Hello, I brewed a honey ale recently, a 1 gallon batch. My original gravity was 1.045 (quite a bit lower than the 1.062 estimated by the recipe). Wort was aerated very well prior to pitching. I pitched 2/3 of a bag of dried Safale US-05 ale yeast, a bit more than the 1/2 bag recommended by the recipe. Got vigorous fermentation which started within 12 hours and lasted about 24 hours. Nice, thick krausen fell to the bottom of the carboy about 1 week into fermentation. Beer sat in primary for a full 4 weeks. Fermentation temps ranged from 66 to 62 degrees, within the yeast's recommended 59°-75° F range. Final gravity is 1.022 and the beer has a terrible sugary taste to it. I've bottled and will sit on bottles for 4 weeks to see if anything improves but I think this batch will have to be tossed out. Biggest issue with these small batches is that my wine thief will not fit inside a 1 gallon carboy, so I can't take a reading until I get the beer out of the carboy, otherwise I could have tried reviving the yeast or even dumping the beer into a secondary container and pitching another yeast. I took a final gravity reading with the bit of beer that was left over after bottling. Trying to figure out where things went wrong. Any suggestions? Also, can anyone recommend a beer thief that is skinny enough to fit inside a 1 gallon carboy? It's essential for me to find this if I'm going to continue doing small batches (which I really want to do). Thanks for any input or ideas on what could have gone wrong. Cheers!
Does your hydrometer fit inside your 1 gallon carboy? If so you could just drop it in and take a reading. It's hard to say without knowing your recipe, but I wonder if some yeast nutrient might have been necessary in this batch? Honey doesn't have everything beer yeast typically needs, so maybe that is the culprit.
The hydrometer would fit inside, but there is usually so much krausen residue on the carboy around the liquid line that taking an accurate reading would be very difficult. I'd also hate to leave the hydrometer sitting in there for long periods of time, and would also be concerned about hydrometer breakage. The recipe is from a Northern Brewers extract kit, I don't have the ingredients list handy but it definitely did not call for yeast nutrients. If anything, I overpitched a bit as the recipe only called for one half bag of dried yeast. I pitched about two thirds of the bag.
Anyone with any other ideas of what might have gone wrong? I'm at a loss and would love some feedback. Thanks!
I use a stainless steel turkey baster, not sure if that will work in your situation but fits in my 6 gallon glass carboy with a narrow opening.
I just moved to one gallon batches and ran into the same problem. Do you have a refractometer? I would recommend one. The little pipets that come with them work perfect for getting wort samples, plus you don't waste that much wort/beer from your one gallon batch just for testing, especially if you're taking multiple readings. You can get them pretty cheap on ebay.
