Brew days too long!

TimelessCynic said:

I find my brew days are too long. Any problem with mashing one day, storing wort for several days then boiling and pitching on another day?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

Click to expand...

I've been reading up on sour mash techniques. I'm planning on doing one here soon. I'm hoping to get a PH meter for my Bday. So ya, as stated, that's not a good idea.

I found my brew days to be long too, but now I have done a major upgrade on my equipment that has helped a lot.

Blichmann pots with the sight gauges, Burners with high BTU, Thermapen (so I'm not messing with thermometers during the brew), Pumps, SS quick disconnects, Plate chiller with thermometer and oxygenation system built in... etc. It's helped me speed things up a lot. But I know it's not always an option.

I also speed things up by doing a batch sparge vs fly (but I prefer fly personally) also having everything ready the day before. Cleaning the fermenters, getting the ingredients separated and ready to go.. etc.

This might help, halve the brew day !
Just double the output !
Brew twice as much volume or two brews on the same day, effectively halving the time spent.
That's a 100% reduction of the brew day !

I was being sarcastic about the 5 minutes. I was serious about the time trial. I also tend to run less water and gas cause I'm cheap. I'll try to up them cause i actually can afford it. I think i maybe okay with a single batch sparge and that should save me probably 30 minutes. Plus my efficiency shouldn't drop that much because I've purchased a proper grain mill. And if it does, who cares? I buy grain in bulk anyhow, I could just use more. I actually brought a keg of beer i made from wort that stayed outside unfrozen for a day and a half before boil to a Super Bowl party. It tasted good. I'm going to time trial then in future brews and if i don't have time just leave it in the brew pot until the following day and risk the souring effect. Ill post my time trial breakdown later.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

fartinmartin said:

This might help, halve the brew day !
Just double the output !
Brew twice as much volume or two brews on the same day, effectively halving the time spent.
That's a 100% reduction of the brew day !

Click to expand...

+1 Im even considering 15 gallon batches for some proven recipes. But again, not always an option for some.

TimelessCynic said:

I find my brew days are too long. Any problem with mashing one day, storing wort for several days then boiling and pitching on another day?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

Click to expand...

A couple times I mashed one day then boiled/pitched the next without any issues. I kept it at room temp. I probably wont do this anymore, since I stepped up to 10G batches.

There was one time I tried to go with another day in between, and on the second day the wort already started fermenting on its own......so it got immediately dumped.

BIAB, no-chill. I don't ever prepare the day before. I fill the brew pot and start heating water, while that's happening I weigh and crush grains (30 min). BIAB strike temps are lower than traditional mashing, so this can take even less time. Mash and squeeze the bag (60 min), no shortening that, and sometimes I mash as long as 90 minutes. Then the boil, in no-chill brewing hop boiling times are shortened by 20 minutes, essentially making your flame out hops 20 min additions and bittering takes only 40 minutes of boiling. So I usually just add my flavor/aroma hops to the storage vessel either at flame out or within 20 minutes after the boil. Let it cool overnight (you can calm yourself down by drinking, so as not to worry about contamination) and pitch the next day when it gets down to temperature. I never let it go longer than 24 hours. All that being said, my shortest brew days are 2.5 hours long, that's if I clean during the mash and boil.

roastquake said:

BIAB strike temps are lower than traditional mashing, so this can take even less time.

Click to expand...

I brew in a bag so I'm going to need an explanation on this. I use standard mash temp calculators with no issues. I don't see how BIAB would be any different.

Prep everything the night before, milling, salts, etc. Wake up the morning of brew day and start the strike water going. When it's to temp dough in and mash all day. Come home from work and then sparge, boil, chill, and pitch. That should save you some time and stretch things out in a resonable manner. If you have a good mashtun that can keep temps well then it shouldn't be too much of an issue to do this.

dobe12 said:

I brew in a bag so I'm going to need an explanation on this. I use standard mash temp calculators with no issues. I don't see how BIAB would be any different.

