Quickest brew day

Ok, so who has the quickest brew day under their belts.
I've done four ag batches now I I can't get it under four hours. From go to woe including cooling and then pitching but not final clean up ( washing boil pot, IC and thermometers etc) I can't get it below four hours. Obviously the mash and boil take two hours, but my biggest time consumer outside these is trying to get my wort up to boiling after the mash.
Was just wondering if anyone has gotten below this time and with what methods.
I have an outdoor 15000btu burner and aluminum 26lt pot, cooler mash, (lose 2-3 deg cel over an hour)

I'm sure I could brew a crappy beer in two hours.

Berliner Wiesse is really quick. Very little grain (1.030 OG - less milling), only a 15 minute boil (if at all), and pitch lacto into warm wort (less chilling).

Yeah but I mean a full all grain batch with one hour mash and one hour boil. I can make a kit and kilo in 15 mins, but that's not the point.

I've never gotten below 4.5 hrs. unless you count EdWort's Apfelwein, which took all of about 10 minutes.

Passedpawn, that's a good one to know

i can't imagine getting anywhere under 4. here's one tip. say you're planning to brew right after you get home from work, or first thing in the morning. measure out and fill your HLT with initial strike water the night before and put a lid on it. that way once you wake up or get home from work, just light the burner and start prepping other

Bmbigda, that's what I'm trying to do, brew when getting home from work. but I use hot tap water to speed things up at the beginning. But thanks for the tip to get the burner set and ready to go will def do.

3.5hrs - APA with hopburst (additions at 20m, 10m, 5m, 0m, dh) only needs a 20min boil. If you add your first hops before the end of the sparge (assuming you've got a good boil at that point) it cuts even more time off.

yea lately i've only had the room in my gooogle calendar to sneak in the after work brew. so like you i look for any small time improvement.

another dumb little thing i do, is empty the sparge runnings into the brewpot while the brewpot in on the burner, to get the boil started. i'm sure everyone reading this is saying "no $hit"

then i'm just super anal about cleaning and putting things away during the masg/boil/cooling. I usually fill the brewpot with oxyclean and clean the next day.

I have my system on a timer to turn on early enough to be at strike temp when Im ready to brew. That way when I get home from work everything is ready to start. My next step is a cell phone activated switch.

Gab1788 said:

. . . . . but that's not the point.

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Sorry, I mis-interpretted the point.

Seriously it depends on the style of beer (As passedpawn has already pointed out)

Bmbigda, lol yeah I do the same, I get the first runnings in the boil pot and start heating while I sparge. Doesn't make for a good pre boil SG but I don't really care. As for doing **** while waiting, I normally bottle/keg while the mash is going on to free up a fermentor. Then sanitize the fermentor to take the sparge water from the boil pot. Fill boil pot with first running then pour hot water from fermentor into mash tun, sparge back into boil pot and go from there.

Gab1788 said:

Bmbigda, lol yeah I do the same, I get the first runnings in the boil pot and start heating while I sparge. Doesn't make for a good pre boil SG but I don't really care. As for doing **** while waiting, I normally bottle/keg while the mash is going on to free up a fermentor. Then sanitize the fermentor to take the sparge water from the boil pot. Fill boil pot with first running then pour hot water from fermentor into mash tun, sparge back into boil pot and go from there.

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yea same here.

also - have you ever looked into whether or not its OK to be using hot tap water? I know if you have an older (70's and 80's) style tankless on demand furnace, that it's best to empty that small reserve first because the heating element can collect mineral excess.

What is your rush? It is a hobby- take your time and make a day of it.

Bernie Brewer said:

What is your rush? It is a hobby- take your time and make a day of it.

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Exactly !

I can go to the store and buy beer and be back home in 10 minutes if I want fast.

Pick a day and knock out several batches if you feel the need for economizing time.

3.5-4 hours for a 5 gallon batch.

20 minutes from when i start collecting and heating strike water until I mash in. 1hr rest, 20min sparge, 1hr boil. 20-30min to chill to 60F and about 15 min to clean up.

It used to take me 5 hours or more. The more you brew the better you get at multi-tasking, and the faster it goes.

~4.5 hours for AG is about my average. I'm sure I could knock of 30 minutes easily if I had to.

4.5 is my average for AG, batch sparge. Add an hour for fly sparge. It really depends on how quickly you can heat the water and the wort to temp/boil.

But like Bernie said, why rush? If you don't have the time, wait until a later time or do an extract.

Like most everyone here, I take about 4.5 hours. I don't try to rush it, seeing as I enjoy the time to just sit, smoke, and have a beer instead of running around like a chicken with its head cut off to shave off a few minutes.

You could save some time by going No Chill, though. Im going to start doing that with my next brew.

Bernie Brewer said:

What is your rush? It is a hobby- take your time and make a day of it.

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If the OP is anything like me, he doesn't have the convenience of an entire weekend morning/afternoon dedicated to brewing, and prefers to just take off at 3:00 on a weekday and get a brew in. I don't look to rush through my brew or "get it over with", but if I can make minor improvements here and there using tips and tricks, I can get to bed a bit earlier on a weeknight brew.

Last time there was a thread like this, I decided to try a 45-minute mash, no sparge, 60-minute boil, no chill APA. It took almost exactly 3 hours from heating the strike water until the wort was in my bucket. I pitched the yeast the next day. It turned out to be one of the best beers that I've ever made.

