Most of the replies to this are a repetition of what I've heard again and again.
Clearly brewing a 15 barrel batch is vastly more efficient than brewing a 2.5 gallon batch in terms of time. If the object were to get the most beer for the least time, that would be the answer. It works for microbrewers.
The repeated suggestion or implication that someone who wants to cut the brew day down must not like brewing, is just plain absurd. I brewed brew # 105 yesterday.... in about 20 months. 65 brews so far in my second year of brewing. That's more than a brew a week... Can you even remotely imagine I don't like brewing?? Get real!! Everybody who brews once a week please raise your hands..
Each brew is different. I always want to try a change in the hops, or tickle the grain bill a tad. I'm not the kind of brewer that wants to duplicate Zombie Dust again and again so I always have a supply of it........ I guess that makes me different from most folks here. I don't want 5 or 10 gallons of the same thing to go through before I can brew again.
The implication that volume makes for more time is absurd...... You scale your equipment to match your volume. You guys who brew 5.5 or 11 gallon brews use huge propane burners in the garage...... I brew on the kitchen stove. Do you really think it takes you longer to reach a boil than me? NONSENSE. Likewise chilling....... If you took my home made immersion chiller sized for my cheap Walmart stockpot, it would take you nearly twice as long to chill your 5.5 gallon brew as it takes me to chill my 3 gallon brew, but we all know that's not the way it is in real life.
Splitting the brew day DOES save time........ In reality it saves an hour because you aren't there during the mash. I frequently do this for this reason.
Here is a brew day for me.....not necessarily typical as I often mash all afternoon while I'm working somewhere else:
My most recent brew day was under 2.5 hours..... I started the water heating while I crushed the grain, doughed in at a strike temp of about 150, which put the dough in temp at about 140....... I rapid heated up to 145, and slow heated (1/2 deg per min) up to 155, at which point the conversion was complete. I used a fairly fine double crush. While mashing, I had a large sauce pan full of water heating on the back burner. I then poured the mash into my large kettle through a brew bag resting in a colander, rinsed the mash kettle, set it on the stove at full flame, dumped the large sauce pan of water in, and diluted it with tap water to achieve a desirable sparge temp, and volume, and dropped the brew bag in, lifted it off and set the big kettle on the heat stirring the mash in the sparge water. I lifted the brew bag into the colander and squeezed it, then poured the remaing wort in the large kettle which was on the heat. I then dropped my 2500 watt home made floating heater in the wort and plugged it into my non GFC outlet installed for the purpose, and quickly measured my first hop addition hops..... Within 5 minutes the hot break was overflowing the edges of my floating heater, and I was at full boil, so I added my first addition. An hour later after adding my other hop additions, I lifted the brew kettle into the sink and hooked up my immersion chiller. 10 minutes later (approx), it was at pitch temp, so I dumped it in the fermenter and pitched the yeast, and proceeded to clean up and put equipment away... About a 10 minute process. My total elapsed time was 2 hours 17 minutes start to finish. My efficiency was in the high 80's, and the fermenter was "boiling" within 2 hours due to the heavy pitch.
This clearly was a pretty intense day except for the hour boil... though I took advantage of that time to clean up and put away equipment. I know exactly what I need, where to find it quickly, etc. The key is having your ducks in a row so to speak. It is by no means "rushed" as some have suggested. I had time to drink a couple of beers, talk on the phone, answer email, etc. There were a few periods of intense activity, but they are brief.
The reality is that the 20 minute mash and the all afternoon mash do not produce greatly differing beers. The beer does not become super dry as a result of sitting all afternoon..... because mash temp falls off. The 20 minute mash does not make a heavy sweet beer..... because the crush is finer. I also usually add amylase when I do this..... I have half a liter of AG300 on the shelf. Theory and reality are not the same thing at all.
My original point was how to make all grain brewing more accessible for people who are "time challenged". What I'm getting here is an ambivalent attitude. If you don't have the time, you shouldn't be brewing, or you should brew huge batches on a massive brew stand so you get more beer per hour. Personally I would love to see the LHBS get a few Pico Brews so people could craft a brew and just pick up the wort..... or have it delivered like a pizza joint. At least they would be brewing! I'm not into exclusivity.....I'd like to see everybody who loves beer involved at some level, be it making 15 barrel batches or extract brewing, or crafting a recipe and sending it to the LHBS to be brewed on the Pico. The more the merrier. That makes availability and cost of supplies go down (both are poor here), and it means more people experimenting on the bleeding edge. Making mistakes so I don't have to make them myself!!!
H.W.