Click to expand...

the grain to water ratio makes the difference. Do you make mostly big beers? I'm a habitual session brewer. not much going over 1.050 for me. The more grain added to the water, the bigger the drop in temperature. At least that's what I've seen. Now, I'm also continually heating my tun/kettle for the entire mash

Edit: Also, do you sparge? My version of BIAB is no-sparge as well, so that also lowers the grain to water ratio.

I think most people have similar time saving strategies. It comes down to planning ahead and multi-tasking and after doing it for a while, it becomes the normal. I brew 11 gal batches, in approx 5 hrs.

Everyone is giving you good advice. This is a time consuming hobby and perhaps it is not meant for you. No disrespect intended.

roastquake said:

the grain to water ratio makes the difference. Do you make mostly big beers? I'm a habitual session brewer. not much going over 1.050 for me. The more grain added to the water, the bigger the drop in temperature. At least that's what I've seen. Now, I'm also continually heating my tun/kettle for the entire mash

Click to expand...

I make all different beers. Anything between 4.5% up to 11+%. And yes more or less grain, more or less water is all part of the equation, but it has nothing to do with BIAB. X amount of grain added to X amount of water at X temperature is going to settle at the same temperature whether BIAB, mashing in a cooler, whatever.

I use reflective insulation to wrap my mash pot. Keeps temps pretty constant over an hour, even with below freezing temps outside. But again, this had nothing to do with strike temp for BIAB compared to a normal mash.

I do not understand how splitting a brewday into two days is a time saver. The only way it "saves" time is that each day is shorter, but by the time you add the time spent brewing your beer together you actually spent additional time for the same brew. All of the same processes still have to happen, and in the case of an overnight mash, you actually increase the amount of time it takes to get from sparged to boiling (if not by a fair amount then by a small amount).

Same goes for "day before" prepping. You're still spending the time - you're just splitting it up. In fact, I think there is more time savings in slamming all of the processes into the same day since you can be accomplishing several tasks as one task is proceeding. Better yet, double brews can save you a significant amount of time since you are starting your second batch while the first is mashing. I've done one double brewday and the time from beginning to end was ~7.5 hours whereas a single brewday is about 5 hours normally - a total savings of 2.5 hours in brewing two batches. Unfortunately, my back did NOT like that day - nor did my mind . Paying attention to so many steps, temperatures, timers, preppings, cleanings was not fun; however, it WAS a great time savings on two different batches of beer.

roastquake said:

Edit: Also, do you sparge? My version of BIAB is no-sparge as well, so that also lowers the grain to water ratio.

Click to expand...

This must be it. Yes I do sparge. I assume the original post was talking about full volume mashing? I tried that a few times, but lost efficiency. I can routinely hit 75-80% and sometimes higher with lower OG beers. Switching to full volume mashing dropped my efficiency down to 65-70%. Too much of a drop for my liking.

Full volume, should have specified that. Yea the only way I've been able to get above 70% eff is to do a good long mash-out, another thing that should be mentioned there. If you don't mash out then you may only get about 65% eff.

BIAB strike temps are a bit lower, BUT you are typically heating more water for a full volume mash, I can't see it really being any faster to strike temps, IME perhaps even longer.

I would suggest an overnight mash in a cooler starting just before retiring for the night, and sparging and boiling the following day. While lacto supposedly kicks in quick, I think you could stay ahead of any problems with only an 8 hour mash in a decent cooler.

Another option is to mash, collect runnings and heat to say 190 - 200 degrees to pasteurize the wort, then lid the kettle and come back to it the following day. Trying to chill the wort and reheat it seems like a waste of effort. Letting the wort freeze seems crazy to me, I can't imagine how long it would take to thaw a kettle full of frozen wort and bringing it to boil...that's a lot of energy!

I have also had pretty good luck doing "no chill" right in the kettle, after flame out and waiting for the wort to cool to hop stand temps, I lid the kettle and come back to it the following morning and pitch yeast.

The biggest time and work saver that I have found is setting up my brewery in the basement! Having everything in one dedicated area and not having to haul pots, fermenters, propane tanks, and ingredients outside and then back down the basement to ferment is heaven! If at all possible, try and come up with a way to brew indoors at dedicated spot.

stpug said:

All of the same processes still have to happen, and in the case of an overnight mash, you actually increase the amount of time it takes to get from sparged to boiling (if not by a fair amount then by a small amount).

