Shortening brewday?

Anybody have any good tips for shortening up my brewday?

Here is my current situation. I'm limited to brewing on weeknights only. ie weekends booked with other commitments for foreseeable future. I get home about 5pm, but I've got a 3 yr old in tow that needs dinner etc. My wife gets home about 6:30, so that is basically my start point. I can do some prep earlier than that, but nothing to time sensitive since it will likely be interrupted by my daughter.

So far, I've been able to knock out extract batches pretty easily but haven't figured out how to squeeze a full brew day into a 4 hour window.

So, anyone with a brew schedule compacted into that type of window?

I do extract for that very reason. I just don't have all that much time.

Certainly possible if everything goes well. Assuming you have everything ready to go, for me, it's about an hour to reach boil, I do fulls, an hour for the boil, hour at most for cooling the wort, hour for transferring, pitching and cleanup. It can certainly be done.

When you say full brew day do you mean all-grain, extract w/ specialty grains or extract alone? It would be difficult to fit an all-grain, stove-top brew day into a 4 hour window, but I know some experienced brewers w/ power burners can get their temps quicker, saving time.

If you are doing some form of extract brew and only doing partial boils, then boil your top-off water the night before and leave on the stove to cool overnight and throughout the day. Also, you only really need to steep the grains for 20-30 minutes which can save some time.

On the cooling side of things invest in a wort chiller (you can make a DIY one for around $50-75). That will take you from 212 -> 70 in around 15 minutes w/ stirring, maybe quicker for a partial boil.

Break down the steps in your brewday that HAVE to precede one another, then work other tasks between them. For example, while you're heating strike water, weigh and mill your grains. While you're mashing, weigh out your hop additions and begin cleaning/sanitizing your fermenter and other equipment. While you're boiling, clean out your mash tun and other pre-boil items you may have soiled (HLT, mash paddle, etc). Upgrade your wort chiller and/or pre-chill your tap water using a pond pump submerged in a bucket of ice water once your wort temp reaches around 100* or so to get those last 30-40 degrees to pitching temp down more quickly.

Really it's best to look at what you absolutley HAVE to do, then work other things around it. Any time spent standing around is wasted time. I stovetop brew with a crappy 25' immersion chiller and can still knock out a brew day in 4 and a half hours if I'm on my game.

Also consider no-sparge brewing, or mashing for only half an hour to 45 minutes. You're going to lose some efficiency, but it will save crucial time off of your brew day.

I haven't read up on no-chill brewing, but that's another option to consider.

Using a turkey fryer instead of your stove.
Wash everything the night before, rinse and sanitize the day of.
Measure everything out the night before.
Get the water going as your santizing/prepping other stanges.
Get an immersion chiller.

I did one last Friday night. Worked well. Just make sure you have everything ready and clean as you wait for the boil, etc.

Didn't consider if you were doing AG, if you are, not likely in a 4 hr window. Extract certainly possible.

A few things that sped up a brewday for me:

Get hot-water from the washing-machine hot-water line. I put a garden-hose Y-splitter with valves, and a end-cap for when it's not in use (just in case that valve leaks) Starting your strike water at 120 degrees speeds things up a lot.

Get a good burner, the Blichmann gets that strike water hot fast.

Clean things during the mash.

Don't bother with a mash-out, and don't stress about having sparge-water the perfect temp. Warm will do.

Start heating up your runnings while you're sparging.

Clean the mash tun during the boil. (obvious)

Find a fast way to dump your spent grain. I found I was spending almost an hour scooping grain into a trash bag, then cleaning the tun.
I bought some heavy-duty trash bags, covered the tun, dumped it over, and hosed out the mash tun. By the time the boil was done, the tun was dry and ready to be put away.

Get the best wort-chiller you can afford. Stir the wort as often as possible while chilling.

Once it gets down to 80 or so, and the chilling starts to slow down, just dump into your fermenter, and move it to the fermentation chamber (If you don't have a temp-controlled freezer, get one )
Let the freezer get it down to pitching temp overnight, and pitch in the morning.

Wash the kettle if you can still keep your eyes open. Clean up everything else the next day.

With no wasted time, I can do a 13 gallon batch in 5-6 hours. That's nothing to brag about, but I can't see any way to speed things up more.

