How long to brew an all-grain batch?

Lil' Sparky said:

Nice run-down. You asked about how we brew faster, so I thought I'd give some answers from my brew day.

Extra time comes from:
- 30-40 min mash, not 60
- < 30 min batch sparge, not 60
- 60 min boil (unless we're talking a big beer)
- < 45 mins cleanup after chilling

Cheers

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What kind of efficency are you getting with that quick sparge. I've been leening towards a quicker brew day lately.

Biermuncher... No not drinking. Just rushed, and I swear this laptop keybpard has a mind of it's own!

After about 35-40 batches,SWMBO and i have it down to 5 hours but we do single infusion/batch sparge only.
Cheers

I might just try a batch sparge for the hell of it next brew.

I may be moving at the end of the month and I'm not sure how long it will be before I can brew again. So I want to brew a bunch of brews in the coming week or so.

Fast brewdays will be a plus. BTW when I used to batch sparge... my sparges still took an hour total.

You 30 min batch sparge people.. how is you efficency and do you drain the mash first then do you water addition or do you add water to the mash, drain and repeat?

Egads. I just realized I need more 12g carboys... and more kegs.

1st session took about 6 hrs and I was running like a chicken with my head cut off. Few years later, now I am down to about 4 - 4.5 hrs from the time I pull the 1st piece of gear off the shelf, till it is washed and back on the shelf.

I've only done one. 4.5 hours.
60 min mash batch sparge
90 min boil
cleaned up, put away, and pitched.

4 - 4.5 hours on average. I do not crush my own grain yet, so that is already done for me by the LHBS.

Denny's Evil Concoctions said:

I might just try a batch sparge for the hell of it next brew.

I may be moving at the end of the month and I'm not sure how long it will be before I can brew again. So I want to brew a bunch of brews in the coming week or so.

Fast brewdays will be a plus. BTW when I used to batch sparge... my sparges still took an hour total.

You 30 min batch sparge people.. how is you efficency and do you drain the mash first then do you water addition or do you add water to the mash, drain and repeat?

Egads. I just realized I need more 12g carboys... and more kegs.

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I'm usually 70-75% efficiency, basically the same as when I fly sparged.

I don't know how it would take an hour to batch sparge. It's add water, stir like hell, vourlauf, drain (let 'er rip), repeat. 30 mins is for initial runnings + 2 separate (equal) batch sparges.

Lil' Sparky said:

...30 mins is for initial runnings + 2 separate (equal) batch sparges.

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Same for me. If it takes longer ist's because my ADHD takes over and I get distracted dicking around with something else.

i'll tell you one thing though. Before I got my bayou classic, there was no way in hell I could do a quick session. It would take forever to heat and bring to a boil.

Now there is virtually zero lag time. I have a rather thin ceramic pot i use for heating my strike and sparge water. I can take 3-4 gallons from room temp to 180 in about 8-10 minutes. Which is about how long it takes me to recirculate and collect the wort anyways.

When I eventually get a pump and a shirron chiller, then ill shave another 20 minutes off the total time as well.

Lil' Sparky said:

I'm usually 70-75% efficiency, basically the same as when I fly sparged.

I don't know how it would take an hour to batch sparge. It's add water, stir like hell, vourlauf, drain (let 'er rip), repeat. 30 mins is for initial runnings + 2 separate (equal) batch sparges.

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When I batch sparged I drained slowly.

I'm hitting 80-92% depending on my crush. I'll have to try a batch sparge next and see what I hit.

Chimone said:

i'll tell you one thing though. Before I got my bayou classic, there was no way in hell I could do a quick session. It would take forever to heat and bring to a boil.

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I really should get one for boil and one for HLT, but they cost a fair bit don't they? I'm uisng 3 jet burners at the moment. Is that heating time for 5 or 10g batches? how long to get your wort to a boil?

it's only being used for 5 gallon batches atm. I boil the wort for 70 minutes. Its very dry out here so I evaporate very quickly

Chimone said:

it's only being used for 5 gallon batches atm. I boil the wort for 70 minutes. Its very dry out here so I evaporate very quickly

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I meant how long to bring the wort to a boil?

Yeah it's dry here too. A humid day is 45% humidity. Still getting used to that. The coast was 80% and up.

oh...sorry

its just about 10 minutes to bring the foam to the top of the kettle

As an LSS black belt, I made it my mission to lean out my brew day. The 11 batches I have brewed this year have averaged 4.25 hours. This is for 5 gallon batch sparges with 60 minute boils and mashes, and 10 minute rests on the sparges. That is from weighing and grinding grain to pitching and clean-up. The only pre-work I do is sanitizing my fermenter and printing out the recipe, which always changes anyway once I start sniffing my hops. (And adding more!)

The pre-sanitizing doesn't save me any time, because I was doing it during the immersion cool down. It just saves me labor and stress . I use star-san and hate the bubbles. I sanitize and let it sit for a day or two, then pour out the residue. My clean-up still requires a few minutes of work on the following day. I just get everything rinsed and soaking in oxy-clean.