Like others have said, be efficient and multi-task! Unless I have a really high gravity beer with a lot of boil off time, it usually takes me around 4-5 hrs to brew a five gallon bacth. This includes cleanup time.

Clean and start putting away everything you've used during mash/boil time. If I'm not cleaning until the end, I'm literally standing around watching water boil, and wasting time. The only real idle time I have is heating strike water, otherwise I'm constantly doing something.

I will add to the 'no chill' sentiment, and also finding something else to do while waiting. If you have something to bottle or keg or clean, do that. If not, try something else productive like spending time with your family or friends.

I just did an IPA no-chill (and also pressurized ferment but thats another story for another thread), and the brew day went very fast, like 3 1/2 to 4 hours. I had my grains milled and eHLT filled with water the previous night. So the 10 gallon brewday went like this:

7:00 AM: I woke up, went down to the garage and fired up the eHLT.
7:10 AM: Went upstairs and had a coffee with the wife. Good brownie points when SWMBO thinks that I'll be in the garage all day.
7:35 AM: Went back down to the garage - doughed in, and filled the eHLT again.
7:45 AM: Took the dog for a 20 minute walk while mashing. More brownie points.
8:10 AM: Got back, fired up the eHLT about halfway into the mash to get up to sparge temp.
8:30 AM: Drained MLT, batch sparged. Fired up brew kettle to get first runnings boiled.
9:00 AM: Drained sparge, boil kettle on full blast now.
9:20 AM: All wort is boiling now, do typical 1 hour boil.
10:20 AM: Flameout, drain to corny kegs, cleanup.
10:30: Clean up, move cornies to fermentation chamber.

Yeast was pitched the next day.

Keep in mind that you want to make sure the SWMBO doesnt get used to all the family time, sometimes there is beer to be bottled (or cigars to be smoked) during those down times!

I have to be very time efficient on brew day or I will not get to brew. Between work, kids, school, studying for promotion, and everything else in life, I still manage to get 2-3 brew days per month, on top of the bottling/kegging/tranferring time spent on other days.

That said, I've perfected my system enough to get my brew day under 4 hours. This is the perfect amount of time for me to brew after work and still get done with enough time to relax before bed. And that includes EVERYTHING from opening my tap to cleaned equipment on the shelves.

Airborneguy said:

I have to be very time efficient on brew day or I will not get to brew. Between work, kids, school, studying for promotion, and everything else in life, I still manage to get 2-3 brew days per month, on top of the bottling/kegging/tranferring time spent on other days.

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When do you drink?

kpr121 said:

Keep in mind that you want to make sure the SWMBO doesnt get used to all the family time, sometimes there is beer to be bottled (or cigars to be smoked) during those down times!

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I like the way you think

I got my pumpkin ale done in a lean 3.5 hours. I usually get up on the weekend at about 8am with a pre-measured pot of strike water and light the burners. Things that have really helped are the plate chiller (cuts cooling time WAY down), as well as upgrading the burners so I can get a rolling boil going faster. Also getting at it this early keeps me from cracking a brew while I'm brewing, which typically results in a smoother process

Gab1788 said:

Bmbigda, that's what I'm trying to do, brew when getting home from work. but I use hot tap water to speed things up at the beginning. But thanks for the tip to get the burner set and ready to go will def do.

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my dad always told me never to use hot water from the tap for something you will be eating or drinking (coffee, pasta etc) as chemicals in your pipes will leech into the water. This may be an old wives tale and it will obviously depend on how old your house/pipes are, but it is something that always stuck in my head.

4-5 hr depending on how long I mash. Sometimes I mash for just 30min, sometimes for an hour.

Same with lautering, sometimes I batch sparge and other I will do a hybrid batch/fly sparge.

I can do a partial mash in about 2.5 hrs, works good for a mild!

BargainFittings said:

When do you drink?

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During Sex

Please don't tell me that you drink alone!!!

I do 10 gallon batches and from heating hlt water to final cleanup...fastest has been about 5 hours. All grain.

3.5 hours BIAB. takes 30 minutes to heat strike water. mash for 60, 15 to get to a boil.. boil for 60, cooling takes 30 minutes 15 minutes to transfer to carboy and pitch yeast. I don't sparge and start heating the kettle with about 10 minutes left in the mash to do a mashout. I pull the bag and it gets to a boil quickly.

Airborneguy said:

During Sex

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HopMechanic said:

Please don't tell me that you drink alone!!!

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Good one!

kingmatt said:

my dad always told me never to use hot water from the tap for something you will be eating or drinking (coffee, pasta etc) as chemicals in your pipes will leech into the water. This may be an old wives tale and it will obviously depend on how old your house/pipes are, but it is something that always stuck in my head.

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This is true of hot and cold water, particularly if you have old lead pipes. Granted, minerals are more soluble in warmer water, if you let the water run for a few minutes, either is fine to use.

Maybe this is not on topic but doing a larger batch gets you twice the beer and partigyle gets you even more. mash then sparge then boil. as you boil mash a bit more and get a second batch ready. chill boiled batch dump in fermenter and mash grain bed with new addition of grains if needed, sparge, boil, chill, pitch. I have been getting two batches (10-15) gallons per day and that's running around 4-5 hours. I have 5 children under 11, a wife, studies, house repairs, church, work etc..... truth be told..... I pray over my brew day.
Maybe that's my secret........

The fastest I've ever gone is two 5 gallon batches in 8 hours. If I'm doing one batch, it takes about 4.5 hours. I'm going to step it up to 10 gallon batches soon.