Let us know if you come up with any other ideas.

Definitely have everything measured, prepped, and cleaned the night before.

CLEAN AS YOU GO!!! There's really no reason everything except the brew kettle shouldn't be clean and put away before the boil ends.

Definitely get the most efficient propane burner you can afford. The more efficient the burner, the less time it is going to take to reach steeping and boiling temps.

Definitely get the most efficient plate chiller, immersion chiller, or counterflow chiller you can afford. With the right equipment, you can easily get your wort down to yeast pitching temps in 5-10 minutes, saving 20-30 minutes on brewday over more common methods!

With the right equipment, your extract brewday could easily look like this:

1) Heat strike water to steeping temps: 15 minutes
2) Steep specialty grains: 30 minutes
3) Heat to boiling temps: 10 minutes
4) Boil: 60 minutes
5) Cooling: 10 minutes

That's 2:05. Factor in about another 20-30 minutes for miscellaneous activities, and you're still under 3:00.

It's all about the right gadgets! You are probably a Blichmann burner ($149.00) and a 40 plate chiller ($100.00) away from cutting 1.5-2.0 hours from your brewday.

If you do all grain BIAB you can reduce transfers and the number of things to clean. No reason you couldnt get that under 4 hrs

I brewed yesterday, and I started at 10 AM and had everything put away at 3:30 PM but it took me a long time to chill yesterday (10 gallon batch). That's 5.5 hours, but it usually takes me 4.5 or so. If I crush the grain in advance, and heat the water up during breakfast, I can probably get done in 4 hours. That still means a long day at the end of a workday, though!

To speed it up, I have a couple of thoughts (but never actually done these things!):

I've seen a few brewers do an overnight mash. Is that something that can work for you? Not overnight, but say, mash in at 7 AM and then finish up at 8 PM with the boil?

If you went with a no-sparge type of mash, it would be faster.

You could try going with a no-chill approach, and pitch the yeast at dinner time the next day.

My big time savers:

Grain weighed and milled ahead of time.
Heating mash water ahead of time with a timer.
No sparge mash.
Whirlpool chilling.

It all going to be what type of a brew setup you have. Type of burner(s) you have. Immersion chiller takes 15-30 minutes, 40 plate counter flow chiller 5 minutes. I have a rig that allows me to brew an all grain batch in about four hours. Prior to getting this it took me five hours sometimes more. Your water is only going to get hot so quick and wort is only going to cool so quick. You need to Mash for an hour and boil for at least an hour. So you have to find your efficiencies in other area's. I think the tips are spot on above but you are only going to reduce your time by so much.

Clean / assemble all equipment and measure / prep all ingredients the night before
Big burners = fast heat up
Clean and put equipment away as you go
Counterflow chiller plus beer pump = wort cooled really fast

All of these are great suggestions and I bet you could get pretty close to 4 hours with no problems. My input would be if possible to strikeup your water before your wife gets home. Get an oven timer from Target for $15 that beeps when it hits a certain temp. Then all you have to do even with your daughter at home is strike up and wait for the beep. Then turn the flame down real low. Your temp should hold pretty close and you can mash in just after 6:30. Of course have everything measured/crushed before hand. Thinking it through in my head if you do a no-sparge, it would be one hour mash, 20 min to drain (heat runnings while draining) 20 min to get to a boil, one hour boil, chill with ice bucket/pump/immersion chiller 30 min, pour into bucket fermenter instead of siphoning into carboy is seconds and figure 30 min of cleanup gets you about 3:40 so just under 4 hours. Should be possible if I didn't forget anything and nothing goes wrong at all.

Thanks for the comments so far.

"When you say full brew day do you mean all-grain, extract w/ specialty grains or extract alone?"

All-grain. I've been cranking out some extract w/specialty grain batches in that time frame without any problems.

"On the cooling side of things invest in a wort chiller"

I've got a chiller and a pre-chiller, so that is probably as fast as I'm going to get without sinking a bunch into pumps, plate chillers etc.

"Using a turkey fryer instead of your stove."

Yeah - I'm thinking this might be a necessity since a lot of my time is getting sucked up heating water/wort. I'm cheap though, so I was hoping not to have to spring for a burner and extra propane tank.


