Homebrew equipment and recipe kits are most commonly designed for batch sizes of 5 gallons, it’s become an industry standard that’s accepted by most as the norm. While it’s possible the first kit manufacturers settled on the 5 gallon mark because it struck the perfect balance between too little and too much, it’s also possible the volume was more a function of two less romantic things– plastic and profits. Standard 6 gallon paint buckets are cheap, easy to use, and remarkably effective fermentation vessels, and including them in kits allows for shop owners to sell ingredients for 5 gallon batches, which ultimately turns a larger profit than smaller volume brewing. This stuff matters, particularly back when our fledgling hobby was striving to make a name for itself.
And make a name for itself, it most certainly has! By some accounts, there are over 1.2 million people who homebrew today, the majority presumably cutting their teeth with 5 gallon starter kits. Often, those who find themselves tromping down the obsessive path of homebrewing end up stepping outside this size standard for various reasons, brewing up smaller and/or larger batches for the purposes of experimentation, economics, and enjoyment.
For this Brü’s Views, we welcome a guest who has undoubtedly inspired many homebrewers to step outside of their brewing comfort zones to try new and exciting things. As the voice behind the Basic Brewing Radio podcast, James Spencer has been an integral part of the homebrewing community for over a decade, and he’s made a name for himself as an advocate of small batch brewing. A huge thanks to James for sharing his thoughts on less traditional batch sizes!
On Less Traditional Batch Sizes
| JAMES SPENCER |
My obsession with small batches began when I was making an extract starter in late 2005. As I watched the small volume of wort boil in the pan, I thought to myself that I was essentially brewing a tiny batch of beer. I would just need to add hops to make it complete. That fascination grew into an experiment for the first episode of what became Basic Brewing Video. I brewed two half-gallons of beer, adding extract in one for the full length of the boil and only in the last fifteen minutes in the second. The beers came out differently, but each was very tasty.
Early the next year, I decided to brew a six-pack of IPA. Using a one-gallon jug as the fermenter for an extract recipe, Steve Wilkes and I discovered the resulting beer to be just as tasty as bigger volume recipes. More experiments followed: splitting a five-gallon batch of mead into one-gallon jugs and flavoring with ancho chilis, apricots, blood oranges, black cherries, allspice, and saffron; a robust extract porter; and an all grain IPA.
With each of these batches, we found that we could be a bit adventurous with recipe formulation and experimentation with unusual ingredients. Brewing with less volume means there is less risk. If you screw up a gallon’s worth of ingredients, you’re not out that much money. This led to experimental brews such as my Fruitcake Barleywine that featured brown sugar, molasses, tons of spice, and candied fruit. If it turned out weird and nasty, it would be no big deal. If it were awesome, I could scale up into a “full sized” batch. It turned out to be delicious, but I still stick to small volume brews. A little goes a long way.
I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from brewers who see the value of playing with smaller batches, but I have also received some negative comments, too. Some say things like, “I don’t get out of bed for anything less than a ten-gallon batch.” Sure, even though small batches don’t take as much time to brew as larger batches, brewing big is more efficient, time-wise. However, there are several advantages to thinking small:
- Experimental “pilot” batches of test recipes
- Less financial risk of failure
- Lower cost of entry in brewing equipment
- Smaller footprint, allowing small-space brewers to brew more easily
- Lighter weights of kettles and fermenters for those who can’t lift heavy things
- More variety in the kinds of homebrew we produce
- Less time needed for brewing and packaging
Nowadays, my average batch is two gallons. My fermenter is a three-gallon plastic spring water jug that I got at the hardware store. I can play around with recipe formulation, and by the time I’m ready to move on to drinking something different, the homebrew is gone.
