All-Grain Brewers: How long does your typical brew day take?

Hey everyone. After encountering my first stuck mash and having my brew day last nearly 9 hours, Im curious, from mashing in to pitching your yeast, how long does your typical brew day process last?

On a typical day, after setting up my equipment, milling my grains, filtering my water, mashing, lautering, vorlauf, boiling, cooling and pitching, Im right around 6 hours. Is this long, short, or average? I do step mashes and my efficiency sits around 78-80 and I am always spot on with hitting all my calculated gravity numbers.

Im curious to hear from other all grain brewers with similar three vessel type systems how long their brew days last. Any tricks that you use to shorten the length of the brewday and make it easier? CHeers

Well depending how much I drink and how good a job I do cleaning 4 to 4 1/2 hours. I have just gone with the no batch sparge method now though and that cuts some time off

From the very start of getting all my gear set up to having the carboy in the ferm chamber and pitched it usually takes me about 8 hours. it used to be longer until I got better about taking care of everything I can during the mash and between hop additions. I like it though. If I've got good music, good beer, good food and good friends it makes for an awesome day.

I take my time and enjoy farting around in the garage. Usually start dragging stuff out around 8:30AM and wrap up around 1ish. 4-5 hours sounds about right.

From pulling the first piece of equipment out to putting the last of it away after the yeast has been pitched, it takes about 7 hours.

I BIAB all grain brew and from beginning to bring my equipment up from my basement until everything is cleaned and put back, the wort cooled and the yeast pitched tends to run 3 1/2 hour to maybe 3 3/4 hours. I don't have a wort chiller so my wort chills in a water bath in a tub. I usually have snow to put in the tub to keep the water cold. I also grind my grain by hand with my Corona style mill.

I mill my grain at the shop when I buy it, so that saves some time. My water comes out the tap at close to 160° so heating strike and sparge water doesn't take too long. I mash for an hour, fly sparge for an hour, boil for an hour (on average.) I measure out hop additions during the sparge and clean out my mash tun during the boil. From start to finish my brew days usually run five hours.

It makes a differance how much your brewing, and what kind of brew rig your using and what extra steps are you doing. Like mashing out, or whirlpooling hops at flame out. But for me taking my time start to clean up about 6hrs for 10gal run. 8hrs for 20gal run

Question: Why does a larger batch take longer? Aren't all the steps the same no matter the number of gallons? I only do five-gallon batches so I'm curious.

5B-brewing said:

Question: Why does a larger batch take longer? Aren't all the steps the same no matter the number of gallons? I only do five-gallon batches so I'm curious.

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I would imagine heating/cooling that larger volume is a good part of it.

5B-brewing said:

Question: Why does a larger batch take longer? Aren't all the steps the same no matter the number of gallons? I only do five-gallon batches so I'm curious.

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It's going to take longer to heat larger volumes of wort and water than it will the smaller ones. Also take longer to chill larger volumes than smaller volumes.

pabloj13 said:

I would imagine heating/cooling that larger volume is a good part of it.

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That makes sense....

Six hours.

Also, racking into multiple fermentors, aerating them, and then pitching.

Of course some people have big conicals, but I imagine most of us just use a couple carboys.

5B-brewing said:

Question: Why does a larger batch take longer? Aren't all the steps the same no matter the number of gallons? I only do five-gallon batches so I'm curious.

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It takes longer to heat up the watch to strike temperatures and a boil.

It takes me between 4-5 hours, but I do two separate 5 gallon batches on the same day using the BIAB method. I let the wort cool over night and pitch my yeast in the morning. This way I can keep up the pipeline and enjoy some variety.


-John

I was thinking about an old thread on this topic this morning. I am able to get my 5 gallon batch sparge batch done and pitched in 3.5-4 hours. A lot of people are much longer. One major thing that speeds up my day, though, is that I have great tap water so I can use hot water for strike water and I am already starting out ~130 degrees. If I had to heat from cold, it would add significant time.

My brew day ranges from 4-7 hours. Depending on size of batch.

Batch Size: 10-30 gallons
Mash/sparge water starts at 120f out of tap
I also weigh and mill my own grain.
Includes clean up also!

From clean-up to clean-up, four to 4.5 hours.

Pre-milled grain; batch sparging; 5g batches; stovetop with a heatstick.

From the beginning of weighing out the grain bill to in the fermenter, it's about 4-41/2 hrs for me for a 5 gallon batch...

~6 hours....gotta hussle and clean as your go. Heating water the night before helps but that may be cheating.

Seems to take around 5 hours, an hour for mashing, an hour for boiling and 3 hours for all the other stuff.

I'm a out the same depending on the boil time for the wort. On average 4-5 hours w/ good cleanup.

