Living in the good ole United States of America, I was raised on the idea that bigger is always better. Being the father of a young, and therefore by definition small, child has turned that idea into a lie. The best things in life seem to come in small packages.
Take books, for example. I’ve read plenty of 1000+ page books, and many of them were very good. But none of them can stand up to my four-year-old reading me Madeline. “In an old house in Paris that was covered in vines…” Priceless.
Even furniture. I love walking into her pre-school classroom and seeing everything is about a foot lower than I’m used to. Of course, I have to be careful if I decide to sit down on one of those pre-school chairs. I’m not always able to get back up again. Even my daughter gets excited when she sees small-sized furniture. “Look,” she’ll say, “it’s my size.”
On the other hand, when it comes to beds, she seems to prefer our king-size bed over her new twin-size bed, much to the detriment of a peaceful night’s sleep.
As it turns out, size matters when it comes to beer, too. I’ve recently become enamored to the idea of single gallon mini-batches, which yield just about one six-pack.
Why, you might ask, would I want to make even less beer at a time? Is it faster? No, not really. Is it cheaper? In the short run, yes (fewer ingredients), but proportionally, no (ingredients still cost the same). So what is the advantage to smaller batches?
Experimentation.
Five gallons of beer is a lot of brew at a time, roughly eight six packs. Now, in the case of rich, delicious homebrew, five gallons is barely enough. Time to upgrade, you might say! Ten gallons! Twenty! Open your own brewery! But what if the beer you’re making turns out to be terrible? What do you do with five gallons of bad beer? The size, and the cost, for that matter, of a full five-gallon batch makes branching out and trying new things a risky proposition.
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| I'm thinking of calling them "Skipper" and "Little Buddy" |
Enter the one gallon carboy.
This little beauty has enabled me to be risky, try different flavors, and generally experiment. The first batch I tried was an IPA. Not very exciting or unusual, but it was my first ever all-grain brew. I don’t have the equipment do make a full five gallon all-grain brew, so the smaller size made it perfect for practicing my technique. My second mini-batch was one I’ve always wanted to try: coffee bacon beer. I made a basic English-style ale, and added fresh-brewed coffee right to the wort. Then, after primary fermentation was over, I added bacon that I cooked until it was near burned, to get as much of the fat out of it as possible. It really could have gone either way, a miracle of brewing science, or a sin against nature. The result smells strongly of coffee, with a distinct taste of bacon, and the reviews have been generally positive. While I would never advocate beer for breakfast, this is the perfect brew for a late-night waffle run.
My next mini-batch is another one I’ve been dying to try: hot pepper beer.
I started with a pale lager recipe, currently going through primary fermentation, and I created an infusion of hot peppers and Tabasco infused oak chips in vodka, to add during secondary fermentation.
I might someday make a full batch of coffee bacon beer. And if the hot pepper beer works out, I’ll do a full batch of that, too. But the point is, I would not have tried a full batch of either one if I hadn’t been able to try a small batch first.
And what’s next for the mini-brew, after the hot pepper beer is done? Not sure yet. Maybe turn it into a perfect toddler-sized root beer factory. Of course, my daughter doesn’t drink soft drinks yet, but someday I’m sure she will, and when she does, I’ll be damned if she drinks that mass-produced high fructose, artificially flavored, laboratory-manufactured chemical poison! Daddy Makes Cola, all the way.
As you can tell, I take my beverages very seriously.