Click to expand...

In the entire process the most hands-off portion is typically mashing.

By doing it overnight and then mashing out first thing in the morning you're killing the 90 minutes you'd spend staring at it while conversion happens and then as the tun is draining you can do things on the side like measure out hops, eat a bowl of cereal, etc. You get the tun drained, wort up to speed on the boil and then it's 90 minutes of checking on it now and again and adding hops at the right intervals.

After I did an overnight mash the first time I was amazed that more folks weren't doing it.

wilserbrewer said:

BIAB strike temps are a bit lower, BUT you are typically heating enough water for a full volume mash, I can't see it really being any faster to strike temps, IME perhaps even longer.

Click to expand...

True indeed, I keep forgetting that not everyone brews like me. I've been keeping batches small for months now. Heating 2 gallons to strike temp doesn't take long at all, but 7 gallons certainly does

Skarekrough said:

In the entire process the most hands-off portion is typically mashing.

By doing it overnight and then mashing out first thing in the morning you're killing the 90 minutes you'd spend staring at it while conversion happens and then as the tun is draining you can do things on the side like measure out hops, eat a bowl of cereal, etc. You get the tun drained, wort up to speed on the boil and then it's 90 minutes of checking on it now and again and adding hops at the right intervals.

After I did an overnight mash the first time I was amazed that more folks weren't doing it.

Click to expand...

I recognize that "process" is the single-most important facter when comparing time usage during brewing, so this is all very subjective stuff.

I actually do a fair amount during the mash, which for me is typically 60 minutes (although sometimes it's 90 and others it's 45). Probably the most important task I do during the mash is heating the sparge water, but I have ample time to measure out my salts, hops, and clean my workspace. If I mashed in and went to bed, I wouldn't be able to sparge the next day until I had heated my water and added my water additions. So, for me with my process, it's not a great time saver.

From my perspective, I would have used up an portion of my evening and now need to finish brewing the beer the next morning. It some way (for me) it's like working up until going to bed only to wake up and continue working right away. Since it spans two days, it would just feel longer to me. I can generally fit a brewday in between noon and 5PM with my process. So I can work a half-day, brew, and still have my evening available.

Again, I know this is all very subjective and highly varied due to personal process, but this is how I see overnight brewing.

Time trials completed. 4 hrs 25 minutes.

17:00
start filtering water and heating at the same time.
17:35
transfer strike water into mash tun. start filtering sparge water and heating it.
18:42
begin draining mash tun into brew pot
18:48
pour sparge water into mash tun. place brew pot on flame
18:58
drain mash tun into brew pot
19:22 full boil reached
20:23 finished boil turn on wort chiller. frozen hose. swap hose
20:31 turn on wort chiller
20:42 turn off wort chiller, pour wort into fermentor
20:50 move fermentor down stairs and aerate with wine degasser
20:55 attach airlock, place fermenter in cold room
21:00 start cleaning
21:25 finish cleaning, leaving brew pot and wort chiller for later

i think i can knock off 25 minutes if it were summer time and not winter outside.

I used to mash one night then brew the next morning all the time. I probably wouldn't wait more than over night though.

wilserbrewer said:

Another option is to mash, collect runnings and heat to say 190 - 200 degrees to pasteurize the wort, then lid the kettle and come back to it the following day.

Click to expand...

Yep, this is exactly what I do - I may have even gotten the idea from you in the first place! (Btw, thanks again for the bag. Been using it since May and it's still going strong.)

As far as overnight mashing feeling longer, I can't say that it does, personally. I used to be pretty wiped at the end of a six hour brew day. Now each part feels like a piece of cake.

With a 21 month old, it's all about reducing my brewing "footprint" while she's awake. SWMBO works from home, so she has her all week. With overnight brewing, my little toddler is only awake for the last two hours of it, and SWMBO generally takes her to the Y at that point.

It's not for everyone, but it works for me.

