All-Grain Brewers: How long does your typical brew day take?

[ButcherBoy]

5 gallon batches here, batch sparging. Takes me 5-7 hours, setup to no trace left. My stove takes 45-60 minutes to boil, bummer. I'm considering a propane burner upgrade in the near future, but that also means I have to move to the garage or back porch. Not sure I want to do that. I enjoy my brew days.

 

[Pointyskull]

From setup to packed away is 5-6 hours....

 

[Ondori]

5-6 hours seems to be my average. I love every minute of it

 

[KIAKillerXJ]

5 or 10gal BIAB. Ranges 4-5 consistently.


Even that is hard to fit in though, thinking of getting water heated overnight like the thread on this page using a bucket heater, and also milling my grains night before. Could go straight to the mash and save 45 mins or so.

 

[mosquitocontrol]

Usually turn on the burner on around 8:30 and am finished cleaning up with the rig pulled back into the garage around 3/3:30. I do a 90 minute mash on every batch. So about 6-7 hours. Most of this time though I can do something else as its mostly waiting. So drinking my coffee during initial heat. Making lunch/breakfast during the mash. Etc. Makes for a nice relaxing weekend day with no expectations.

Definitely looking into ways to speed it up with a separate HLT and bucket heater. But I feel I should take a hiatus on buying new equipment for a few months.

 

[orion7144]

4 to 4.5 hours (10g batch) if I do not drink so I try and do it in the morning. That is preping the night before (crushing grain and staging). The biggest two pieces to reducing my time from 6 to 7 hours to my now normal 4 hours was a pump and plate chiller.

 

[DogFace_Brewing]

Brewed a extract yesterday.
Burner on at 9am...last piece of equipment was cleaned at 12:15pm. A high BTU burner and wort chiller is the key to a short brew day.

 

[FATC1TY]

I'm gonna build me a rig with it all attached and ready to roll. Dragging out individual parts in a PITA and one of the reasons I dread brewing something. Once I get everything out and mashing in.. I'm enjoying the hell out of it.

Infact.. I need to get off here. I've mucked around enough and have a DIPA to brew.

 

[Darkness]

I can run 60gal in 9:30 min. 10gal batches all the time

 

[GMJager]

did my first all-grain today. 6.5 hours (20 min was going to the gas station to get another propane tank when i ran ot... whoops!). 7.5 total with a trip to the LHBS

 

[diS]

I mostly finish for 6 hours with crushing and cleaning.
As long this is hobby I don't worry about time, so few hours +/- are not a big deal.

 

[LowNotes]

5 gallon BIAB batches tend to fall into the 5-6 hour timeframe. I don't really rush at all, I pretty much only brew on weekend mornings. Setup mash and boil all go pretty quickly for me as I brew in my kitchen on a good stove burner, and I have a tankless water heater that gives me 135-140* water right out of the faucet. Wort chilling takes awhile, usually 1.5-2 hours with an IC...but I am usually cleaning/sanitizing during a good bit of that.

 

[high5apparatus]

i've settled in at 6 hours from hauling everything up from the basement, to cleaning up and putting the fermenter into the beer room.

 

[FATC1TY]

Mine yesterday was from 12:30 in the afternoon, till 11.30 at night.

Only because stopped half way through and went to play a rd of golf!

Do you guys with the really long times, brew outside and have to drag part by part out to a location not close to where it's stored?

I have to do that, and find that pulling it all out and cleaning it all before putting it away is the longest my dreaded hours by far. Last night I finally packed it all onto one furniture dolly and pushed it around the back yard to the garage. Worked better.

 

[Beer_Eugenics]

Five for the first batch seven for two and nine for three. That’s from measuring the grain to cleanup. So I typically do two five gallon batches a day as three is a little too much.

 

[RonPopeil]

i'm 4 batches in, no mill. from grain to bucket i'm at about 4.5-5 hours. by the time i clean i'm at 6.

 

[Bulls Beers]

5 hours..If I do a decoction, then maybe 8-9 hours..

 

[wherestheyeast]

Wort chilling takes awhile, usually 1.5-2 hours with an IC...but I am usually cleaning/sanitizing during a good bit of that.

What are you using as an IC?!?

Not to hijack, but it's always been my understanding that there can be sediment buildup in your hot water tank or that lead dissolves more readily with hot water:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/health/29real.html

and

http://www.howtodothings.com/home-garden/how-to-remove-sediment-from-a-water-heater

 

[Steelfball]

I am usually around 5-6 hours for a 5 gallon batch. All depends on which burner I use. Standard turkey fryer buner or my MEGA hot burner. Problem with the big boy is that it freezes my propane tanks quick in the cold upstate NY weather. Warmer weather she will boil 6.5 gallons of 100 degrees in like 15 minutes!!!

I also like to get a pot of water the night before... to at least start with room temperature water. Sometimes I even put it on the wood stove to start even warmer.

