Easy way to speed up an Extract + grains brew day

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kidsmakeyoucrazy

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This is so simple and obvious I'm surprised I haven't seen it mentioned before.

Do you want to cut an hour off of your brew day? Well here's an easy way to do it if you're brewing extract + steeping grains....use 2 pots!

Here's what I did yesterday and it worked great. I took my 5 gallon pot and filled with 4 gallons of water and threw it on the propane burner and started heating it up. While that was going I took another smaller pot and put about 1 gallon of water in it to steep my grains in. I heated that pot to 155 deg and threw in my grain bag. Since I'm using two pots I can have my main pot at a boil right about the time the steeping grains are done. I pulled out the grain bag and then went back to my main pot took it off heat and added all the extract...that's right I added all of it. This brought the level up to just about the top of my 5 gallon pot. Now here's the other trick. I took a big measuring cup and took about 1/2 gallon of the wort from my brew pot and threw it in the pot I steeped the grains in...so now I've got roughly 4 gallons left in the brew pot and about 1 1/2 in the other pot for a total of 5 1/2 gallons.

I brought them both to a boil and brewed as normal from that point. Then with 15 minutes left I dumped the smaller pot into the main pot (plenty of room now due to evaporation) and dropped in my wort chiller, finished out the remaining 15 minutes and cooled it down.

So what did this do? Well, rather than bringing 1 pot to 155, sitting around drinking beer for 30 minutes, then topping that pot off and bringing it to a boil, I was able to bring my main pot to a boil at the same time. Easily cut an hour off my brew day. The second advantage is I was able to do nearly a full boil. After transferring to my fermenter I only needed about 1/2 gallon of top-off water. Plus with the larger volume I felt like it would be ok to add all the extract and not worry about the wort darkening too much since it wasn't so thick. This also saved time since I didn't have to do a late extract to keep the color where I wanted it, which takes time too. You have to remove the pot from heat, stir in the rest of the extract and then bring it back to a boil....probably shaved another 15-20 minutes there.

What do you guys think?
 
This is what I have been doing recently and it is awesome! Saves OVER an hour because you can also get the malt extract dissolved and up to boiling by the time the steeping grains are done. I can get my 2-5gallon batches from start to end of cleanup in about 3.5 hours or less.
 
Hah. I'm usually too busy to drink during brew day. Typically I'll find a half gone warm pint near the stove when I'm all finished. I'd say more of the satisfaction is when I'm finished and plop on the couch and crack one.
 
Do you loose any hop utilization? I guess not no different than adding top off water.....huh
I don't think it makes any difference if you were doing a late extract. If you were adding all the extract up front anyway then it should increase your utilization some since you're diluting the extract into a larger volume of water than you normally could.
 
I don't mind brew day taking a while, especially if I have music going and a cold beer to drink. I do my best to keep it like a hobby and not work.

To each his own, though. Congrats on finding a way to be more efficient.
 
I don't mind brew day taking a while, especially if I have music going and a cold beer to drink. I do my best to keep it like a hobby and not work.

To each his own, though. Congrats on finding a way to be more efficient.

My brew day usually starts about 9:30am though. I bottle what's in the fermenter and then while I've got everything clean I usually go ahead and start the next brew after lunch. Sure I could start the next brew while bottling but that cuts a little too deeply into my beer drinking...I mean beer making afternoon time. This method cuts just enough time off to keep the whole day enjoyable for me without really adding any extra work.
 
My brew day usually starts about 9:30am though. I bottle what's in the fermenter and then while I've got everything clean I usually go ahead and start the next brew after lunch. Sure I could start the next brew while bottling but that cuts a little too deeply into my beer drinking...I mean beer making afternoon time. This method cuts just enough time off to keep the whole day enjoyable for me without really adding any extra work.

Bottling AND brewing on same day. Now I get it. I would be looking at ways to be more efficient, too. Eventually, I would like to bottle and brew on the same weekend.(bottle on Fri night, brew next batch Sat or Sun). I don't think I would be doing it on the same day. Too lazy, hahaha. I would end up messing something up.
 
Yes, good tip. Especially good if working with an electric stove, like me.

Before batch #3, I learned about using a small volume for steeping (rather than using the 2.5 gallons that would later get boiled). After steeping and adding half the extract and tap water up to 2.5 gallons, it took a long time to bring it to a boil.

For batch #4, I steeped in about 1 gallon in a kitchen pot and at the same time brought 1.5 gallons to boil in the main brew pot. I also heated a tea kettle in case I needed to top off with some hot water to get to 2.5 gallons after adding the steeping grains wort and half the extract to the brew pot.

It saved at least an hour for me.
 
That's what I like about this, it's so easy for anyone doing extract to do whether you're doing 2.5 gallon boils or 4+ gallons...all you're basically doing is making use of the 30 minutes steep time that you'd normally be wasting waiting around. Since your larger volume will be at a boil by the end of the steep, you're at least an hour ahead of the game.

What actually made me think of it is my first 2 batches I steeped in 2.5 gallons and then topped up my 5 gallon pot...well that was a lot of wasted time trying to heat up all that water again. That's about the time I realized that the steep should be roughly 1 gallon per pound of grain. So I did that...but still topped up my 5 gallon pot with cold water to continue brewing....then it dawned on me! This would go alot quicker if I just went ahead and started heating my big pot and did the steep in a different one at the same time.
 
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