I’ll give one more example before I get off my soapbox. When my son was in high school, one of his friends expressed an interest in the science of brewing and wanted to sit in on a brew day. I invited him, his little brother, and his dad over to brew a one-gallon batch of pale ale. It was an all grain batch, and I used Marshall’s quick and dirty technique of only mashing for half an hour and boiling for the same amount of time. We chatted around in the kitchen while we brewed, and before we knew it, the wort was chilled and pitched. A few weeks later, we had the family back over to sit on the patio, and the dad and I sampled the results. It was a delicious, hoppy, clear pale ale. The same process full-sized would have taken much longer and would have been quite a lot more work to brew. Scaling it down allowed us to demonstrate the science while staying inside the short teenage attention span.
To wrap up, I’m not lobbying for anyone to scrap his or her brew sculpture or conical fermenter. However, brewing small can be a versatile tool in your brewing tool belt as you craft the next generation of excellent brews.
| MARSHALL |
I found myself pondering the extent to which batch size matters years ago as I was in the process of building out my garage brewery. I’d only ever made 5 gallon batches at that point, and while I was pretty sure my friends and I could plow through more beer, I was concerned higher volume batches might complicate my brewing process, potentially to the point of making it less enjoyable. Ultimately, I resolved to buying equipment that would allow for larger volumes but work equally as well for the 5 gallon batches I was accustomed to, just in case 10 gallon brew days sucked. With my 70 quart cooler MLT and 14 gallon kettle acquired, I made my first 10 gallon batch of beer back in September of 2011, after which I realized any concerns I had were erroneous. It was exactly like the many 5 gallon batches I’d made previously, save for the few extra minutes it took to heat my strike water, bring the wort to a boil, and chill the greater volume of liquid. By making a larger starter from a single pack of yeast, I was essentially able to make double the amount of beer for a marginal investment bump. Awesome!
Two kegs of Tiny Bottom Pale Ale next to 2 kegs of m(O)ktoberfest followed by 2 kegs of Helles next to 2 kegs of…
Dammit, when’s that Tiny Bottom gonna kick?!?!
This experience is what ultimately inspired a change in my brewing behavior. It’s not necessarily that the beers weren’t good, there was just so much of the same thing. From the 6 taps I had on my keezer flowed only 3 styles. What I was missing was variety. Rather than reverting back to brewing smaller batches more often, I began splitting 10 gallon batches, either prior to or after the boil, and doing something different to half such as steeping specialty grains, boiling with different hop schedules, and fermenting with different yeasts. It was through this that the exBEERiment series was born.
These days, I rarely make batches smaller than 5 gallons, save for the occasional Short & Shoddy brew, mostly because I end up giving the large portion of what I make away during the data collection process and prefer to have some leftover to enjoy myself. But in my opinion, small batch brewing is tremendously valuable, not only for those curious about the impact of different ingredients and process variables, but for brewers looking to either make the switch from extract brewing or new folks interested in jumping directly into all-grain brewing! The fact a 2 gallon batch of delicious all-grain beer can be made in roughly the same time it takes to throw together an extract batch using “gear” many have on hand makes it a very appealing and affordable option.
| GREG |
I’m a big advocate of brewing non-standard batch sizes. In fact, I don’t think I’ve fermented in a standard 6 gallon carboy in well over a year. If you’ve been following the xBmts, you may have noticed I’m the lone weirdo who forgoes carboys altogether in favor of my fermentor of choice, corny kegs, which generally necessitate non-standard batch sizes considering headspace needs.
I believe corny kegs are superior to carboys in pretty much every way imaginable. They are made of durable, easy-to-clean stainless steel and come with a built in diptube for sampling. Their tall and slim profile means I can fit a good deal more of them in my fermentation freezer, which means more beer for me. They come in a variety of sizes including 2.5 gallon, 3 gallon, 5 gallon, and 10 gallon. They even allow for pressurized fermentation like the pros as well as using the pressure to facilitate easy oxygen free keg-to-keg transfers. Sure, they may cost a little more, but since kegs can be found used for reasonably cheap and they last a lifetime, I view the added investment is more than worth it. Lastly, if you happen to drop one, you’re not going to end up in the hospital with a leg perforated with shards of glass.