"Break down the steps in your brewday that HAVE to precede one another, then work other tasks between them"

That is where I'm hitting a roadblock. Setup. Heat strike. Mash. Sparge. Bring to boil. Boil. Aerate. Pitch. Clean. I guess I've never tried a short mash/no sparge, so that is something to look at.

If you're willing to reduce your batch size, that will significantly reduce time needed for water to reach boiling temp, pitching temp, etc.

Stove top, full boil, all grain and I regularly do it in less the 4 hours.

What I have done to shorten my brew days:

• Measure out the water the night before
• Mill the grain and get ingredients ready the night before
• Shorten the mash time (30-45 minutes). Most of the conversion is done within 30 minutes, my efficiency only drops a few points easily fixed with 50 cents worth of additional grain
• Insulation cover for the pot. I made a cover for my boil pot out of ducting insulation. Reduces the boil time as it helps keep heat from escaping. Heres a pic of it.
• Cubeless no chill. I just put a sanitized lid on my pot and leave it overnight. Once its cool enough I move it into the fermenter and pitch my real wort starter. It's not for everyone, but I was a sceptic and now a believer! Worth giving a shot if time is a limiting factor.

Nohup said:

A few things that sped up a brewday for me:

Get hot-water from the washing-machine hot-water line. I put a garden-hose Y-splitter with valves, and a end-cap for when it's not in use (just in case that valve leaks) Starting your strike water at 120 degrees speeds things up a lot.

Click to expand...

You shouldn't use water from the hot water heater for drinking, especially if you have an older water heater.

Your situation sounds very much like mine: I cook dinner every night for the wife and kids (2.5 and 7 monhts). So after bath and bed time it is nearly 8pm for me. I started making smaller batches and now I can brew a 12 pack in about 2 hours. Since I can do it pretty quickly now, I like to brew 3 times every two weeks or so. Lots of fun and I've made a large variety of beers...not the same one twice! If you are crunched on time this is a great way to get your brewing fix.

Heating and cooling are going to be your biggest obstacles. You can't really cut any time out of mashing, sparging, or boiling. You can reduce heating and cooling times, and to some extent transfer times. I think BIAB is your best bet, and possibly doing 2.5 gal batches. This will reduce your heating, cooling and transfer times significantly. Also, like others have said, have everything ready to ahead of time and anything you can do concurrently, do so. Heat sparge water while you're mashing. If possible, start heating your boil while sparging. Clean and sanitize as you go. Always prep the next step while you're waiting for the previous step to be completed.

snowveil said:

Break down the steps in your brewday that HAVE to precede one another, then work other tasks between them. For example, while you're heating strike water, weigh and mill your grains. While you're mashing, weigh out your hop additions and begin cleaning/sanitizing your fermenter and other equipment. While you're boiling, clean out your mash tun and other pre-boil items you may have soiled (HLT, mash paddle, etc). Upgrade your wort chiller and/or pre-chill your tap water using a pond pump submerged in a bucket of ice water once your wort temp reaches around 100* or so to get those last 30-40 degrees to pitching temp down more quickly.

Really it's best to look at what you absolutley HAVE to do, then work other things around it. Any time spent standing around is wasted time. I stovetop brew with a crappy 25' immersion chiller and can still knock out a brew day in 4 and a half hours if I'm on my game.

Also consider no-sparge brewing, or mashing for only half an hour to 45 minutes. You're going to lose some efficiency, but it will save crucial time off of your brew day.

I haven't read up on no-chill brewing, but that's another option to consider.

Click to expand...

Whoa, nice avatar! (see my profile pic)

Might want to look into overnight mashing. I'd set the oven to lowest setting, put grains and water in 1-2 pots, and go to work. Come back, sparge, and shouldn't be much longer than normal extract. It isn't the best solution since you can't control the mash temps really, but you could always freeze/refrigerate the wort and boil the next day.

I started making smaller batches and now I can brew a 12 pack in about 2 hours.

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??? How does a smaller batch cut 2 hours out of the brew day? You still have to boil for an hour. Are you telling me you accomplish your entire brewday besides the boil in 60 minutes? I'm skeptical. Smaller batches should realistically take every bit of 80-85% the same amount of time as a typical 5 gallon batch.

