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Hey guys. I started some simple home brewing when COVID hit with that 2 gal cone shaped deal. It's cool, but a bit of a small yield for the effort and wait time. I DIY'd a couple of 4 gallon fermenters, and all is well.

Now I am wondering how to little cone deal could be of use. Anyone every use that thing to make Kombucha or wine? Any suggestions? I'm curious about mead, but I heard it takes a freaking year??

Thanks all!

11bcollins11 wrote:Hey guys. I started some simple home brewing when COVID hit with that 2 gal cone shaped deal. It's cool, but a bit of a small yield for the effort and wait time. I DIY'd a couple of 4 gallon fermenters, and all is well.

Now I am wondering how to little cone deal could be of use. Anyone every use that thing to make Kombucha or wine? Any suggestions? I'm curious about mead, but I heard it takes a freaking year??

Thanks all!

I've never tried making wine or kombucha, but it should work. Some people say that plastic is bad for kombucha, but I've also read that if you can brew beer or wine in the container, you can use it for kombucha.

You could also use it for experimental batches, or you could use it with one of your 4 gallon fermenters and make a6 gallon batch.

I would say plastic is fine for kombucha as long as you stick with kombucha. Kombucha is like brewing sour beers with live bacteria in plastic, once you do it, you might always be making sours, whether you want to or not if the thing has any scratches in it that bacteria can hide in.

Another thing you can do with a 2 gallon fermenter is buy another, or 2 others, or 3 others. And then split a big batch of beer between 2 or 3 of them and use different yeasts in each, or different dry hops, and end up with 3 slightly different beers from one big base batch. So you get the big batch yield, but you also get the small batch variety as long as you are willing to be creative in the dry hop or yeast department.

Meads DO NOT have to take a year. If you brew a hydromel (a lower AVB mead) and you use a yeast nutrient schedule so you are feeding it nutrients as it ferments, then it can ferment out as quickly as beer and be good to drink soon after. What makes mead take a year is brewing at a high gravity and not using nutrients.

MoreBeer has some mead brewing articles that will give you ideas on nutrient schedule.

Another option is to brew a lower / moderate gravity "mead" with some malt as part of the base. This would be called a Braggot. The malt effectively acts as the yeast nutrients in this case, and it will ferment out much more rapidly, more like beer. Some extra nutrients will make it ferment out just like beer.

Ciders are also an option, and will ferment out rapidly. Technically a cider + honey like mix (like a cider version of a Braggot) would ferment out more quickly like a malted version as well, as apple juice has the right nutrients to make yeast happy. Some extra nutrients along the way if higher proportion of honey will help.

Two gallon all grain beer?

root beer ...

I use my LBKs for cider, and for splitting and oak chip soaking larger brews. Pretty handy to have around for experiments.


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