Brewing and bottling at the same time?

I currently do extract brewing and I have gotten to the point where my brew day is about 3 ½ hours, including cleaning/sanitizing. I am also trying to get to where I brew every weekend and have about four fermenters going at a time. I primary for a month and do no secondary. As you know, much of that brew time is spent waiting as water/wort boils. So with my planned brewing schedule I will eventually have beer coming ready to bottle every weekend.

To make better use of the brewing time I would like to bottle one batch while I am brewing the new one. My kitchen is big enough. Any logistical problems in doing this that I might be overlooking? Do any of you do it?

no issue as long as you don't get involved in bottling and miss hop additions.

I would suggest making a written time line to follow. It's easy to forget or miss something if you are distracted.

You also need to be careful with the dust from the milled grain around you finished beer. It contains mold spores and other nasties that could infect your beer during the bottling process.

As always, sanitation is critical.

Bull

The first thing that springs to mind is boilover. They seem to only happen when I get distracted and look away for just a moment. That's why I started using FermcapS, which has been working great. If you're not using any kind of foam control, I'd say concentrate on one thing at a time.

The only other thing that comes to mind is mid-boil hop additions. But missing your time by a minute or less, while you finish capping a couple of bottles, isn't going to have any noticeable effect on your beer.

Fermcap-S is the gift of the beer fairy.

We bottled and brewed this weekend, and it was no prob with the Fermcap-S.

The iPhone is great for multiple alarms so I don’t forget anything. And I had completely forgotten about boilovers. I will definitely look into using Fermcap-S. Thanks.

are you doing this by yourself or do you have some help? I have a couple of brew buddies that come over and we have our procedures down pretty good. A few weeks back we did a 12g batch and an 18g batch at the same time. We've also brewed and bottled in the same day. I don't think I'd want to do those projects solo, much easier with a couple Friends and a good system down

superjunior said:

are you doing this by yourself or do you have some help? I have a couple of brew buddies that come over and we have our procedures down pretty good. A few weeks back we did a 12g batch and an 18g batch at the same time. We've also brewed and bottled in the same day. I don't think I'd want to do those projects solo, much easier with a couple Friends and a good system down

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Yeah, going solo right now. But now that they have tasted the results a few people here seem interested in learning how to do it themselves. My wife is eager to help as she really enjoys the final product as well. But she usually has her hands full with the kids, the youngest of which is a 1 year-old. The youngest is also the reason I am just doing extract for now. I am lucky SWMBO doesn’t make me feel guilty about taking 3-4 hours every Saturday to brew. Not sure she would be as understanding with 8 hours. Not at least until the youngest is old enough to entertain himself for longer stretches of time.

I also am brewing every weekend . I usually bottle Fri night and brew either Sat or Sun. I tried doing both same day (first bottle, then brew) and it made for a pretty long day.

As far as bottling while heating the brew water. . .if you think it will work for you, give it a try. For me, I want my brewing days to be relaxed & stress free. I really enjoy the details of brewing and I think I'd feel a bit manic trying to juggle both together. But it sounds like your goal is to bring it to as efficient a process as possible. Give it a go!

Brewer_Bob said:

Yeah, going solo right now. But now that they have tasted the results a few people here seem interested in learning how to do it themselves. My wife is eager to help as she really enjoys the final product as well. But she usually has her hands full with the kids, the youngest of which is a 1 year-old. The youngest is also the reason I am just doing extract for now. I am lucky SWMBO doesn’t make me feel guilty about taking 3-4 hours every Saturday to brew. Not sure she would be as understanding with 8 hours. Not at least until the youngest is old enough to entertain himself for longer stretches of time.

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if your good at multi tasking give it a whirl! I find that using kitchen timers for hop additions and such makes things a bit easier, especially if your "sampling" prior batches

ILuvIPA said:

For me, I want my brewing days to be relaxed & stress free.

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I agree totally. If I'm pressed for time then I don't enjoy myself....I also tend to make more messes and mistakes.

A written procedure would be good especially if you are going to have an extra set of hands. There are 2 of us brewing and we could probably bottle an entire batch during the boil. We have the bottling down to about 45-60 minutes. This is what we use. I may need some tweaking but should be a good starting point.


Brewing procedure
1 Gather ingredients, water, and equipment
2 Open beer, gotta stay hydrated
3 Start steeping water heating, heat to temp then turn to WM/low
A Steep in smaller pot, 1-3 quarts of water/lb
4 Put specialty grains into bag
5 Steep grains at suggested temp
6 Start boil water heating
7 Put LME jug in warm water to warm up LME
8 Set up burner
9 When steeping is done add more water.
10 Heat till almost boiling
11 Remove from heat then add extract
12 Heat to boil and follow brewing instructions
13 Start top off water boiling with 20 minutes left in boil
14 Place wort chiller in pot 15 minutes before the boil ends
15 Cool wort
16 Sanitize fermenter while wort cools
17 Pour wort into fermenter
18 Sanitize yeast and scissors
19 Top off to 5 gallons with cooled water
20 Check specific gravity, add more water if necessary
17 Pitch yeast
18 Put airlock or blow off tube on fermenter and put in a cool dark place
19 Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew - Charlie Papazian

Bottling Procedure
After determining the wort is done fermenting.