I've split my brew day on several occasions. Mash the grain and collect wort one day. Chill it. Do the boil, chill and pitch the next day.

Times should be close to 2 hours per day depending on how fast you can heat things up. It's a bit wasteful since you're forced to heat from cool for the boil.

I've done overnight mashing several times. Dough-in before bed and start the sparge when I wake up. It bumped up my efficiency so I only do it it when I have to.

All of these are great suggestions and I bet you could get pretty close to 4 hours with no problems. My input would be if possible to strikeup your water before your wife gets home. Get an oven timer from Target for $15 that beeps when it hits a certain temp. Then all you have to do even with your daughter at home is strike up and wait for the beep. Then turn the flame down real low. Your temp should hold pretty close and you can mash in just after 6:30. Of course have everything measured/crushed before hand. Thinking it through in my head if you do a no-sparge, it would be one hour mash, 20 min to drain (heat runnings while draining) 20 min to get to a boil, one hour boil, chill with ice bucket/pump/immersion chiller 30 min, pour into bucket fermenter instead of siphoning into carboy is seconds and figure 30 min of cleanup gets you about 3:40 so just under 4 hours. Should be possible if I didn't forget anything and nothing goes wrong at all.

billl said:

"Break down the steps in your brewday that HAVE to precede one another, then work other tasks between them"

That is where I'm hitting a roadblock. Setup. Heat strike. Mash. Sparge. Bring to boil. Boil. Aerate. Pitch. Clean. I guess I've never tried a short mash/no sparge, so that is something to look at.

Click to expand...

I think maybe you're missing the point. You have "clean" listed last. We're saying that you clean as you go, ie. sanitize during the mash (fill buckets with water/starsan and all items that will touch non-boiling wort). When you're boiling, clean the mash-tun and put it and the HLT away. Clean up any messes you made during other steps, too.

Doing the cleaning/sanitizing WHILE other steps are going on cuts an extra step out of the process. Otherwise if you wait to clean until the end, you're adding time to your day.

There are really only 4 steps that must be done on "brew day(s)": heat strike, mash, sparge (or drain if no-sparge), boil. Anything else can be done ahead of time. The chill can be done in the ferm chamber and pitching takes 2 minutes.

"I think maybe you're missing the point. You have "clean" listed last. We're saying that you clean as you go,"

I clean as I go, but there is always cleaning at the end. Brewpot, tubing, hop spider, spoons, hydrometer, containers for flameout hops etc.

" My input would be if possible to strikeup your water before your wife gets home." rjsnau

Not sure why this didn't occur to me, but thanks. Measure the water the night before and just leave it in brewpots on the stove. Flip on the burner early and I'll be mashing in by 6:30. That takes a half hour off the front end with no new equipment!

Procrastination might help if your wife will tolerate that final bit of cleaning the next day.

If I end up finishing brewing too late (not uncommon), I sometimes just do a quick rinse and clean the kettles or mr cooler the next day.

TwoGunz said:

Procrastination might help if your wife will tolerate that final bit of cleaning the next day.

If I end up finishing brewing too late (not uncommon), I sometimes just do a quick rinse and clean the kettles or mr cooler the next day.

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Just be sure you clean the hoses out immediately and really do wash everything well the next day.

FWIW, to those who want to shorten their extract w/specialty grains brewing day (since it was brought up in this thread). You can start the boil while the grains are steeping. Then add that to the boil when it's done. That bit of "wort" doesn't have to boil for the whole time. Heck, you can add that any time before fermentation, for that matter (just make sure it's been pasteurized sufficiently). That can shave 20-30 min off your day right there.

TopherM said:

??? How does a smaller batch cut 2 hours out of the brew day? You still have to boil for an hour. Are you telling me you accomplish your entire brewday besides the boil in 60 minutes? I'm skeptical. Smaller batches should realistically take every bit of 80-85% the same amount of time as a typical 5 gallon batch.

