More quick brewing

Never had any cloudiness, when I didn't want it. I've made crystal clear 30 minute boils, just using my standard Whirlfloc tab at 10 mins.

Brewed a Centennial blonde ale, 1.050 OG, this weekend. Mashed for maybe 90 minutes (because I got distracted), then pulled the bag and boiled for 30. Hop additions at 30, 10 and FO/WP. Ran the wort full speed through the plate chiller, and ended up with 5.5gal at about 90F. Took about 2 minutes to fill the carboy! Put into my fermentation chamber which was set to 60F. By the time I got home from our family dinner a few hours later, everything was ready to pitch.

Love these techniques to minimize the time investment!

Cant believe i stayed under 3 hours with a 23 minute steep. Julius clone, dumped some wort getting silly squeezing my sack. So bummed. Anyways 1 oz at 45, 4.5 at 140 for 20 minutes or so.

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Yesterday 2hr40min for citra pilsner.

petrolSpice said:

....my tap water is around 75F, so it does a good job cooling till around 90F where it starts to be really ineffective and a waste of water. This is when I rely on the ice bath to take it down to pitching temp. Still takes about 30 minutes to cool 6.5 gallons.

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I also have warm tap water. What works for me is to recirculate rather than dump the cooling water. I use a cheap little pump, and first pump from/to a 5gal bucket of water. When that heats to saturation I switch to pumping from/to a cooler filled with water and ice cubes. I can reach pitching temps in under 10 min.

I use the resulting 5 gallon bucket of hot water for cleanup, and the now warm water in the cooler for rinsing.

My fast method is a partial mash in which I mash and boil at the same time. This of course requires two vessels. I heat the whole volume of water to strike temp while grinding the grain. The 30 minute mash is in a bag in a cooler. Meanwhile I add the extract to the pot and bring it to a boil. After the hot break I add start hop additions for a 40 minute boil. The mash finishes well before the boil, and I add the late addition wort to the pot. I turn up the heat and add slowly to avoid too much cooling. Chilling was a bit slow this time as tap water is warm, I had to finish it in the ferm fridge.
My current IPA was a 2.5 hour brewday

Have you looked into "no-chill" brewing? Basically, it's tapping your hot wort directly into a food-grade container, capping it, and letting it sit for 24 hours (or more if you want), and then pitching your yeast once it's cooled down naturally. No messing with any cooling equipment or related cleanup. It's originally an Australian technique. Works great!

And you can also then do a natural wort starter (if you use starters) by just tapping off a little of the wort before putting it all in your no-chill container. No DME to mess with, no boiling water to make a starter. You just let the pint/quart of wort cool down to where you want it for pitching temp. By the time your no-chill container has cooled, your starter is ready to go.

A couple years ago I upgraded from my old 25' 3/8 ic to a 50' 1/2. Does great most of the year, maybe 20-30 min chill to 68ish. But may-sep my tap water is about 60 and those last 10 degrees can take a long long time. Last brew day I was looking at my shelf and saw my old 25' ic there. Dropped it in on top of my 50', waited till the wort was at 80 then started recirculating ice water through it with my pond pump from my keg washer. Saved 30 min easy.

porterguy said:

Have you looked into "no-chill" brewing? Basically, it's tapping your hot wort directly into a food-grade container, capping it, and letting it sit for 24 hours (or more if you want), and then pitching your yeast once it's cooled down naturally. No messing with any cooling equipment or related cleanup. It's originally an Australian technique. Works great!

And you can also then do a natural wort starter (if you use starters) by just tapping off a little of the wort before putting it all in your no-chill container. No DME to mess with, no boiling water to make a starter. You just let the pint/quart of wort cool down to where you want it for pitching temp. By the time your no-chill container has cooled, your starter is ready to go.

