3 gallon or 5 gallon for a newbie

Lots of pre packaged recipes are for 5 gallons, so not worrying about making your own recipe is nice for the first few batches.

 

You can always scale down, but yeah, most recipes are for 5G and up. You'd also be surprised how quickly beer disappears. It's also a lot of work...you're going to have to sanitize just as much equipment (sans bottles), and do the same amount of work, as you would for 5 gallons.

 

Go 5. All the effort to do a home brew you want as much beer for the work put in as possible. Plus all, or almost all, the recipes/discussions are for 5 gallon batches. Really doesn't take much more room than 3 IMO.

 

In general, equipment, recipes, discussions, just about everything is geared towards 5 gallons.

However, I was doing 3.5 gallon batches for a short time after I went all-grain, so any size that fits your situation best can be done. Just consider your reasoning before diverging from the more "standard" aspects of brewing. If you don't need to do a non-five-gallon batch size, it's probably best you stick with 5 gallons, especially as a noob.

I was doing 3.5 gallon batches so I could do a full wort boil on a stovetop in a 5 gallon pot. The stove wouldn't boil more than that, and a five gallon pot is only good for about 4-4.25 gallons of starting boil volume, tops (and even then, boil-overs happen, so you must pay attention). Full wort boils are a requirement for all grain brewing.

 

You didn't say if you were brewing all-grain or extract. Extract recipes only require you to boil about 3 gallons, and the rest is ice water to immediately chill it to pitching temperatures when you are done.

I would therefore recommend 5 gallon batches for ALL extract brewing, as all your extract kits are for that total volume.

As for all-grain, scaling down can help if you have trouble with boiling 7 gallons of wort down. You will have to scale down every standard recipe you want to try out, but that is just a little math, and not necessarily a problem.

 

I gotta give some love for us small batch brewers. The best reason to go 3 gal is so you can brew all the time and not end up stock piling boxes and boxes of beer. I brew about every week and am able to keep a manageable stash usually. You also can do full wort boils (if the alternative is adding water back after KO), which helps with hop utilization, head retention, etc. There are other good reasons too, like a preferable width to height fermentor ratio, cheaper ingredients per batch, vials have the right amount of yeast per batch, able to experiment more, etc. But like others said, it's about the same time commitment (depending on equipment) and kits are geared towards 5 gal (though I'd be happy to share recipes with anyone who wants). I would just follow Napoleon Dynamite's advice and follow your heart.

 

I've done small batch, 5-6 gallons, and double batches. Small batches might be best if you are making sessionable beers and bottling. If you get a kegging setup, you may find 5-6 gallons (or multiples thereof) convenient as most kegs come in 5 gallon sizes.. Of course, what seems right to you may depend how fast you consume and how often you want (or have the time) to make beer. For a while, I was making double batches, where I would alter half the wort with additional steeping grains, hops, and/or yeast. It was nice to get different beers from the same brew day, but I can only boil one batch at a time, so it took longer and I mostly stopped doing that.

 

Ultimately it will be a personal preference. The time and effort to do a 3 gallon batch is no different than a 5 gallon one. That favors 5 gallon, as does the standardization of 5 gallon batches as mentioned already. The last few months I've scaled down to 3 gallon batches after 5 gallon ones for a few years. My reasoning was it took me a long time to get through 2 cases of beer nearly on my own, especially when I would still drink Founders, Bells, Troegs, etc. With 3 gallon batches I brew more often and get to try more styles and techniques, which was important to me. I'm finishing drinking a hefeweizen I did last month, have a DIPA bottle conditioning right now, and have a saison fermenting too. I couldn't do that with 5 gallon batches.

 

Herein is the essence of whether brewing less than the 'standard' 5G batch-size is worth the effort.

Consider the following:
How much beer do you drink?
How much of the beer you drink do you want to brew yourself?
Is the beer you're brewing solely for your own consumption or do you want to feed the masses?
How often can you brew?
How much variety do you want?
How much space is available to store your production?

 

3 or 5, doesn't matter. The equipment will be very similar, for most of my 3 gallon batches I use a 5 or 6 gallon better bottle as primary. In high gravity beers I still tend to need a blowoff tube even with 3 gallons of head space. You could use fermcap or just blow off a 5 gallon batch in a 6.5 gallon carboy.

If you wanna do 3 do 3, but it sounds like you're willing to invest either way; Kegging ain't cheap. So do what you want and know that 3 or 5 gallons you can make good beer, and perhaps after a few 3 gallon batches you'll have the confidence to go to 5. Don't skimp on the size of your boil kettle and you'll be fine.

 

I started doing just 3 gal batches, and that is all I do, still. 20-30 bottles is plenty for our household, plus I enjoy making lots of weird combos that don't always work out well. A lot easier to toss 2-3 gallons out.

 

Most equipment and recipes you'll find are designed for 5 gallon batches. You may have a 3 gallon keg, but when you want more the 5 gallon kegs are much easier to find, and when I was looking a 5 gallon keg is cheaper than a 3 gallon one. As stated before, if you start out using extract kits like most homebrewers do, it will be a pain to scale that kit back to 3 gallons. Once you start formulating your own recipes you can easily design for a 3 gallon batch.

 

If you can't brew 5 gal batches, you aren't giving away enough homebrew.