My love of non-standard batch sizes is certainly not limited to corny kegs, as I’ve fermented in all kinds of vessels including buckets, 2 liter soda bottles, and 1 gallon glass apple juice jugs. When I really want to experiment with an obscene number of small batches, my preferred fermentor is definitely the half gallon mason jar. I know what you’re thinking– how much beer can you even make in a mason jar? The answer is about 3 bottles worth. It’s not much, but when I just want to make a bunch of beers while manipulating a single variable for experimental purposes, 3 bottles per fermentation is plenty. For example, I once compared 7 mini batches with different hop steep temperatures.
Sometimes brewing non-traditional batch sizes requires a bit of ingenuity and tinkering, like the time I bent copper tubing to make the world’s most adorably small immersion chiller used for my mason jar setup. And then, of course, the finished 
beer needed to be bottled, so I jury-rigged a crazy oxygen free bottling system using CO2 pressure to push the beer through my beer gun. It may seem nutty, but the system works! My over-engineered mason jar brewery makes it easy for me to experiment with variables that would otherwise be impractical to test with full-size batches.
I’m not advocating that others ditch their carboys and start fermenting solely in mason jars. I just want to point out that there are plenty of non-standard food grade containers available that could easily be repurposed for fermentation. For those who feel like experimenting and don’t want to risk an entire 6 gallons of beer, give small batch fermenting a try. Get creative and think outside the carboy!
| RAY |
I’m often envious of other brewers who have a big variety of beers available at home, and who frankly have the time to dedicate to many different styles and experimental batches. Splitting a single 5 gallon batch of wort into multiple 1 gallon fermentors with varying yeasts, dry hops, etc. seems really interesting to me, but alas, I have neither the time nor the patience to do it myself.
These days, I find myself in a sort of strange land of brewing due to my involvement with Brülosophy. I’ve made the mistake in the past of letting friends and family get to my beer supply before I’ve gotten enough xBmt tasters, so now I generally mark xBmt beers as “DO NOT DRINK” on the keezer up until I’ve reached a set minimum, after which they go up-for-grabs. But this leaves me with a problem– no beer for myself, friends, and family for stretches of time. Hence, I recently changed the typical batch size I brew, opting to make two 10 gallon batches, so 20 gallons at a time, which allows me use 10 gallons for data collection and an extra 10 gallons for home “supply” including a keg I keep filled at my brother-in-law’s plcae. Even this feels extreme to me, completely monopolizing my fermentation space and further bottle-necking my production. But I don’t feel I have a lot of choice right now. While I could trim a little time out of my brew day by scaling back the batch sizes, the time-scarcity I’m faced with makes this is the best option for me– the output volume is sufficiently large to justify the time expenditure, and while I have a lot of curiosity about small batch experimentation, I just can’t get motivated enough to sacrifice the notable time required to package each of those versions. No, it’s far easier for me to brew my 20-gallon batches, keg it all at the same time, and be done with it.
One thing I hate about these larger batch brew days is how gun-shy it makes me when it comes to trying something weird. I don’t want to do anything that could potentially ruin the 10-20 gallons, so to some degree, I end up stuck in ruts in regards to the recipes I make, repeating just a handful of styles with only minor iterations. On one hand, I think this is good practice in that it helps me to really hone a recipe. However, on the other hand, I envy the small batch brewer that more frequently steps outside their comfort zone to make something that might be great, while accepting the arguably “smaller” risk that it may very well be awful.
| JAKE |
The size of batches people choose to brew has fascinated me since I started homebrewing. An old coworker of mine who brewed 50 gallon batches of his Mexican lager recipe only a few times per year contrasted with a friend who brewed 2 gallon partial mash batches every week or two. Both swore by their methods and cited various valid reasons for doing so.
