How fast do you brew

5 g = 3.5 hrs
10 g = 4.25 hrs

Propane burners 60k each
Keggles
Insulted keggle for mlt

I use pumps which help. The heating process.

Added some new equipment and had the fastest brew day ever. Counter flow chiller saved me almost half an hour. Valve in the bottom of the new kettle saved probably 15 to 20 minutes of siphon time. New burner saved me probably 10 to 15 minutes. And starsan has been saving me time for a while now.

5 hours cleaned up and done.

even my extract batches take 6+ hours. I have a 15ft immersion chiller that was great for 2.5 gal boils but for 5 its hopelessly slow adding an easy 1.5 hours to my day

I'm 4-4.5 hours. When the ground water is cold it's about 4.
I weigh and crush the night before and use a bucket heater for my strike water in the am. I also only mash for 45 minutes and start heating up the first wort while I'm draining the sparge. Clean the mash run during the boil, and all I have to clean after is some tubing and the kettle.

Bucket heater has been the best thing though for cutting time and saving propane

I would say I am 5-5.5. My biggest time losses are due to things like not having a dedicated brewstand. Every brewday I need to set everything up and tear everything down. That adds at least a half hour.

I had my first stuck sparge ever yesterday, somehow some grain got through my manifold and clogged the ball valve. What a mess, still finished in 5 hours haha.

jbsg02 said:

I will get my stuff ready the night before a brew day now and it goes much smoother. I get all my supplies ready (kettle, mash tun, propane burner), lay out what I need (whirfloc, water salts, lactic acid) and will get my water prepared too. I measure out my mash water in the kettle and put it on the stove so first thing in the morning I can turn on my stove and get a cup of coffee. I already have my filtered sparge water in a bucket measured out so during the mash I can start heating it. The thing that adds the most time is getting my wort chilled down to mid 60's for ales when my tap water is 70-75 degrees

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Cheap $20 pond pump can help with this. Have the pond pump push ice water through, great for getting to ale temps in the summer!

For me, it also depends on the boil and mash time. 60/60 and I can be done in 4 to 4.5 hours--grain was crushed the night before.

Longer times can push 6 hours including cleanup.

3.5hours for 5gal with a plate chiller.

4h30 5h depending how I feel and how many beer i drink. For a 10 gallons electric brewery with fly sparge

Malichaidog said:

I've done a couple ag batches now in my gravity keggle setup, and with setup brewing and cleanup it takes me about 7-8 hours total. Am I super slow? Or is thus about average? Not that I'm in a rush I relax and enjoy myself, but I'm just curious.

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This was a question I was pondering myself. I average about 4 hours for 5 gallons and 5 hours for 10 gallons.

I've been avg. 5.5 hrs for a 5 gal batch one 5 gal igloo for mash a 5 gal kettle for hlt and a 36 qt bk using a turkey fryer to boil....

I just read an article in BYO on shortening your brew day! Worth the read!

I took a spare 5 gal igloo I had and turned it into a HLT, cranked my hot water heater up to about 150. Filled both coolers with my strike and sparge water. With the water already hot it was ready in like 10 min. While the mash was doing its thing I heated the sparge and set it up to fly sparge Into the bk.

With my wifes help we brewed her a raspberry wit... dough in to fermenter in 3.5!

4 or 5 hours depending if anything else is happening during brew day

Five to six hours for 10 gallon AG. I am happy with that. Brewing is something i enjoy and adding equipment or a new process is something that makes it fun. All these new ideas from u all......make my wallet sad.

I do no sparge BIAB, 5 gallon batches, and it always takes me 5.5 hours give or take 0.5 hours. I use a gas stovetop indoors but have a kickass "quick boil" burner that puts out plenty of heat. Chilling is probably the step that I could chip the most time off because I just chill it in my kitchen sink which can take 30-60 minutes. I figure with a good IC I could get this down to 10-15 minutes.

I also get all my grain pre-crushed and my hot water comes out around 145, which helps get the rbew day off to a quick start. I don't do any cleaning and sanatizing until my boil starts. I'll add bittering hops, then get my sanatizing under way and clean anything I can while waiting the 40 minutes for my next addition. I probably spend 1.5 hours of my brew time sitting on the couch playing video games or watching TV too, which isn't bad. Sometimes I am lazy and leave the brew kettle to clean for a day or 2...

5 hours on the button:

20 min. strike water to temp
1:20 mash
30 min sparge
90 min boil
1 hour chill (ya I know...ice bath in sink is not the best)
20 min clean up

The night before I prep my grains, weight out hops and put additions in seperate containers, wash my equipment, everything is ready for me to brew when I start...besides zesting fruit or something like that. I live about 100 feet from a convienence store, so in between my final additions I go by ice. Pretty relaxing day besides FWH to 60 min addition when I am cleaning my mash equipment and zesting fruit

Calichusetts said:

5 hours on the button:

20 min. strike water to temp
1:20 mash
30 min sparge
90 min boil
1 hour chill (ya I know...ice bath in sink is not the best)
20 min clean up

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Is this the same for all brews? I would think an 80 min mash and a 90 min boil are not needed for most beers (pilsner malt and high gravity excluded). Seems like you could be saving some time there

On Sunday I brewed 5 gallons and also bottled 5 gallons. Today is Tuesday and I'm still cleaning up.

