how long does a simple recipe take you?

I feel like I missed something. I brewed a couple days ago and it was my fastest to date.

I doughed in at 1, finished putting away all my clean equipment at 4:45. I've never had such a short brew day!

I did everything as usual, but for some reason everything went off efficiently time wise.

So, how long is your typical brew day?

I usually do 10 gallon batches which adds time, but not a whole lot. From the time I am done setting everything up, to when I finish cleaning everything is usually 5 hours.

5 1/2 hours from getting everything out to cleaned up and put away. 1 hour mashes and 1 hour boils.. 5 gal.

6-7 hours from milling to cleaning, 10 gal batches.
I could probably speed it up but I don't care too much about time on my brewday.

Im usually around 6 hours with milling and clean up, but I have had some mysterious short brew days in there for one reason or another. I wonder sometimes if humidity/temp affect the time it takes me to get to boil.

I usually get alot of stuff together the day before. If you don't include that then its about 4.75 to 5 hours.

Odin_Brews said:

Im usually around 6 hours with milling and clean up, but I have had some mysterious short brew days in there for one reason or another. I wonder sometimes if humidity/temp affect the time it takes me to get to boil.

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I know the weather affects my boil off rate, haven't considered it affecting my boil times.

It was around freezing the other day here, so I'm sure that helped me chill the wort down. I didn't include my milling time or strike water above, so all said and done it was about 4 1/2 hrs. I'm usually an hour longer than that.

I'm never trying to rush my day, but I am pretty busy outside of brewing so a quick brewday here and there is welcomed!

Yesterday I was about 5-6 hours using the BIAB process. That seems pretty typical so far.

If I'm on the ball with multitasking (heating strike water while milling, cleaning while boiling/mashing, etc), and a 60 min mash/60 min boil I can do about 4 hours. I generally take it easy, and spend about 6 hours, 7 if I'm doing 90/90 mash and boil.

5.5 hours today brewing a simple dry stout with a single infusion single sparge with no mash out. I still need to wash out the kettle. I could shave an hour off that if I managed my time better.

Hard to judge exactly since I take things rather casually on brew morning, not like I set a timer and say "GO!!!" and start running But in all seriousness it depends on the brew I am doing. I've recently opted to do protein rests on most of my brews so I'll say with that rest on average I am doing about 6 hours from start (which means laying out my ingredients, milling my grain, etc) to all done with clean up.

The thing for me though is once the yeast is pitched and fermenter put away it's calm down time for me. So for the cleanup I don't rush or anything, unless for any reason I'd need to. I've been getting a lot quicker at it though lately. But since I've added more complexity to my mash schedules it's basically eaten up the time I saved with cleaning efficiency and such. For example, I recently did a hefeweizen where I decided to try a ferulic acid rest - that's on top of the latter protein rest at 122 and then mash at 154. So the ferulic and protein rest added 40 minutes to the mash.

So, it depends. I think on a single infusion mash I can generally be fully done in around 5 hours tops. Please note though, I mash inside and boil and transfer to fermenter outside. If I were able to do it all in the kitchen I think I'd save a bunch more time not having to move things outside then go back later to bring them in. Though boiling/cooling outside certainly has it's advantages.


Rev.

Typical brew day is about 5 hours for me. My grains are bought and milled at the LHBS beforehand. Their mill is exceptional and I set the gap so I have no motivation to buy my own mill.

I'm also in the average 6 hour club. Most of the time I spend on brew day is set-up and break-down since I store my stuff in strange places all over my house....

I usually get my recipe and water chemistry additions figured out the night before and get the right volume of water set out also. Then the brew day takes about 4 - 4.5 hours the next day. This past weekend I was able to do the brew part for a Belgian dubbel in 3.75 hours which is my record. If you factor in the stuff I do the night before, I would say about 5 - 5.5 hours for a 6 gallon batch.

I brew 10 gallons batches on a weekend morning typically, and I also have been playing basketball Saturdays and Sundays at 9AM so I time my brewing around being out of the house for around 1 ½ to 2 hours. I have an electric setup so I can be away from the mash for a while and still maintain temperature. It takes about 7 hours total typically, here’s my rough schedule:

Night before: Fill up HLT, add water salts.
7AM: Turn on HLT element, measure and mill grains. Measure and separate hops. Vacuum seal any extras. Go upstairs and make some coffee.
8AM: Transfer strike water to MLT, fill HLT back up and element fires again to get back up to sacc rest temp.
830AM: Dough in, start recirculation through HLT
9AM: Go play basketball!
11AM: Return from basketball…Go straight into the ‘brewery’ and set mash out temp to 170 (wort recirculates and gradually ramps up temperature). Grab a quick shower.
1130AM: Mashout, batch sparge, batch sparge round 2. As soon as the BK’s element is covered switch over the heat to get the wort up to boil temps.
12PM: Generally by now the full volume is in the BK and is boiling. Begin 60 minute boil. Clean out MLT.
1PM: Boil complete, whirlpool and recirc through plate chiller until down around 150, than drain into fermenters.
2PM: All wort is transferred by now. If I have some more time I will clean the BK right then and there. If not I fill it with water and turn the element on to 170 and backflush recirculate through the plate chiller. Then I make sure to drain and clean the BK later than night or the next morning.

This schedule was developed in order to allow me to continue playing basketball and brew at the same time. SWMBO has frequently tried to make me choose one or the other and this was our compromise.