I’ve had experience brewing anywhere from 2.5 gallon to 15 gallon batches and found, at least with the all-grain method I use, the time I dedicate to a batch doesn’t really change much based on size. With that being the case, I’ve kind of settled on brewing 10 gallon batches, as for me it strikes a decent balance between time investment and the amount of beer produced, allowing me to both enjoy beers I love while giving plenty away to friends for various reason. It’s also not so much that I feel bad dumping beer I’m not super pumped about or want to move on from and forget.
Ultimately, the batch size one chooses to stick with will be influenced by various things, and for me that was my desire to try new styles while also having old standbys avialble. Ten gallons does that for me. I love the idea of smaller batches, and as homebrewers with little investment in a batch, or customers to appease, I feel like it’s something amazing we can do. I’ll probably revisit small batch brewing in the future, but for now I’ll stick with 10 gallons and dream about my future ingredient exploration.
| MALCOLM |
I brew batch sizes that work for me, and since I share most of the beer I brew, smaller batches just don’t make sense for my applications. When I brew, it’s typically for a competition, special occasion like a wedding, or for an xBmt, and I often try to work it out such that a single brew day meets multiple demands while leaving me with some to drink for personal enjoyment.
Even when I’m not brewing with a particular purpose, I’ll usually stick with 11 gallon batches since it takes about the same amount of time and effort as a standard 5 gallon batch, plus I have the option of splitting the wort to make different beers. For example, I recently brewed an 11 gallon batch of Belgian Blond for competition, but I didn’t need to submit 10 full gallons, so I decided to do something else with the other half of the wort. As it turns out, I had a Sour Golden Ale ready to keg, which left me with a “bugged-up” carboy waiting to receive the fresh wort. Perfect! To add some character, I performed a simple mini-mash of wheat, oats, and Pilsner malt then added the resultant wort to the sour batch. Two beers, one brew day.
That’s what we think about less traditional non-batch sizes, what about you? If you’ve stepped outside of the 5 gallon zone, please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below!
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21 thoughts on “Brü’s Views w/ James Spencer | On Less Traditional Batch Sizes”
I like to brew in a variety of sizes. I’ll do a 1-gallon BIAB to test a SMASH recipe or something weird I’ve never made before (e.g., Berliner Weisse the first time). I do 5-gallon batches for stuff that I’m pretty confident in but not 100% sure of the recipe, or if it’s got stupid high gravity (hello, barleywine!) When I have a recipe locked in and I want to share it with as many people as possible, I go for 10 gallons. I think 10 gallons is the most bang for my buck. It takes maybe 20 minutes longer than 5 gallons and I end up with twice as much beer!
I do 3 gallon all grain batches because that’s what fits on my kitchen stove and my old soup pot. Brewgr hosted on my LHBS makes it easy to scale recipes. I’ve considered making the investment in a “real” kettle and burner but don’t really want more than 24 of any 1 beer. So for now I am happy – bottling saison and brewing amber ale on Saturday. Finishing my citrus wheat just in time while the saison conditions.
Greg,
I’d love to know more about the process with the mason jar fermenters. I see the value of micro brew but bottling is what keeps me from brewing small. A write up in the future?
Not a bad idea, I’ll bring up the idea with Marshall
I have found that 4 gallons is my sweet spot–I usually bottle 3 gallons and transfer one to a smaller fermenter for a secondary on fruit or some other flavoring. I feel like it gives me the perfect amount of variety and enough beer to meet my needs.
For me I enjoy the act of brewing more than the drinking (which is good too!). So I tend to end up with waaay too much beer. What I’ve settled on doing is keeping 1 corny full of beer in my 2 tap kegerator, the other tap gets soda water for the wife.
Once my sipping keg is full I’ll keep the brew days rolling by doing 3 gal batches. Those package into 24 to 30 bottles which I tend to hand out to friends. Said friends don’t mind pitching for 3 gals worth of ingredients in exchange for finished beer. So I basically get to brew for free as often as I’d like with a wide variety of styles. I’m not really interested in anything larger than 5 gal, it would take me forever to go through that much beer.
