltrs of wort. and you will boil this down to 4 ltrs in one hour timeframe.
boil for 1 hour, add .4 oz fuggles at beginning of boil (preboil sg 1.021, post boil sg 1.047)
add .2 oz of fuggles at 15 min. These will give you 41 IBU.

chill your wort as you can, when as cool as possible (less than 74 degF if possible, and closer to 62 degF is better.. pitch your dry yeast.

this would give you a pale ale..roughly 4.9% ABV. obviously sanitize everything.
this is simplifying everything, there is a lot more to it.. but watch some videos and you should do alright.
good luck.

edit: considering the volume of your boil kettle, 7.5 ltrs, only sparge enough to get about 85% full in your boil kettle... don't use the entire volume of sparge water... just get boil kettle somewhere near full and hopefully you will not sparge enough to get below 1.008 sg wort coming from the mash tun... you will boil this and end up with about 1 gallon of wort to pitch your yeast into. I am assuming that you don't have the method to determine any specific gravities.... etc. but this should start you on your way and give you a beer to enjoy. *hopefully, when you mention 'old' items... they aren't really that old.

Hi - thanks a bunch for this recipe and instructions. I managed to borrow a hydrometer. I hit 1.046 post boil so pretty close. I blended the malt and that must have helped. Awesome. Look forward to tasing the results