The joy of 1-Gallon Home Brewing
Getting started with a fun new hobby
Like any hobby, Home Brewing is a fun way to pass the time, that gives you an opportunity to relax away from the day job.
It’s more though, otherwise, my hobby would be laying on a beach in warm sunny weather while having my third nap of the morning.
A hobby can also be a skill, generally not one that you call upon in your normal working life, but one you can gain satisfaction from learning and developing further.
I fell into home brewing courtesy of a Christmas gift from my Son, and since then I’ve tried my hand at various ales, cider, mead, full-grain ale, extract ale, and wine. There’s so much to learn, so much to try, and plenty of room for personality as you experiment with your favourite tastes.
The video below is a step-by-step walkthrough of your brew day (which takes about 4 hours for an all-grain beer) and the various brewing stages to take you from grain to glass (about 6 weeks, though this can have lots of variability)
What’s so special about 5-Litres/1-Gallon?
I’ve chosen to focus specifically on 5 Litre brewing. A UK gallon is about 4.5 Litres so it’s not exactly a gallon, and I discovered mid-brew that an American gallon is much smaller! This tends to result in about 6–8 500ml bottles of your chosen beverage.
Brewing in these small quantities can largely be done without any great expense for equipment (though Amazon is well aware there are plenty of opportunities to add new home brew toys to your collection as your brewing goals increase). Your kitchen cooker, pots, pans, sieves and funnels will largely get you most of the way there.
The smaller volume lets you try out ideas relatively inexpensively, correct mistakes and not feel guilty about the financial loss if things go completely wrong. Not that I’ve ever experienced this problem, small batches are also nice and easy to keep under control.
I have found that many Home Brew Recipe’s and equipment focus on a larger home brew volume (40 pints or 19 Litres) and bigger equipment setups. This was too much for me, small volumes give me lots of variety without becoming a micro-brewery in my own right! The basics are still the same, and I have developed a formula for scaling down larger brews when needed (there is also software to help with this)
A Kit will get you started
As a beginner, a homebrew kit is your best idea. A kit will contain the basic equipment that you will need to get started. This is usually a 5L glass demijohn or plastic ‘fermentation bucket,’ along with a few other basic essentials to get going.
The ingredients and brew are slightly simplified for the starter level, and all you have to do is follow the recipe step-by-step to create your first brew. I sniggered slightly at some of the over-simplification in the first set of instructions, only to be thankful later on when everything was bubbling and my brain was failing to keep up with what I had to do next.
I’m pleased that my first kit included a glass demijohn, it just looks cooler than a plastic bucket. When it came to cleaning, my first additional purchase was an S-shaped brush needed to properly clean the inside of the glass vessel, not a problem I would have faced with a plastic bucket. But nonetheless, I still love — and still use — my first glass demijohn.
My First Home Brew
My first homebrew was not great, but it was mine, made with my own hand, and therefore it was all consumed eagerly. Family were generous in their compliments which helped motivate another attempt, and none of them died or went blind so I’d clearly done something right.
None of them mentioned the sandy, gritty bottom of the glass, which was my biggest improvement in brew number 2!
Most importantly, I learned all the steps. In my second brew, I was ready for every step when needed, and followed the recipe carefully with a knowing calm. The first time around, it was panic at every step as I was still trying to interpret the instructions while time was running out. Temperatures were consistently missed, always too high or too low, or I was too slow adding in the ingredients! It’s a credit to the tolerance of a simplified starter brew that it tasted anything like beer at all!
In Conclusion
I hope I have conveyed the joy of home brewing, I’m newly hooked and learning daily with each new self-created catastrophe. If you haven’t given it a try already, what are you waiting for? And I didn’t even mention the fun of being a barman for your own brews that will take the whole experience to another level.
Please check out my YouTube channel if you get a moment
Cheers Everyone
Rob