As an add to James Spencer’s list …
2.5G batches can be brewed and packaged indoors in climate-controlled comfort all year around.
I tend to brew 5-7 gallon batches but with a friend and we split the batches, it’s a great way of getting the efficiency of bigger batches whilst getting to brew a greater variety of beers. Two pairs of hands is also very useful and is a lot more fun. It’s also very easy to brew two batches at once.
I wonder if the 5 gallon capacity of corny kegs had anything to do with 5 gallons becoming the “standard” batch size.
I have a slightly different perspective to offer. I built an E-Brewery with about a 16 gallon maximum capacity (with Fermcap S!!) about 1.5 yrs ago. I decided that one way to make for a fun Saturday and to share my hobby, would be to get everyone I know who is interested to join my brew club. Basically, once per month anyone who wants to comes to my basement, shares beer and drinks beer while we (I mostly) brew up a 16 gallon batch of beer. We split the cost and split the wort between everyone who wants a share. The result is that I have gotten from maybe 1.5 gallons up to 5.25 gallons of wort on any given month. I have learned a lot about different styles and haven’t been afraid to try different things. Also, I’ve been able to get a lot more people into brewing. Also, the brew day is super fun.
I would HIGHLY recommend starting up a brew club with your large-volume brewing system to take advantage of the large capacity and also to take advantage of the opportunity to try smaller batches. I often just ferment whatever size it is in a 5 gallon glass carboy, and it has plenty of CO2 production to remove all of the air in the carboy. I can do a 1.5 gallon batch in the 5 gallon carboy with no problem. I did buy a couple of 3 gallon kegs for the smaller size batches, which was a huge win in my opinion.
A huge learning issue on this is to taste everyone’s beer after a month or two from a particular batch and see how they vary depending on the temperature, yeast, hops, whatever was done after the wort production! I have learned a lot from this. For example, US-05 is highly prone to diacetyl and higher temps, bottling results in much less hoppy beer than kegging, ale temps for lagers results in great tasting lager, and others!
Your exBEERaments have inspired me to start experimenting by splitting the batches I brew in half; using different yeasts with the same wort. Over the last few months, I’ve brewed four 12 gallon batches, using different yeasts across an IPA, Helles, Red IPA (twice) and Oktoberfest. On Sunday I’ll be doing the same with a Northeast-style Pale Ale that’s being split between Conan and London Ale III. I’m trying to also settle on a different set of dry hops between the batches. The experimentation and learning are a huge part of the enjoyment I get out of the hobby. For a few of these, I’ve submitted the better of the two halves to a local competition, bringing home 2 golds an an Honorable Mention. This has enabled me to start to settle on house yeast (which I’m banking) and a stable of tried and true hops, which I now buy in bulk, saving money 🙂
I go for a variety of sizes, but really it is just variations of 3 and 6 gallon batches. I am moving towards glass carboys to fight a persistent infection that seems to be coming from my bigger better bottles (I am not getting it in my smaller better bottle batches though). My typical brew sizes are 2.4-2.8 gallons and 3.5-5.2 gallons depending on which size carboy I am going to use, what I am brewing and frankly how long I want the better to be around.
I end up drinking probably 50% of what I brew in a given year with my wife only drinking a little bit of it (unless it is a pumpkin beer) and friends/neighbors drinking the rest. I probably go through on average about 30 bottles of beer a month from December to May and then 40 bottles a month the rest of the year (more neighborhood parties, family get togethers, etc.)
I also really enjoy having several varieties in the bottle. The last year I had been moving towards bigger batches, but then they stuck around too long. I sometimes go through spells where I don’t have a lot of time to brew, so I am glad when I had made 2-3 5+ gallon batches recently, but then I get in to a time when I have a lot more spare time and I want to brew up 3 or 4 or 5 batches…and then brewing 5 gallon batches means I am stuck with winter beer in late July (I still have 7 bottles of Dubble I brewed in late October)!
