Wort Transfer into Separate Fermenting Containers

[valsamik]

Looking for a sanity check on my next brew day. I'm a newbie and have brewed less than 10 batches and have really only had 3 batches that tasted good. So, I'm still working on it. I have a mini fridge that I converted with a temperature control to maintain a set fermentation temperature. However, the fridge will not fit a 5-gallon container. I can fit one 3-Gallon glass carboy and two 1-Gallon glass jugs. My guess is that I can split the wort into the three containers and pitch yeast appropriate to the size of the container. I am using Safaele us-05 (approx 6B cell count/gram). What I came up with is 3-gallon gets 8.8 grams and the 1-gallon containers gets 3 grams. Does this sound about right or should I pitch more yeast per container?

 

[jmcnamara]

That sounds about right. The nice thing with beer is that the ingredients scale linearly, if you double the batch you just multiply everything by 2.

And i do something similar when making test batches, but with liquid yeast. That's much harder to eyeball measure, so you're a step ahead of me with weighing it out.

Out of curiosity, are you going to blend them back together when you go to bottle? Could be interesting to bottle them separate and try to see if there's any differences

 

[jmcnamara]

And it sounds like you're already filling your melon with brewing stuff

 

[valsamik]

Out of curiosity, are you going to blend them back together when you go to bottle?

You know, I was thinking about mixing them back together, but you bring up a good testing point. I could definitely see if they taste different...not sure I'll know what the difference is the except size of the container.

 

[jmcnamara]

Yeah, it wouldn't be that exciting of a comparison I admit

 

[J A]

Can't you transfer to a 5-gallon bucket or carboy, pitch rehydrated yeast, make sure it's stirred well and then rack to successive containers? I have a Helles that I pitched a butt-load of trub in so that it filled the bucket nearly to the top. I just made sure it was mixed very well and then racked out a gallon into a gallon jug. They both fermented exactly the same and attenuated at the same rate. When it came time to secondary, there was room to rack both and fill up the carboy. Came out just about right with no beer wasted.
I'd say if you're doing 5 galllons of wort, you need 6 gallons of fermenter space. You're most likely going to get about 2 1/2 in the 3 gallon with enough headspace and somewhere around 3/4 in each of the gallon jugs. You might get lucky and not have a blow-out, but if you get greedy and don't leave sufficient headspace, it can get messy.