re: Hop Lovers - It's OK to be jealous....

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i'd highly suggest you get a 3 gallon carboy. That much head space in your carboy will lead to some potential oxidation of your beer.

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You think oxygen will penetrate the massive amount of CO2 inside of there? I appreciate it, and these first few APA batches were atypically small due to testing out a new recipe. We are scaling them up to 5 gallons once we are satisified with the basis of the recipe. I did a lot of research on this particular potential problem and much of what I gathered seemed to say that it shouldn't be a problem at all. We shall see. Thanks.

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You think oxygen will penetrate the massive amount of CO2 inside of there?

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There is already a bunch in there whenever you pitch your yeast. Yes, the CO2 from the fermentation pushes the O2 out. However, when ferm is complete, every time you open the carboy, you let in oxygen, and unless you have some CO2 sitting around to purge, then it could become an issue.

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I appreciate it, and these first few APA batches were atypically small due to testing out a new recipe.

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That's fine, and you may get away without having your beer get oxidized. If it tastes great drink it. If you do get some oxidation then for your hopped up beers, the hops will fade more quickly than a more strictly controlled beer.

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I did a lot of research on this particular potential problem and much of what I gathered seemed to say that it shouldn't be a problem at all.

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And again it might. Didn't know if you were brewing only 3 gallon batches at a time, so i wanted to let you know that they make 3 gallon carboys. I have 2 i use for split batches.

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And again it might. Didn't know if you were brewing only 3 gallon batches at a time, so i wanted to let you know that they make 3 gallon carboys. I have 2 i use for split batches.

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I suppose we do need to invest in a mid sized system with 2-3 gallon carboys. I am about to get a 1 gallon to do more test batches on a smaller and cheaper scale, but it seems that we've been doing more 2-3 gallon batches in the recent past as we're writing more recipes now than just brewing other existing recipes. Thanks for the advice.

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I am about to get a 1 gallon to do more test batches on a smaller and cheaper scale, but it seems that we've been doing more 2-3 gallon batches in the recent past as we're writing more recipes now than just brewing other existing recipes. Thanks for the advice.

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It would be cool to brew a 5 gallon base beer (if you have the equipment for it) and then do separate alterations to each one like different yeasts or dry hopping at different rates/ varieties, experimenting with oaking, etc....

I've been wanting to do this with sour beers. Get 5, 1 gallon jugs, and brewing a base 5 gallons, then experiment with different souring microbes, or brett strains, etc...

The only draw back would be that i'd have to bottle all of that up, and now that i keg, i hate bottling.

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I've been wanting to do this with sour beers. Get 5, 1 gallon jugs, and brewing a base 5 gallons, then experiment with different souring microbes, or brett strains, etc...

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That's a great idea. We actually have something similar going on right now as I did another APA identical to this batch a week after so I'll be bottling this coming weekend. I missed my gravity slightly as well so since they were almost identical, I used a dif yeast strain and I wont dry hop this one. We'll see what the difference are in about 2 weeks after they carbonate. That is a really good idea about breaking down a 5 gallon batch into a bunch of small batches with the same base. I think we may try that.

Try harder.