1 Boil priming solution
2 Open beer to drink while bottling
3 Move fermenter to bottling area
4 Sanitize Bottles
5 Clean and sanitize bottling equipment
6 Pour priming solution into bottling bucket
7 Rack beer into bottling bucket
8 Fill fermenter with water and cleaning solution
9 Fill and cap bottles
10 Open beer to drink while cleaning
11 Clean all brewing equipment used.

I love multi-tasking while brewing because I feel like I've accomplished so much more after the brewday. Depending on you exact boilover possibilities I don't see a problem. Also when I brew I always wear my workout watch and have the timer set to the next step I have to take. Last weekend I bottled 2 batches while brewing an AG. First batch was bottled in 45 minutes during the mash giving me just enough time to start the sparge water. Second batch was bottled during the boil after the hot break there is little chance of boilover for me so added 60 minute hops, waited 5 minutes and started bottling, set timer for 40 minutes to add 15 minute hops, whirfloc tab and chiller and was capping the final bottle 2 minutes before flameout.
Write everything down and have a timer set so you just have to check to see what you are doing next when the timer goes off. Good luck.

I try to combine bottling and brewing as often as possible. I don't have too much free time generally, and while SWMBO certainly likes to drink my beer, she isn't always so keen on the time I put into brewing it ... bottling while brewing makes things easier. Particularly if you're going to be pitching some slurry from the previous batch.

There's enough down time in the brewing process that bottling's pretty easy to fit in. Makes for a pretty busy 4-4.5 hours or so, but there's a lot done by the end. Plus you're cleaning up from the brewday anyway, so adding some extra stuff to clean isn't such a big deal.

+1 on pitching the slurry.

Problem is, yeast don't seem to be *infinitely* renewable. I've heard people say you shouldn't use the same cake more than once, unless you wash the yeast somehow.

Currently /so far, I brew alone but my wife has helped me on bottling day twice now. We both love to cook and drink (beer,whiskey,etc) and just love life. Nice to have a spouse who enjoys my hobby enough to want to help. Id love to have my wife help me on brew day . I explain the procedures to her and the whole science of it , shes very interested in my brewing nerdiness.

Veinman said:

I love multi-tasking while brewing because I feel like I've accomplished so much more after the brewday. Depending on you exact boilover possibilities I don't see a problem. Also when I brew I always wear my workout watch and have the timer set to the next step I have to take. Last weekend I bottled 2 batches while brewing an AG. First batch was bottled in 45 minutes during the mash giving me just enough time to start the sparge water. Second batch was bottled during the boil after the hot break there is little chance of boilover for me so added 60 minute hops, waited 5 minutes and started bottling, set timer for 40 minutes to add 15 minute hops, whirfloc tab and chiller and was capping the final bottle 2 minutes before flameout.
Write everything down and have a timer set so you just have to check to see what you are doing next when the timer goes off. Good luck.

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One thing I have found to be true is I am NOT a multitasker.

Nice 8 year old thread and that the last response in 2010 was just wrong!! Well maybe not. I am sure there are some people who would not use the yeast again more than once....

MIS EN PLACE.

Everything is weighed, sorted, arranged, etc before you start. The brew stuff and the bottling stuff.

Seeing things has a way of not letting you forget them. Timers help too.

Soulshine2 said:

Currently /so far, I brew alone but my wife has helped me on bottling day twice now. We both love to cook and drink (beer,whiskey,etc) and just love life. Nice to have a spouse who enjoys my hobby enough to want to help. Id love to have my wife help me on brew day . I explain the procedures to her and the whole science of it , shes very interested in my brewing nerdiness.

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You’re lucky! My wife hates DIY. She makes me brew in garage and complains that I don’t just go out and buy beer. Bleh

This is the best way to do it! The below is what I used to do for all grain:
1.get your brewing water heating then start prepping ur sanitizing solutions
2.then start cleanin the bottles and dump out the residual into your fermenter.
3. while the mash is goin i rack and bottle. then sparge, boil, etc...

since you’re extract (i recently switched back also), i suppose you’ll be hard pressed to do them all at once. it’s a balancing act even with a 60 minute mash.
i’d sanitize bottles and fermenter while the specialty grains are steeping, then pause bottling until the brew is chillin. then bottle.