I brewed again today, still a good 5 hours start to finish , I put first gallon to boil on the stove then in to demijohn before sparging and put the rest, boiled in two batches , five gallons into FV bucket and the remaining gallon into a second demijohn. That gives me three variants from the same brew day, so I have different hops in the boils, and they will all get different dry hop, all three brews bubbling now and the place smells great, I am satisfied with my production from my five hours and very low level kit.

One thing I've done in the past to save a little time is to plug in a heatstick to a timer. That way my strike water is already hot when I wake up and I'm ready to brew. Not a HUGE time saver but it does help and it's convenient


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

Perhaps all grain or home brewing isn't for me. LMFAO


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

kombat said:

That sounds pretty standard. Have you thought about trying early morning brewing? A lot of us like to brew first thing in the morning, as it lets us finish up around lunch time and we still have the rest of the day to do other stuff. I often start my brew day at 5:40 AM, which is when I normally wake up to go to work anyway. Except instead of going to work, I get to make beer.

5:40 - 6:00 Wake up, put in contact lenses, get dressed, whatever
6:00 - 6:20 Heat strike water, mill grains (weighed-out the night before)
6:20 - 6:30 Dough-in, seal mash tun
6:30 - 7:15 Make breakfast, watch some TV, whatever
7:15 - 7:30 Heat sparge water
7:30 - 7:45 Vorlauf, draw first runnings, batch sparge. Start heating first runnings.
7:45 - 8:00 Collect second runnings, add to pot, continue heating.
8:00 - 8:15 Heat to boil, wait for hot break, start timer
8:15 - 9:15 Boil
9:15 - 9:30 Knockout, chill to 65° F, rehydrate yeast
9:30 - 9:45 Rack to fermenter
9:45 - 10:00 Carry fermenter downstairs, aerate, pitch yeast, affix airlock
10:00 - 11:00 Clean up, put everything away

Click to expand...

That's a reasonable schedule, but I'm not quite the early bird. I typically start at 12:00 and run right into dinner, losing kitchen access to my wife who is starting to cook. This is when my leisurely day starts to be a drag. I wish I had access to hot water and a sink in the garage where I brew. I heard of one person reclaiming hot water from the chiller to clean with. I may have to try this one day.

wsmith1625 said:

That's a reasonable schedule, but I'm not quite the early bird. I typically start at 12:00 and run right into dinner, losing kitchen access to my wife who is starting to cook. This is when my leisurely day starts to be a drag. I wish I had access to hot water and a sink in the garage where I brew. I heard of one person reclaiming hot water from the chiller to clean with. I may have to try this one day.

Click to expand...

I like to get a few things ready the night before so I can hit the ground running.
Grains milled and up to room temp, strike water measured and ready to heat.
There's a lot of dead time in the process you can use to help speed things up:
While mash is resting, go set up for boiling, measure your first hop addition, etc.
While the batch sparge water is soaking, begin heating the first runnings for the boil.
While the boil is ongoing, stay on top of your hop addition measuring and use the time to clean your MT.
While the wort is cooling, get your carboy sanitized, clean and put away other stuff.
You get the idea.

I brew fairly regularly (1-2 times a month) and have definitely been having a harder time finding a free 5+ hours to brew now that I am a Dad. That said, other than some of the time saving tips others have given (get your strike water/salts ready and weigh out grains the night before etc), I don't want to rush my brew days. I love my brew days and don't want to be running around trying to shave time off, as it makes the process less enjoyable and makes me more prone to missing steps/making mistakes.

After brew day, most of what you do is sit around and wait for the yeast to do their job so you can keg and drink; why not take your time and enjoy the portion of the process you have the biggest hand in? If I was only interested in the drinking part I would just buy all my beer.

My brew day takes 6 hours or so but I don't mind so much because a lot of it is not that involved(mash, boil, ice bath cooling) and I can be doing other things with the family during parts of the process. It helps I'm able to brew in my kitchen because my batches are smaller. Also going from bottling to kegging removed a major timesuck on the back end so that made brew days more enjoyable too.

I've found little ways to make the process go a little faster, like having water, grains and everything measured out the night before and ready to go first thing in the morning. Also I started covering the kettle as I'm heating up to boil which may make it go a little faster but still takes awhile.

