Extract Brewing Timing

My kit from Midwest supplies will finally be in today, I got the Autumn Amber Ale (extract). Any idea on the amount of time I should allow myself for brew day? Am I foolish to try an start tonight around 7?

atomicskiracer said:

My kit from Midwest supplies will finally be in today, I got the Autumn Amber Ale (extract). Any idea on the amount of time I should allow myself for brew day? Am I foolish to try an start tonight around 7?

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If this is your first batch I would plan on 3-4 hours from setup to cleanup.

For a first time, I'd budget 4-5 hours. As you get more familiar you will likely move more towards 2-3, depending on your equipment.

How late do you stay up? Typically it takes me something like 20 minutes to get everything together. Then it takes a while for the water to boil (how much water are you boiling and is it on an outdoor cooler or your stove?). I usually have a 1 hour boil for the hops. Then it takes 15 minutes to cool the wort with my IC. 15 more minutes and the gravity is measured, the yeast is pitched, and it is capped and put away. Another 20 min or so for cleanup (I try to do some cleanup while boiling). Roughly 3 hours for me.

I would budget 4 hours for the first time. If you are done early, great. Good luck.

Perfect, thanks guys. The kit should be delivered by 5, and I plan on starting around 6 haha

Do it! Resisting the urge to jump into the first brew is futile, I started mine late night too, got done around midnight but totally worth it.

Ended up taking 3.5 hours from start to finish, definitely made some simple mistakes that made it take longer, will certainly be around 2.5 hours next time!

Took me right at three hours for my first brew and it was an Autumn Amber Ale from Midwest! Still in primary till Saturday...
Piece of cake...

I usually takes me 3-3 1/2 hrs to do a 60 min boil extract kit. You have to kind of learn when to sanitize your carboy and what not. What i use to do before i built a wort chiller is put my kettle in the ice bath. Then sanitize my carboy while it cooled. Also a factor is how long will it take your stove to get to a boil. It also helps to have a partner on my first few brews my cuz helped me and made things go much smoother.