So I am starting to move back towards 2.5-3 gallon batches. I’ll keep brewing some big batches, but only when I know I am either going to go through a lot of it, or I don’t mind if I am still drinking it 6 or 9 months later. I need bigger kettles so I can do big batches of big beer though. I am a HUGE fan of the heavy stuff, even if I don’t drinking it tons, but it makes me sad when I make an awesome RIS or Tripple…and all I have is a little more than a case of it because all I can squeeze out of my kettles is 3.5 gallons of >1.100 OG beer (I do BiaB).
I just brewed up 2.5 gallons of Grapefruit English style shandy a few weeks ago that is just now ready for drinking, but I did it knowing I wanted a small batch so I could drink it all by the time it starts turning cool in late September. I brewed up 3 gallons of Black Pilsner for the same reason last night (though if that lasts through Halloween, that is okay). I am going to brew up a 5 gallon batch of Oktoberfest in a weekend of two, because I know it’ll be really popular, my wife will help me with it and I can drink it through Thanksgiving. I’ll probably also brew a 5 gallon batch of Pumpkin beer soon, again because I know my wife and all her friends will drink a ton of it (they are so stereotypical). Then it is back to smaller batches for my winter beers like my Dopplebocks and Dubbles.
I guess for what limited value my opinion is worth, since I buy most of my grains in bulk, I tend to culture oversized starts and reuse the yeast for at least 2, and often times 3-4 batches and I also generally buy my hops in bulk, most small batches just don’t cost much. I figure even for something highly experimental, I might as well brew a 2.5-3 gallon batch of beer instead of only a little 1 gallon or less batch. If it ends up that it is great, than awesome, I’ve got a case of really awesome beer. If it is lackluster, oh well, I only have a case of it and I could probably use a lot for cooking or something. If it is bad, well it is probably only $10 of ingredients down the drain.
While a lot of people seem to be scaling up, I’m scaling down. I found I don’t usually go through a5 gallon batch quickly enough, so I just sold a few of my kegs to fund raise for two SS brewtech mini’s. I figure I can still easily be 5 gallons if I want, but it’ll be much easier to brew small batches, split batches, and reuse yeast. Add in easier racking and cleaning and it seems like an easy win.
I’ve been brewing 1 gallon, 3 gallon, and 5 gallon for the past year now based on what I’m making and who I’m making it for. Works perfect for me.
1 gallon recipes for beers I don’t normally like but my wife or friends do (Pumpkin Ale, sorry). 3 gallons for beer that will be gone in a month (Bavarian hefe’s, American ale clones). 5 gallons for something I may drink over several months and/or cellar (Belgian’s).
Great article.
I have a 3 vessel eherms system that I can brew 5-20 gallons on but i can only use that once a month or so due to time.
I do stovetop BIAB of 1.5 – 2 gallons every other week for variety and competitions.
I love both methods.
I started out with 1 Gallon as that’s the kit I got (plus it’s super hard to get ingredients in Malaysia, ok well it’s impossible, we have to drive to Singapore or fly to Thailand. But I recently found some 1 Gallon apple juice bottles, so I bought a couple of those and now I’ve scaled up to 2 Gallons!
I honestly found 1 Gallon a little too much work for the return (8-9 330ml bottles) but 2 gallons is just nice, (16-18 330ml bottles).
I did consider 3 Gallons but the pots and equipment I have really can only support an absolute max boil of 2 Gallons.
I’d have to start split boiling and stuff if I did 3 which sounds complicated.
I don’t think I’d ever get to 5 Gallons as I don’t have that many people to drink the stuff..