I've heard of overnight mashing being a viable option and I tried it once without issue but I probably wouldn't feel comfortable letting it sit longer than that but YMMV.

I run a 10 gallon batch 3 vessel herms rig with mash-out heat ramp and fly-sparging. So, pretty much "the hard way"
I consider it a major victory of a brew day if the carboys have been pitched, oxygenated and stuffed in a ferm chamber and all the gear is cleaned and put away - in under 6 hours.

It hardly takes any disruption to push the day past that benchmark. In the ~6 years I've been running my current rig (~ one hundred batches) I think I've only done it a half-dozen times. It's my white whale...

Cheers!

If I'm brewing all-grain, I figure on 8 hours of washing, sanitizing, organizing, weighing, drinking, mashing, sparging, boiling, drinking, chilling, transferring, drinking, pitching, drinking, cleaning, disposing, washing, drinking, and putting it all away again. If it takes too long, you don't enjoy the process and should probably pick another hobby. For extract, I can knock a couple of hours off, of course. If it was cheap, quick and simple everybody would do it. An apprentice to do all the prep and cleanup would be awesome. Never gonna happen.

I single vessel BIAB with a propane burner. Brew sessions typically last 3:30 - 3:45. That's everything, from starting to everything cleaned and put away, with no prior prep. I mash and boil for 1hr each. I have done 3hr brews, by shortening my mash & boil times by 15 min each.

Time savers are:

• A simple rig. There's just less to setup, clean, and put away. There's never a problem with a pump or controller, etc. They're not used, because they're not needed. I do use a pump with my chiller, but it only moves water, so it doesn't have to be cleaned.
• An alarm thermometer with a remote probe. It's all the automation I need. Not having to manually measure water temp frees me up to do other things. For heating mash water I set the alarm a few degrees below strike temp, then go weigh and grind grains. For ramping to a boil, I set the alarm a few degrees below boiling, then go get my hops ready or do other stuff. The alarm thermometer also has a timer, which I use to time my boil.
  
• A hot burner. With the KAB4 burner I have to be quick if I want to have my grains ready before the thermometer beeps me that the mash water is ready.
• Finely milled grains. With BIAB there's no worries of a stuck mash, so grains can be milled very fine (.025"). Full conversion happens quicker than with coarser milled grain. I generally mash for 60min, but I've done 45min without any loss of efficiency or other issues.
• Insulation. I maintain mash temps by insulating the kettle with a kids sleeping bag. It's quick and easy to use, and doesn't need to be cleaned up like a RIMS rig, etc. Holding temps within a degree or two for 60min is not a problem. Temps have dropped more than a degree or two when it's really cold, but they have always held within one degree during the first 15-20 min, by which time the finely milled grains are fully converted.
• No sparge. Finely milled grains give a boost to efficiency -- so much so that I do not have to sparge to get great efficiency. I routinely hit or exceed recipe targets without sparging, without adding additional grain. My BH efficiency is generally in the low 80's. I only sparge if I'm brewing a big beer, say 8+% ABV.
• No squeeze. I raise the bag with an overhead rope/pulley, and immediately fire the burner for the boil. I leave the bag hanging over the kettle for the entire boil, so gravity can completely drain it. The hot sticky mess of squeezing (which also adds things to clean up afterward), makes no sense when gravity will do it for free. When it comes time for grain disposal, the bag is lightweight & cooled.
• Recirculating immersion chiller. I first recirculate from a 5gal bucket of water, the resulting hot water is saved for cleanup. I finish chilling by recirculating from a cooler filled with ice water, the resulting warm water is saved for rinsing during cleanup. Using ice insures that I always get a quick chill, regardless of tap water temp. A 20lb bag of ice costs $2 at a local discount grocery, I go get it during the mash.
• Organization. I set up a rolling storage rack to hold clear plastic bins. I know right where everything is, and I can grab it quickly.

The next one doesn't apply to brew day, but it's a big time saver.

