2nd Batch adds 1 hour to brewday ...

**JonM** · 11-06-2011, 12:58 PM

Tried a little experiment last night. Bottom line is this - one AG batch takes 4 or 4.5 hours. I did an extract batch AND an AG batch and the whole thing took a mere 5.5 hours. 100% more beer for roughly 20% more time and effort.

I did the extract batch first. Steeping the grains and bringing the extract batch to a boil took about an hour. About ten minutes into the 60 minute boil, I started heating up the strike water for the AG batch. (Yep, you need two buners to make this work). Did the 75 minute mash while the boil and chill for the extract batch were on, and then heated up the sparge water while whirlpoolling the extract batch.

As soon as I poured the extract batch out of the kettle and into the fermenter, I gave the kettle a quick rinse and drained the mash tun and proceeded with the AG batch as usual. Like I said above, 100% more beer for about 20% more effort.

Cheers!

**lschiavo** · 11-06-2011, 01:04 PM

I have done back to back ag brews with about the same results. It is really only as much extra time as your mash or boil.

**JonM** · 11-06-2011, 01:24 PM

Same here - back-to-back AG batches, for me, take about 7 hours. This shaved about 1.5 hours off of that.

SwampassJ · 11-06-2011, 01:29 PM

Definitely something you need a 2nd pot/burner/mashtun for. Double brew days take me 10-12 hours depending on mash and boil times. Done it twice now, makes for a surreal day when you think about the results of two delicious beers to bottle.

**smokinghole** · 11-06-2011, 01:35 PM

You could conceivably do this with one burner and one pot. If you're doing just a simple infusion mash you can heat up your strike water start your mash and let that go. Then you can boil the extract up, cool it down, and run it off into a fermentor. Then you can do a quick rinse then just start your mash out procedures on your AG batch. That's as efficient as I can see my time being used with one burner and one kettle.

**John0228** · 11-06-2011, 01:45 PM

I've done back to back all grain brews before and I think I was around the 7 hour mark. I did a Belgian Tripel and a Pilsner. For each I mashed for 60 minutes, fly sparged for 45-60 minutes, and boiled for 60 minutes. Once the pilsner was in the boil kettle I had already started the mash for the Tripel. I have 2 burners to make this possible. It was getting a bit hard toward the end with all of the home-brew consumption but both beers turned out great!

**lschiavo** · 11-06-2011, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JonM

Same here - back-to-back AG batches, for me, take about 7 hours. This shaved about 1.5 hours off of that.

This is true. Less time/more beer = betterer. I think I was around 7 hours total too with ag. I am doing 10g batches now and haven't done a double since I stepped up from 5. I just dont have space in the ferment chamber. Double 10's though...lotsa beer...I think I'll do that next brewday since I'm running low.

Tim_Kreitz · 12-15-2011, 01:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JonM

Tried a little experiment last night. Bottom line is this - one AG batch takes 4 or 4.5 hours. I did an extract batch AND an AG batch and the whole thing took a mere 5.5 hours. 100% more beer for roughly 20% more time and effort.

I did the extract batch first. Steeping the grains and bringing the extract batch to a boil took about an hour. About ten minutes into the 60 minute boil, I started heating up the strike water for the AG batch. (Yep, you need two buners to make this work). Did the 75 minute mash while the boil and chill for the extract batch were on, and then heated up the sparge water while whirlpoolling the extract batch.

As soon as I poured the extract batch out of the kettle and into the fermenter, I gave the kettle a quick rinse and drained the mash tun and proceeded with the AG batch as usual. Like I said above, 100% more beer for about 20% more effort.

Cheers!

I did the same thing last night with a variation: I brewed a 20-minute extract pale ale as I mashed an all-grain batch, then immediately started brewing the all-grain batch as soon as the extract batch was in the fermenter.

The extra batch added about an hour or so to my brewing time (perhaps slightly over). Today at lunch, this was happening:

http://www.facebook.com/v/2645513909855

**Palefire** · 12-15-2011, 04:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tim_Kreitz

I did the same thing last night with a variation: I brewed a 20-minute extract pale ale as I mashed an all-grain batch, then immediately started brewing the all-grain batch as soon as the extract batch was in the fermenter.

The extra batch added about an hour or so to my brewing time (perhaps slightly over). Today at lunch, this was happening:

You know, I've had that same idea: make this 15-minute-cascade-pale-ale-210253/ while mashing another beer. Depending on how long chilling takes, seems like you could get the whole first beer done without having to add any time to the mash. It'd be a busy day, but this way you could do twice as much beer with no time added to the brewday.

Now my real idea is to do three beers in one quick brewday: do the 15-minute extract beer (beer #1) while mashing beer #2, then while beer #2 is boiling, do a 3-gallon partygyle beer with the second runnings (my second burner is my stove, and it can't do a full boil, but it can get 4.5 gallons boiling). So that's either 2 5-gallon batches and one small batch (beer #3) in one shortened brewday, or if you're willing to add extract to the smaller boil, you could top beer#3 off with a little water and turn it into another 5-gallon batch.

One day, my friends...

ashplub · 12-15-2011, 05:46 AM

Another variation of above is to do the party-gale the other way around. 3 gallons of a BIG beer like an impy or barley-wine and 5 of the smaller beer with a 20 min extract batch thrown in the middle somewhere...umm. I might have to try that out.