I've been mighty curious about these one-gallon homebrew kits from Brooklyn Brew Shop. They're designed for apartment dwellers (check!) who don't have a lot of space for brewing equipment (double check!) but who still want to brew great beer (triple check!). Talk about microbrewing!
Nearly everything you need for a one-gallon jug of homebrew is included in the package: grains, hops, yeast, sanitizing powder, siphon canes and hoses, and the jug itself. The only things you need to provide yourself are the pots, strainers, bottles, caps, and a capper (or swing-top bottles). The kit will make about two six-packs of beer.
My husband and I followed Brooklyn Brew Shop's instructions exactly while making the batch (take a look in the slideshow above). We've suffered from our fair share of poorly-written and confusing brewing instructions, so we found the Brew Shop's to be refreshingly straight-forward and comprehensive. They do a good job of emphasizing where you need to be extra careful and when it's ok to relax.
I was also impressed at how truly easy it was to brew this all-grain beer. When we first started brewing, all-grain was presented to us as the holy grail of beer brewing and not something to be attempted until we were much more experienced. Brooklyn Brew Shop doesn't assume any prior brewing knowledge, but we really thought that this kit would be as doable for a novice as for an experienced brewer.
The other thing that struck me while brewing this kit was how not worried I was. My husband and I are chronic worry-warts, especially when it comes to brewing, and we both remarked on this. We think that it's partially because we're less worried about a one-gallon brew - there's less at stake than with a full five-gallon batch. But it's also because brewing a smaller volume was just simpler. It was easier to maintain a consistent heat. It was easier to sparge the grains. Easier to transfer the liquid to the fermenter. Just all-around easier.
The only negative we could think of is that brewing a one-gallon batch takes about the same amount of time as a full batch. Which is to say, upwards of four hours once you factor in the time it takes to get organized, sanitize, wait for water to boil or wort to cool, and so on. In some senses, if it's going to take us the same amount of time, we'd rather just brew a whole big batch and have it done with.
Then again, when you brew a big batch, you're stuck with it. Even if we like what we brewed, we've found that we start getting tired of it by about the fifth six-pack. With these one-gallons, we can mix up our beer selection much more often. And this makes us very excited! In fact, we may need to buy a few more one-gallon fermentation jugs...
Our first batch of Brooklyn Brew Shop's Everyday IPA is still in fermentation. Check back in with us in another few weeks and we'll have our tasting review.
In the meantime, why not pick up your own one-gallon kit and get homebrewing?!
• One-Gallon Beer Kits, $40 from Brooklyn Brew Shop
Have you tried any of Brooklyn Brew Shop's kits? What do you think of one-gallon brewing?
Related: Homebrew Kit Review: Brewer's Best Imperial Pale Ale
Apartment Therapy Media makes every effort to test and review products fairly and transparently. The views expressed in this review are the personal views of the reviewer and this particular product review was not sponsored or paid for in any way by the manufacturer or an agent working on their behalf. However, the manufacturer did give us the product for testing and review purposes.
(Images: Emma Christensen)
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This seems much more accessible for a first-time homebrewer. I'm tempted to buy myself a kit!
This is a nice idea for someone without much space.
The hose coming out the carboy into a plastic bowl full of water? Theres a bubbler in the first picture. Why was that not used? Hmm...That has accidental contaminated beer written all over it.
@jmorri26 - The hose is a blow-off tube used during the first few days of fermentation when the rapidly fermenting beer creates a lot of foam. This foam could push into (or push out) a regular air lock. Once fermentation slows down, the blow-off tube is replaced with a regular air lock.
The blow-off tube is still a sanitized, "air-locked" system since the end of the tube is always underwater. Air can get out, but not back in. Which is kinda neato, I think!
Emma,
Thanks for the info! We've always used our air lock straight away (though we do use a sealed bucket that holds more than the 5 gallons so I guess thats why we've never had trouble with foaming up or overbubbling)
I saw that picture and just pictured my cats hoping up, bopping the hose out the water then chewing on it when I get home! Good luck with your mini-batch of beer!
That seems like a nice kit for someone who wants to try it out but has been intimidated by the price of equipment and the process. Very cute.
Good idea about the blow off tube. The first beer I brewed made a bit of a mess when the foam and gas pushed its way out of the airlock (and I was using a 6 gallon container). Didn't have that problem with other beers though but it can definitely be a problem.
@jmorri26 - Totally! I think with buckets, there's enough surface area and head-space that the foam is less of a worry. Like you, I've always used buckets with airlocks for my 5-gallon brews, and this was my first time with blow-off tubes!
And yes, the cats were a concern for us too. Thankfully, ours don't jump on the counter very often, plus we cordoned the beer off in it's own corner with the dish rack on one side to act as curious-feline-deterrent.
Happy brewing!
Just got the Summer Wheat version of this in at Williams-Sonoma. Really excited to try it!
The beers I've had the most problems with foam-overs were high sugar/high gravity beers. IPAs, Belgians, hoppy beers are pretty safe. Porters and malty beers usually required a lot of supervision, overflow mats, and extra air locks at the ready, even in 6 gallon buckets.
So, it's been awhile since the original post about making your 1 gallon of IPA, how'd the rest of the bottling and drinking go???
Where did you buy your bottles? I just bought one of these kits but need to figure out the bottling process which has me more than a little nervous.
People interested in brewing all-grain beers in small spaces should look into the brew-in-a-bag (BIAB) style of brewing. It allows larger batch sized than the 1gallon Brooklyn batches with almost no extra equipment than is needed for extract brewing. 2 to 2.5 gallon stovetop batches are very doable in even the smallest of apartments, and up to 5gallons are feasible with only the addition of a ~8gallon boil kettle.
here's a good example of BIAB done right- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6WVul6IEKk