When I wanted to start brewing, I was put off by brewing 20 liter at a time. That means about 60 Duvel bottles to fill, for which I needed probably 2 months to empty. But, I searched actively , and found two things. The first one was this http://www.thekitchn.com/5-reasons-why-i-became-a-1gallon-brewer-beer-sessions-189903, showing me that this was possible (at that point I really didn’t knew anything about brewing, and I do not know personally no-one ho brews, I had to do it all by myself). The second one was an extract kit for four 3/4 liter bottles, with a bucket and a fill pipe.
What I was missing at that point was something to mill malt with. But my parents had an old (old!) coffee and spice grinder from Peugeot (A0 type), which made it possible to start.
I am now brewing a year, and I enjoy doing small batches. It gives me the possibility to brew every three weeks on Friday evening, I can experiment, and when bottling time comes I mostly have again 15 Duvel bottles ready.
I mostly brew with things from the kitchen, I bought a small bucket in which I drilled holes, which I use with the other one to sparge. I scaled up a little bit, got recycled buckets with lids from the fries shop, and now I can brew 8 liter (2 gallon). However, I found out that this is not for the evening as certain parts of the process become longer. So, I will keep on brewing 15×33 cl on Fridays, and I have to plan certain points in time where I want to have a larger batch.
But in this year I have been brewing I have brewed a simple ale, a tripel, a Leffe clone, and another variant of this, a dubbel, a dubbel made of rests of malt and DME, a fruit beer, a large batch weizen, a saison, an English keeping ale, and a strong ale, and a tripel with honey together with my brother. Variety is the spice of life!
I started and still stay around 5 gallon batches. But a few years ago got into Parti-Gyle brewing and started doing two five gallon batches at a time. That kind evolved into having essentially two systems that I use in tandem. So I’m brewing 5 and 10 gallons at the same time, sort of. I haven’t done much smaller but it’s in the works. I have a couple of 2.5 gallon kegs and I’m going to do some small batch high gravity batches, since those don’t get used up that fast.
I probably would be more focused on doing 2.5 gallon batches if I were the only one drinking the beer but I have a lot of friends in the neighborhood that drop in for a beer and a chat on a semi regular basis so small batches of more normal brews would not last long at all.
I got into the dual 5 gallon batches when I was asked to brew for a party and I needed to brew up 20 gallons. The first time I did four separate brew days and it started to get a bit like work. The next time I did Parti-Gyle and cut the brewdays in half. Even though I’m not doing as many Parti-Gyle brews (mostly because I have started playing around with one of James’s other passions, very low gravity brews – not much in second runnings when the first ones are for a 2.5ABV beer) I tend to still brew two batches at the same time. It adds very little to the brewday, I’m all set up for twin batches, and you end up with more beer and more variety.
The other interesting twist is that I’ve stopped using buckets. I’m fermenting in 8 gallon stainless steel brew kettles. My next brewday I’m going to try and simplify even more by fermenting in the brew kettle. The only down side I can think of is that unless I leave them on the burners, which I could, I would have to lift them to the shelf I use for fermenting. Since I got a pump I have not really had to do any full batch lifting and I really don’t miss it.
I highly recommend the ported Mr. Beer kegs (often referred to as the “Little Brown Keg” or simply LBK) for small batches. You can do a 2-gallon batch and still have enough head room for the krausen. I currently have two, one purchased at a thrift shop and the other found on Craigslist. That way, you don’t have to use a siphon and — in my opinion, at least — 2 gallons is the perfect size for experimenting, as 1 gallon seems like a waste of time.
The LBK handles 2.45Gs with ease.
I think kegging plays a role in preferred batch size too doesn’t it? I do only 2-1/2 gal batches and have toyed w/idea of getting into kegging but smaller kegs are not cheap and I’d have to give up my practice of having 15 – 2- short term beers on hand due to cooler space and tap requirements. My set up for dual brewing, 2 different 2-1/2 gal batches at the same time (2 tuns, 2 pots, etc) has cost only about $300 all in and is much easier to manage and clean due to size and simplicity. One last thought is smaller batches are more amenable to indoor, electric brewing so seasons and weather are not factors.