My brew day takes however long it takes. I am disabled and I brew alone. I find it very therapeutic, so I don't try and hurry through it. Plus, I am just slow. That said, it is probably between 6 and 7 hours, but that doesn't include pitching the yeast, only cooling it down to about 80F. At that point I put it in a swamp cooler to get the temp down to the mid 60s or whatever temp I am looking for depending on what yeast I am using. I don't count that time because all I am doing is occasionally checking the temperature of the wort. I usually soak my keggle overnight and finish cleaning it in the morning. By the end of a brew day I am usually in a lot of pain and can barely walk, but it is worth it.

DirtyOldDuck said:

My brew day takes however long it takes. I am disabled and I brew alone. I find it very therapeutic, so I don't try and hurry through it. Plus, I am just slow. That said, it is probably between 6 and 7 hours, but that doesn't include pitching the yeast, only cooling it down to about 80F. At that point I put it in a swamp cooler to get the temp down to the mid 60s or whatever temp I am looking for depending on what yeast I am using. I don't count that time because all I am doing is occasionally checking the temperature of the wort. I usually soak my keggle overnight and finish cleaning it in the morning. By the end of a brew day I am usually in a lot of pain and can barely walk, but it is worth it.

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Fantastic!! U are my HERO

SpottedDogBrewing said:

Fantastic!! U are my HERO

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I don't really deserve that, but thank you.

masskrug said:

six hours.

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x2

6-7 hours I would say as a minimum.

When I was doing 5 gallon batches with milled grain it took 4-5 hours. Now I brew 10 gallon batches, measure out my hops and grain, and mill...it takes a most of a day. Around 7-8 hours I would estimate.

It takes me 5 hours but its really only 3 and half hours of work. I like to multitask on my brew day. I measure out and mill my grains during the kids nap time (10 min). I start heating my strike water then I head back in and prep dinner. I dough in, shut the cooler and head in to finish cooking dinner and eat with the family. Then another three hours of sparging, boiling, chilling and pitching. To get things done quickly you do need to clean while brewing. I also find that mixing dinner in the brew day keeps the wife happy as I'm not in the garage (my sanctuary) for five hours straight.

5 hours for 10 gallon batches. A 5500W eKeggle took an hour off of it, as did using a pump and fly sparging instead of batch sparging and transferring with buckets, and gravity feeding my 3/8th inch counterflow chiller.

Depending on the style - minimum of 4.5 hours, maximum of 6.0 hours.

Definitely sub four hours for me. I do electric, single vessel BIAB. Sometimes I speed this up by only partially cooling before putting the fermentation bucket in the fridge fermentation chamber. Then I O2 and pitch the next day. Full disclosure: my last batch with 27lbs for a barley wine was a mess and took about twice that long (terrible efficiency, so I mashed twice and boiled for two hours!).

I just finished 5 hours of pure bliss. The smell of the mash & boil; along with a few home brews...(cue elevator music here)...it just don't get any better then this.

I'm 3.5 hours in and just started a 90-110 minute boil.

I do 3 gallon batches with a 4 gallon boil. It used to take me 5 hours start to finish on the stovetop but with a burner I can be done in around 3.

Honestly, I miss the longer brew day.

My days are pretty consistently 5 hours. 4 hours is common if I'm paying attention to nothing but brewing, but usually it's 5 hours.

elkshadow said:

I do 3 gallon batches with a 4 gallon boil. It used to take me 5 hours start to finish on the stovetop but with a burner I can be done in around 3.

Honestly, I miss the longer brew day.

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You could do two batches in a single day to take up the extra time.....

I'm around 4 or 4.5 hours. I usually mash in and drag out the rest of my gear. I also measure out my water additions the night before when I do the necessary stuff on my starters.

Do the hops while I mash and sparge.

Boil I'm cleaning the mash run. Once I start y hop stand and cooling ill start putting stuff away and cleaning. By the time it's cool and I've hit it with oxygen and put in the fermenter I've got most of it cleaned up and away.

I honestly can't figure out how you guys are getting 5 gallon batches done in 4-5 hours.

I feel like Kramer in that Seinfeld episode where he was trying to figure out how to shower in 10 minutes.

LovesIPA said:

I honestly can't figure out how you guys are getting 5 gallon batches done in 4-5 hours.

I feel like Kramer in that Seinfeld episode where he was trying to figure out how to shower in 10 minutes.

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Look for posts that talk about BIAB. Start with a very fine crush, one that would guarantee a stuck sparge on a conventional mash tun. Stir that into the bag that is suspended in the strike water and cover it. Check it in 30 minutes and I'll bet you'll see signs of conversion. Pull the bag and let it drain a bit, then squeeze it until it quits giving up wort. Turn up the heat and start your hour long boil. Notice that there was no sparging mentioned? That's another saving. You could dunk the bag of grains in water while the wort you had already collected is heating, then just add it in. All those little things cut the time. I don't even have a wort chiller and I can still get a 5 gallon batch done from bringing out the equipment to cleaning and putting it away with the yeast pitched in less than 4 hours.