• Kegging. Getting set up for kegging takes some time & expense, but the payback is huge. Both in time saved for every brew, and for the freshness & longevity of flavors (using a simple gravity powered closed transfer between fermenter and keg). There's still cleaning involved with kegging, but cleaning one vessel is a whole lot easier and quicker than cleaning 50+ bottles (for a 5gal batch). I set up my keezer so that kegs can be added/removed without the hassle of coiled hoses being in the way.

LittleRiver said:

I single vessel BIAB with a propane burner. Brew sessions typically last 3:30 - 3:45. That's everything, from starting to everything cleaned and put away, with no prior prep. I mash and boil for 1hr each. I have done 3hr brews, by shortening my mash & boil times by 15 min each.

Time savers are:

• A simple rig. There's just less to setup, clean, and put away. There's never a problem with a pump or controller, etc. They're not used, because they're not needed. I do use a pump with my chiller, but it only moves water, so it doesn't have to be cleaned.
• An alarm thermometer with a remote probe. It's all the automation I need. Not having to manually measure water temp frees me up to do other things. For heating mash water I set the alarm a few degrees below strike temp, then go weigh and grind grains. For ramping to a boil, I set the alarm a few degrees below boiling, then go get my hops ready or do other stuff. The alarm thermometer also has a timer, which I use to time my boil.
  
• A hot burner. With the KAB4 burner I have to be quick if I want to have my grains ready before the thermometer beeps me that the mash water is ready.
• Finely milled grains. With BIAB there's no worries of a stuck mash, so grains can be milled very fine (.025"). Full conversion happens quicker than with coarser milled grain. I generally mash for 60min, but I've done 45min without any loss of efficiency or other issues.
• Insulation. I maintain mash temps by insulating the kettle with a kids sleeping bag. It's quick and easy to use, and doesn't need to be cleaned up like a RIMS rig, etc. Holding temps within a degree or two for 60min is not a problem. Temps have dropped more than a degree or two when it's really cold, but they have always held within one degree during the first 15-20 min, by which time the finely milled grains are fully converted.
• No sparge. Finely milled grains give a boost to efficiency -- so much so that I do not have to sparge to get great efficiency. I routinely hit or exceed recipe targets without sparging, without adding additional grain. My BH efficiency is generally in the low 80's. I only sparge if I'm brewing a big beer, say 8+% ABV.
• No squeeze. I raise the bag with an overhead rope/pulley, and immediately fire the burner for the boil. I leave the bag hanging over the kettle for the entire boil, so gravity can completely drain it. The hot sticky mess of squeezing (which also adds things to clean up afterward), makes no sense when gravity will do it for free. When it comes time for grain disposal, the bag is lightweight & cooled.
• Recirculating immersion chiller. I first recirculate from a 5gal bucket of water, the resulting hot water is saved for cleanup. I finish chilling by recirculating from a cooler filled with ice water, the resulting warm water is saved for rinsing during cleanup. Using ice insures that I always get a quick chill, regardless of tap water temp. A 20lb bag of ice costs $2 at a local discount grocery, I go get it during the mash.
• Organization. I set up a rolling storage rack to hold clear plastic bins. I know right where everything is, and I can grab it quickly.

The next one doesn't apply to brew day, but it's a big time saver.

• Kegging. Getting set up for kegging takes some time & expense, but the payback is huge. Both in time saved for every brew, and for the freshness & longevity of flavors (using a simple gravity powered closed transfer between fermenter and keg). There's still cleaning involved with kegging, but cleaning one vessel is a whole lot easier and quicker than cleaning 50+ bottles (for a 5gal batch). I set up my keezer so that kegs can be added/removed without the hassle of coiled hoses being in the way.

Click to expand...

Dude. I am impressed. I wish I could be that organized. By comparison, my brew setup looks like the cul de sac morning after 4th of July fireworks. I like the recirculating chiller deal. I don't have a way to connect to the sink so I hang the chiller hoses out the laundry room window and hookup to the garden hose. My wife banished me to the laundry room after I brewed my first all-grain batch cause she said I made the whole house smell like I was washing a horse. At least it's got a sink and a tile floor.

**Snuffy

Didn't read intervening posts, but I often mash at one time and boil later. Sometimes overnight. Never more than 13 hours later though.