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Here's how I do it in that time frame:
The ingredients are pre-measured. For steeping the grains, bringing about 6 cups of water to the right temp only takes a couple minutes, especially when I can get it out of the tap at 120 deg F. So 5 minutes to get the water right and 30 minutes to steep the grains. While the grains are steeping mix DME and water to get to the right volume and bring that to a boil. On my stove it takes about 15 minutes to get 1.5 gallons of water/dme up to a boil. When the grains are done steeping I am at a boil already and adding the steeping mixture to the pot really doesn't stop the boil at this point for more than a minute or so. Boil for 60 minutes. While the boil is going on I rehydrate my yeast. Add my pot to my sink, fill with a lot of ice, stir to make a whirlpool and let rest for 20 minutes to get to 68 deg F. With only 1.5 gallons of wort, and a big bucket of ice the temp drops really quickly...most of the time it takes 20 min, but occasionally it will take 30 if I don't have my usual amount of ice. Then add 10 minutes of clean-up, since all the gear is small and your done in about 2 hours.

Figuring out this timing took some trial and error, but now it affords me the chance to brew way more often!

Thanks all for the tips. I think I'm going to give it a go. I guess the worst that will happen is that I don't get enough sleep for a night.

Basic plan outline

Measure and prep everything the night before.
Start strike water when I get home from work.
Mash in at 6:30.
1 hr mash
20 min batch sparge and transfer
Bring to boil/hot break
Boil 1 hr
cool - 15 min
transfer to bucket/aerate
put fermenter in chamber to drop the last few degrees
Final cleanup
pitch

Something that was mentioned on a Basic Brewing Radio podcast I was listening to, which is really tempting to me...

Split the brew day. Mash on Friday night, after the kids are in bed. Collect your wort in the brew kettle, put on a cover and throw on some blankets, and leave it overnight. The wort's going to be ~150°-155°, maybe higher if you mashed out. Very few, if any, bugs in the wort. Start the boil first thing Saturday morning, if I'm boiling at 7:00 I'm done by 9:00.

The wort is going to cool down a little overnight, but still be pretty inhospitable to wild yeast (and everything's going to be boiled in the morning).

I might be temped to sanitize my boil keggle if I do this, but otherwise... what's the flaw in this plan?

billl said:

I clean as I go, but there is always cleaning at the end. Brewpot, tubing, hop spider, spoons, hydrometer, containers for flameout hops etc.

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This is why I plan to only partially chill on my next batch. I plan to chill to about 100 and then rack to fermenter which will then go into fermentation chamber along with yeast, set to 62* or so. Hours later or the next day I'll pitch the yeast.

This way while I would have previously been stirring and waiting for wort to chill another 30-40 degrees, I can take that time to clean the BK and the rest of the final pieces. That should shave off 15-20 minutes, too.

the_bird said:

Something that was mentioned on a Basic Brewing Radio podcast I was listening to, which is really tempting to me...

Split the brew day. Mash on Friday night, after the kids are in bed. Collect your wort in the brew kettle, put on a cover and throw on some blankets, and leave it overnight. The wort's going to be ~150°-155°, maybe higher if you mashed out. Very few, if any, bugs in the wort. Start the boil first thing Saturday morning, if I'm boiling at 7:00 I'm done by 9:00.

The wort is going to cool down a little overnight, but still be pretty inhospitable to wild yeast (and everything's going to be boiled in the morning).

I might be temped to sanitize my boil keggle if I do this, but otherwise... what's the flaw in this plan?

Click to expand...

I'm thinking of an overnight mash, myself. The cooler is sealed up pretty good and will retain a lot of heat. The next morning I'll start running-off and sparging. Should be 30 minutes to sparge and another 90 to boil and chill/clean. 60-90 minutes on Saturday (heating strike while crushing grain, weighing hops, then doughing-in slowly) and another 2 hours on Sunday.

billl said:

Thanks all for the tips. I think I'm going to give it a go. I guess the worst that will happen is that I don't get enough sleep for a night.

Basic plan outline

Measure and prep everything the night before.
Start strike water when I get home from work.
Mash in at 6:30.
1 hr mash
20 min batch sparge and transfer
Bring to boil/hot break
Boil 1 hr
cool - 15 min
transfer to bucket/aerate
put fermenter in chamber to drop the last few degrees
Final cleanup
pitch

Click to expand...

How's this working out for you the past year or so? Did you end up purchasing new equipment to make things faster?