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Yep. Researched it, have done it, have advocated for it, and I'm very familiar with the process. Interestingly enough, Bobrews did a six month or was it a year no chill, and did a podcast with I want to say beer Nation. No it was basic Brewing. Anyways they were all worried it was going to kill them with botulism and no, it was fine. He let the raw wort unfermented sit a year. Anyways I think it would be very viable to brew in a kettle, no chill in the kettle and then ferment in the kettle. The problem for me is I can't carry a 15 gallon pot of hot wort downstairs. And I didn't care for the results, at times, and at other times it was annoying to come back and do something the next day. It was easier to just get it all done with at once in two hours 40 min or so. By chilling it right away, at least perceptibly, I feel that I have more control over locking in recipes as they were meant to taste from a hop standpoint. But come to think of it if I did no chill, it could open up fermenting in the kettle for me because then I would be carrying a chilled pot of wort to the basement. Throw the yeast in and boom. No need to worry about sanitization, heck maybe even Saran wrap the top, then put lid on, or something like that. But you know it only takes me 5 or 10 minutes to chill at the most so I don't know. Appreciate the suggestion.

It looks to me like the time you're saving vs my brew day is in shorter mash, shorter boil and, the one I can't currently replicate....much, much faster times to heat to strike and boil.

For me, with my burner cranked at full bore, it's 40 mins minimum to reach strike temp and about the same to get to boil after my mash.

I also brew mostly NEIPA's so I add another 30 minutes for FO and WP hop additions. With one hour mash and one hour boil, that puts me near 4 hours as a bare miniumum:

Heat strike: 40
Mash 60
Heat to boil 40
boil 60
WP 30
Total 230 mins

Through in 30 minutes to clean up and put stuff away and sub 3 hour brew day just isn't likely. I might try shorter mash if I see better conversion efficiency now that I have a mill and I would consider shorter boils if I didn't need/want the 60 minute hop addition.

I boil for 40, and add my "60 minute addition" at the start. You may need a better burner. I'm only using an SP10, but it heats pretty quickly, maybe 15 minutes to strike, and 10 to boil from there, even for a ten gallon batch.

JohnSand said:

I boil for 40, and add my "60 minute addition" at the start. You may need a better burner. I'm only using an SP10, but it heats pretty quickly, maybe 15 minutes to strike, and 10 to boil from there, even for a ten gallon batch.

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I do need a better burner...it's on my wish list. I'm using a crappy turkey fryer burner right now. I plan to get a Bayou Classic KAB4. It should be 5-6x the BTU's of the POS I'm using now.

I didnt have much luck with a burner being fast. Used my blichmann twice and sold it. Others had way more success. I like the idea of a heat stick. You only need the turkey fryer to get it boiling after that the 110 will keep it going i think. No need for a controller because you want it max power. Hell even one of those bucket heaters would probably work

applescrap said:

I didnt have much luck with a burner being fast. Used my blichmann twice and sold it. Others had way more success. I like the idea of a heat stick. You only need the turkey fryer to get it boiling after that the 110 will keep it going i think. No need for a controller because you want it max power. Hell even one of those bucket heaters would probably work

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applescrap, I just want to say thank you for inspiring me to continue with this hobby. I've gone from 5 gallon batches that took 4+ hours to 2.5 that take under 2. Between your ideas and Brulosophy's I've liberated myself from many of the drudgeries that many home brewers feel they must adhere to.

bstway said:

I've liberated myself from many of the drudgeries that many home brewers feel they must adhere to.

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Agreed, one has to be careful not to get caught up in each and every best practice or there may never be beer...perfect takes forever.

Mash temp for example....many go to hair pulling extremes to keep mash temp within a half a degree. Lol

bstway said:

applescrap, I just want to say thank you for inspiring me to continue with this hobby. I've gone from 5 gallon batches that took 4+ hours to 2.5 that take under 2. Between your ideas and Brulosophy's I've liberated myself from many of the drudgeries that many home brewers feel they must adhere to.

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Omg, you are so welcome. I am so glad these ideas have worked out. You are smart to have followed your heart and mind. Drudgery is right! Do you see some of these battles i get in. I dont even know why I try. For such a common, old, and simple drink its absurd how married people are to their process, and how reluctant they are to change.

Next step, if you arent already, use the best spring water or water you can find. When you taste it and everyone is amazed, tell them you mashed at 152

3 hours 18 minutes, 10g marzen, nothing to special. 10g in 15 gallon pot is a little trickier. If I batch sparge, i can heat sparge water while mashing and potentially save some time. Recipe

4 pounds 2 row
3 munich
2 vienna
.75 carmel 60
Hallertau

Modified to

10 pounds 2 row
.75 munich 60
Willamette

13g water 1/2 short 5.25 in each fermenter. 2 biab bags.

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