I still have more room for improvement, but require capital investment. A better burner and chiller could shave off another 30 minutes or so. I figure a false bottom for my kettle could shave another 15 minutes on top of that. I just need to finish my 10 gallon set-up before I invest any more money. Got a keggle and bigger cooler, just need some more fittings, hose, and grain to start doubling the output.

Probably the biggest time saving step was a second turkey fryer. Getting the preheat water boiling while also heating the mash water was a big step.

LSS techniques reduce cycle time and reduce defects. In this case, analysis of my techniques has reduced the cycle time. Not drinking until the boil has reduced the defects.

Wables said:

LSS techniques reduce cycle time and reduce defects. In this case, analysis of my techniques has reduced the cycle time. Not drinking until the boil has reduced the defects.

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That's funny.

ColoradoXJ13 said:

edit: managed to bang out a partial-mash in 2 hours last week, awesome! was teaching some friends how to brew from an AHS kit, they were amazed at how easy it was....they are going to be a little surprised when they have to do it with their own equipment...

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HAHAHAHAH!!! ROFLMAO!!!! Yeah!!! But the stories will be priceless!!! Of course, when you first get your equipment it's NEVER everything you need. Soooooo much time saving devices and techniques you can pick up as you figure out what you are doing!

30 minutes, make starter from slant the day before
90 minutes, drive to LHBS and buy ingredients-also buy new liquid yeast because I don't trust the starter
30 minutes, find all my equipment strewn throughout the garage
20 minutes, clean the crap off of said equipment, it looked clean when I was done brewing last time, but my judgement may have been influenced by 5 hours of drinking beer
45 minutes, mash in
30 minutes, run out of propane and drive to gas supplier
40 minutes, heat sparge water-have homebrew
30 minutes, sparge, collect 4 gallons of wort-crap I need more sparge water and another homebrew
20 minutes, heat more sparge water-where did I put my homebrew
30 minues, sparge again, collect 3 more gallons of wort-7 gallons, I'm going to have to boil that down, hope I have enough gas and homebrew
60 minutes, boil down to 6 gallons, drink two homebrews
60 minutes, start actual boil, add some hops, can't read the little numbers on the scale-use calibrated hand.
10 minutes, explain to wife the relationship between brew day and drinking beer-again
?? minutes, time to add more hops, where is my recipe?
?? minutes, what is that beeping sound?
?? minutes, boil is finished, I really should have sanitized the fermenter before now
?? minutes, cool wort, take sample to get OG
10 seconds, drop hydrometer on concrete garage floor-note to self buy stock in hydrometer company, add hydrometer #7 to shopping list for next brew day.
2 minutes, pitch yeast-check temperature of wort, hope yeast can survive 85 degrees.
10 minutes, check fermenter for activity-nothing yet, perhaps another homebrew will help.
5 minutes, debate cleaning equipement v. buying a whole new setup next time, decide to hose out everything I want to keep.
45 minutes, drink more homebrew, tell wife that soaking is an important cleaning step-unless she wants me to buy more equipment next time I brew.
30 minutes, order pizza, try to pay delivery guy with beer-write check, memo line illegible, probably something about dumb ass delivery guy who won't trade pizza for beer.
5 seconds, decide equipement would benifit from an overnight soak
10 minutes, polish off last of kegged homebrew, hope todays, no make that yesterday's batch ferments by the following afternoon, no make that this afternoon.
15 minutes, google search "liver transplant"
2 hours, wake up in front of computer, visit keg fridge-when did I run out of beer?
Might as well go to bed.

The Wheat I just did took 5 hrs. even with multi step rests,the more you brew some things just seem second nature. I notice that I don't sit and watch as much as I did when I first started brewing-more batches brewed/more confidence gained. Also the clean/sanitize as you go rule cuts down on time too. Just my 2c.
Shane

I have only done 4 AG's so far, but my last one was 4.5 hours not counting cleanup or grinding my grians....

Just thought I'd add this to this thread. I brewed 2 batches back-to-back (really pipelined) this morning. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=32200

Total time was 5 hrs 20 mins from the time I started dragging stuff out until the time the last piece of equipment was put away. I kept a fairly detailed log of how long each activity took. There must be plenty of ways some of you guys can shorten your brew day without working too hard. Maybe you can find some ideas there.

Just a quick "threadjack" --Lorena(Yooperchick) , I bet college changes your daughters outlook on beer(especially if she's learned how to brew....)I'll bet she knows more about brewing than she lets on .
Just a little thought... Shane

SAS98M said:

Just a quick "threadjack" --Lorena(Yooperchick) , I bet college changes your daughters outlook on beer(especially if she's learned how to brew....)I'll bet she knows more about brewing than she lets on .
Just a little thought... Shane

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That's the joke around here- she won't drink the BMC. She'll demand a wee heavy or black & tan. She really doesn't like beer, though. At least, not yet!

Denny's Evil Concoctions said:

Don't forget crushing grain time. I've started doing that the day before unless it's spur of the moment.

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Our Barley Crusher attached to a 3/8" drill can plow through 28 pounds of grain in under 10 minutes.