 

[woknblues]

My last biab 5 gallon American wheat went like this:

20 minutes to heat strike water (banjo "jet engine" sp1)
60 minute mash
8 minutes to boil
60 minute boil
10 minute "cool" to 200, dry hop addition
5 minute drain and seal no chill.
20 minute clean up (one pot with fittings, some tubing)

3 hours, 3 minutes. I like brewing, but I like hanging out with my family on my days off, and that was my barrier to all grain until I found these methods.

A 10 gallon batch is a few minutes longer, and if I am doing a starter, add 10 minutes to fiddling around with stir bar and whatnot.

I think I will be investing on some 10 gallon fermenters to cut down on dirty equipment and shave a bit more time off of the 10 gallon batch. Also, would like a sink in the garage, that would not cut down on overall cleaning times much, but would sure make it a lot easier than dripping the sticky pot to the bathroom bathtub to wash/rinse.

I consider the time savings aspects to also be "fun" in a way as well, but that is my personality. (weird I guess?)

 

[brewinginnc]

Grain pre-crushed
5 gallon
60 minute mash
60 minute boil
Biab
3-4 hours

 

[Roughster]

I was worried I was super slow till I read this thread now feel better. I pitched in just under 5 hours today for a Blueberry Blonde. I was all cleaned up like it never happened in just under 6 hours.

 

[buzzbromp]

I typically brew two 10 gallon batches with the help of one friend. We start sanitizing and setting up around 7:30 am and usually finish cleaning around 6 pm. That includes 30 minutes of aeration for each carboy and pitching.

We just started to smoke meat while brewing, which also takes awhile. It's a good time to do it!

 

[Schol-R-LEA]

I usually end up taking about 8 hours, mainly because I use a stovetop for heating (gas, not electric, but the heat doesn't get very high), which makes for a very slow boil - it rarely gets really rolling, in fact, but is often more of a high simmer, something which annoys me immensely. I would like to use an outdoor burner, but the garage is occupied by other things at the moment and there are no other suitable places to set up shop. I've been considering using a heat wand, but chronic money problems have kept me from getting one (and a lot of other equipment I really could use).

 

[MetallHed]

From start to finish, usually about 4 hours.

5 gallon batches. Fly sparge.

 

[Soup4you2]

Start to finish, usually 5 hours for a 10 gallon batch thats fly sparged.

I prep the grains and bring the equipment into staging the night before.

 

[danorocks17]

Usually between 5 and 6 hours

 

[kombat]

I used to take 6 hours, but I've managed to tweak my process and find some efficiencies that have got me down to 5 hours now for a single 5 gallon batch. I can do 2 batches in 7 hours. Some things I've done to shorten the day:

Prep my equipment the night before, move everything to the garage, weigh out (but not yet mill) the grains.

Then on brew morning, I fill my HLT with the strike water (HOT tap water - why waste time/energy heating water when I've already got a huge tank of hot water in my basement?) and get it on the burner while I mill my grains.

I used to light my burner and set it at a comfortable level to heat the water/wort, but now I open it up quite a bit more (till I get that "jet engine" sound) to speed up the heating process. Might as well get to temperature as quickly as possible, right? Once I hit the temperature I'm looking for, I dial it way back and set it at just enough to maintain the boil.

I clean as I go. While I'm boiling, I clean my mash tun.

I use a plate chiller, which has dramatically sped up my chilling. I recirculate the chilled wort back into the kettle until the thermometer on my kettle reads 60° F (15-20 minutes). Then I stop the chilling and siphon the wort from my kettle into the fermenter with an autosiphon (I've been unsuccessful in transferring wort from my kettle to the fermenter through the kettle outlet valve - it always loses siphon with several quarts remaining in the kettle, regardless of how much I restrict the flow. Because of the Hop Stopper I use).

I then carry the fermenter downstairs, aerate it with a Fizz-X on a drill for 2 or 3 minutes to work up a nice, frothy foam, pitch the yeast, clean the boil kettle (while pumping PBW, water, Starsan, and finally more water through my plate chiller), and put everything away. 5 hours.

 

[bferullo]

I mill my grain at the shop when I buy it, so that saves some time. My water comes out the tap at close to 160° so heating strike and sparge water doesn't take too long. I mash for an hour, fly sparge for an hour, boil for an hour (on average.) I measure out hop additions during the sparge and clean out my mash tun during the boil. From start to finish my brew days usually run five hours.

Not to thread jack....but I always wondered about this. I always thought if using tap water its best to use cold water as water that sits in the hot water heater can pick up extra minerals from the deposits on the heating elements??? If this isn't the case...that will save me a chunk of time as well.

 

[Clonefan94]

From the time I open my closet and grab the first piece of equipment, to when I close that closet after I'm all done and everything is put away, is almost exactly 6 hours. I could probably speed it up if I had to, but I really don't mind taking my time.

 

[kombat]

Not to thread jack....but I always wondered about this. I always thought if using tap water its best to use cold water as water that sits in the hot water heater can pick up extra minerals from the deposits on the heating elements??? If this isn't the case...that will save me a chunk of time as well.