One of the joys of being single and living alone..... I'll get to it when I get to it

Like most people that have responded, my brewing day is between 4 and 5 hours, start to finish. I make 5 gal batches and I batch sparge.

coypoo said:

Is this the same for all brews? I would think an 80 min mash and a 90 min boil are not needed for most beers (pilsner malt and high gravity excluded). Seems like you could be saving some time there

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Basically...I got an 8% bump in efficiency (might not even be from the extension but I'll stick with it) extending the mash on my IPAs...pilsners come in around 15 minutes more. Almost all my beers are above 8%...I like them that way and I do one gallon so its a nice result in 16oz bottles

I read a great article on doing 90 minute boils...I don't have the link off-hand but I have posted it in most 60 vs 90 minute boil-type treads. I just did a DIPA that was a 75 minute boil but that is about as short as I go.

3 vessel, 120v 2 loop electric setup. I'm usually looking at about 4.5 hours to brew. thats from filling the mash tun to heat strike water to counters cleaned and starter pitched.

maxam said:

I'm AG, igloo MLT, 1 propane burner, batch sparge and I go about 6-7 hours from stepping foot in the garage to cleaned up and everything put back.

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So, I brewed yesterday. Sunday night I set all my equipment up in the back yard. Measured my strike water and filled the brew kettle. Washed all tools/vessels/tubing and prepped my yeast started and fermentation chamber. I easily shaved off a few hours from brew day and I wasn't dog tired at the end.

I lit the burner at 9:30 and was packed up and clean at 2:00ish.

Preparation - 30 minutes (heat mash tun, set out grains, get ingredients set out (except for refrigerated components, Make sure everything is sanitized (usually I do this the day before)))
Infusion Mash - I do singles so far, and do an infusion for 90 minutes on most I have been doing, during this time I heat up sparge water.
Sparge - Typically takes me about 45 minutes, I try to do it slow
Boil - 1 hour and 40 minutes - 2 hr - about 10 minutes to situate and get everything going, 20 minutes to bring up to boil and I boil 60-90 minutes depending on the beer.
Cool - 20 minutes
Aerate - 5 minutes
Blow-off tube and move to fermentation environment - 5 minutes

Total time 5 -5.5 hours

with my 3 tiered system I brew 10 gallon batches in about 5 hours, cleanup takes about another 30 minutes
I grind my malt while the mash water heats, thenonce I dough in I start heating the MLT. When it's at 180F I start my sparge which takes about 30-45 minutes. When the kettle is 1/3 full I light the fire under it so that by the time I've finished sparging the wort is boiling.
Chilling takes about 30 minutes to get 11 gallons down in the low 60's, then 10 minutes to pump to the fermenter.
My original 5 gallon system took almost 8 hours so this is a tremendous improvement

I would say from the very beginning of heating water to cleaning and putting everything away it takes me 4-5 hours. It depends on the day and the beer.

I do AG with 5-6 gallon batches and mash in a round 10g cooler.

The key is to spend your down time either prepping for the next steps or cleaning and putting things away.

If memory serves me right my fastest batch was ~3.5 hours. A bavarian weiss beer on a cool day that did not require a whole lot of sparging.

BIAB - single vessel no sparge. A normal 60 minute mash + mashout + 60 minute boil takes 3.5-4 hours from the time I start measuring my water & grain to when I've cleaned up. I used to dunk sparge (before I had a larger kettle), which added about 30-60 minutes on. Better efficiency with the dunk (~ 5% better), but the extra efficiency was not worth the extra time and effort.

I recently did a quick brew (30 minute mash + 30 minute boil) in 2.5 hours for a Hefeweizen (pale instead of pils). By far my shortest brew day ever. First time I've tried this - we'll see how it turns out! If this works out, I may start doing this regularly for session beers.

Oh, and if friends are over brewing with me, my brew day takes about 6 hours . But, I get a lot of bottles for the next batch!

Average 5 hrs for 5 gal a.g. including cleanup.

Usually 5 to 7 hours. I do a lot of Belgians and tend to mash for 90 mins and do 90 min boils. I am tempted to try an overnight mash. Heard randy mosher ramble on about those recently.

If I'm doing a belgian wit it can take a loooong time. Multi step mash. Hard work those

cyclonite said:

I recently did a quick brew (30 minute mash + 30 minute boil) in 2.5 hours for a Hefeweizen (pale instead of pils). By far my shortest brew day ever. First time I've tried this - we'll see how it turns out! If this works out, I may start doing this regularly for session beers.

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I did the same thing for a blonde ale and finished in 2.5 hours this weekend. It would be nice if it tastes good to cut down on some time for session beers. Keep us updated on how it turns out.

I did a brew this weekend - 11 gallons of a chocolate stout - that was mostly done from setup to cleanup in about 5 hours. The only exception was that I took some time afterward to recirulate oxyclean and then rinse water through my counterflow chiller and pump. But most of that was filling the MLT, starting the pump up, and walking away for 15 or 20 minutes at a time, so it hardly added much to my time.

My brew partner and I mash grain for 11 gals. we fill up 2 - 7 gal kettles and boil on propane burners. we usually heat water on a stove top but this weekend we are gonna heat water on the propane burners. we get 10.5 - 11 gals in 5-6 hours w/ clean up.

i usually crush grain the night before and get everything cleaned/sanitized the nite before brew day. cleaning the mash tun while you wait for your boil saves a bunch of time.
cheers!