newbie question: start with a 5g carboy or go smaller 42

On 3-10-2006 12:20 PM, Mr. Moody

Mr. Moody,

You have no doubt read the many various and valid opinions presented in response to the question you have posed to the group at large. I'll make my own contribution. As a person who started making beer, but very quickly moved to almost exclusive mead and wine production (as a qualifier, I made my first beer in over three years last Sunday), I found that the 5 gallon size my beer equipment was set up for was a wonderful size for a mead or a wine. The overriding reason why:

A one gallon batch is simply more difficult to make. I need to leave enough headroom for krausen no matter what the fermenter size is, and then after fermentation I need to find a means to top off. With one gallon batches I have tried making a stronger batch, counting on topping off with water to bring the gravity back into style, but this is a hit or miss proposition. With a five+ gallon batch I am able to target my OG and FG much more precisely, and a small amount of topping off has little impact on the batch as a whole. Racking a one gallon batch is less efficient than racking a 5+ gallon carboy. I lose more volume, percentage wise, with a one gallon batch than I do with a five+ gallon batch. A five gallon+ batch is more easy to protect from the perils of oxygen than is a one gallon batch. I typically add 1-4 Tsp. K-metabisulfite per 5 gallons at each racking. Measuring 1-4 Tsp is fairly trivial, but measuring 1-5 of 1-4 Tsp is less trivial. And, if I made the best of all possible wines, and it was a one gallon batch, I would forever regret not having made a five+ gallon batch. And replicating a one gallon batch in a five+ gallon size is far less trivial than replicating a favored five+ gallon batch.

I have made a few one gallon batches of mead. And a few three gallon batches, since I have acquired 2 three gallon carboys. But these have all been fairly experimental batches, where I have not been confident of the outcome. This is for me the entire purpose of a smaller batch size. It gives me the opportunity to try something radical, experimental, or downright odd. If it works, then I can make a five+ gallon batch, and if not I can move on without having wasted a large investment in ingredients. But, and again for me, any batch that is worth making is worth making at the five+ gallon level. I have never regretted making a batch of mead or wine at a volume of 5+ gallons, while I have occasionally regretted making a one gallon batch.

Cheers, Ken Taborek