My hot water tank is natural gas, so no element to collect minerals.

 

[glick]

4- 5 Hours for me. Five gallon batches.

 

[mikescooling]

I did a partygyle off the 3rd runnings and banged out 18gallons in 4 hours, but I've got at least 4 more hours of cleaning.

 

[DonnieZ]

My hot water tank is natural gas, so no element to collect minerals.

Do you routinely drain down your hot water heater? If not, there's most likely inches of mineral sediment in the bottom that is changing your water profile to be much harder.

As for my AG brew day, it takes a good 6 hours. My setup consists of either mashing in a bag in my small cooler, then sparking in an ale pail or for bigger beers mashing in my 48 qt. cooler and sparking after that.

It always takes longer than I anticipate. I really need to get a better system down, but is hard when I live in a condo and using a turkey fryer is probably verboten. I've to been told about it yet, but I try and be discreet (balcony or garage with door only cracked..)

 

[kombat]

Do you routinely drain down your hot water heater? If not, there's most likely inches of mineral sediment in the bottom that is changing your water profile to be much harder.

Intuitively, that doesn't make any sense.

Initially, the water tank had no mineral deposits in it. It was factory new and perfectly clean, right?

So assume that over time, the water going through the tank deposited minerals in it. Then logically, the water coming out of my hot water tank actually had LESS minerals in it than straight cold tap water (because it had dropped some of its minerals in the hot water tank, whereas the cold water just came straight out of the tap).

So assuming that's the case, why would the water suddenly switch to PICKING UP the deposited minerals? Isn't that saying that my hot water is currently making my hot water tank CLEANER, by removing minerals? At what point will it switch back and start depositing minerals again? Is it some sort of cycle?

At any rate, given the thousands and thousands of gallons of water that go through that tank, I think any increase/decrease in mineral content would be absolutely trivial, and completely imperceptible in the final taste of any beer it is used to produce. And it saves me a solid 20 minutes of heating strike/mash water.

 

[Bamsdealer]

Fly sparging a 5 gallon batch and 60 min boil usually takes about 4.5 hours w cleanup. 90 minute boils whirlpooling etc can push it past 5 hours easy.

 

[Magic8Ball]

AG 4.5-6hrs depending. Last weeks AG took 10+ hrs. Everything went wrong and then some.:smack: Still it was a very satisfying brew day, problems solved, beer brewed. I must be a masochist with a last name of MacGyver.

 

[DrunkleJon]

Intuitively, that doesn't make any sense.

Initially, the water tank had no mineral deposits in it. It was factory new and perfectly clean, right?

So assume that over time, the water going through the tank deposited minerals in it. Then logically, the water coming out of my hot water tank actually had LESS minerals in it than straight cold tap water (because it had dropped some of its minerals in the hot water tank, whereas the cold water just came straight out of the tap).

So assuming that's the case, why would the water suddenly switch to PICKING UP the deposited minerals? Isn't that saying that my hot water is currently making my hot water tank CLEANER, by removing minerals? At what point will it switch back and start depositing minerals again? Is it some sort of cycle?

At any rate, given the thousands and thousands of gallons of water that go through that tank, I think any increase/decrease in mineral content would be absolutely trivial, and completely imperceptible in the final taste of any beer it is used to produce. And it saves me a solid 20 minutes of heating strike/mash water.

From the Bloomington IL water quality information page
http://bloomington.in.gov/documents/viewDocument.php?document_id=594

Water heater information

The quality of your drinking water can be affected by your water heater. If you do not properly maintain your water heater, small, white particles (calcium carbonate) may begin to appear in your water and clog your fixtures. These particles appear when the thermostat in your heater is too high and causes the particles to loosen and end up in your water. To prevent this from happening, it is recommended that you periodically flush your water heater. Flushing a water heater consists of draining the water in the heater and filling it up again. Be sure to follow the manufacturer's owner's manual for instructions on how to flush your water heater.

The rest of the guidance I was able to find only say that cooking/drinking from the hot water tap is bad because in old houses the hot water will dissolve more lead from old pipes. But yes, even though it will take some out, you can get more deposited in if any of the scale gets chipped off.

 

[kombat]

small, white particles (calcium carbonate) may begin to appear in your water

Calcium Carbonate is necessary for yeast health. Brewers often add it deliberately. You should HOPE some flakes off.

Calcium is a necessary yeast nutrient and is abundant in most waters. Brewers add calcium in the form or gypsum and calcium carbonate

- brew-monkey.com

The rest of the guidance I was able to find only say that cooking/drinking from the hot water tap is bad because in old houses the hot water will dissolve more lead from old pipes. But yes, even though it will take some out, you can get more deposited in if any of the scale gets chipped off.

Lead plumbing was banned 70 years ago. The vast majority of people reading this have copper or PEX plumbing.

Nothing will chip off inside your water heater unless you're allowing wide variations in the temperature (causing thermal flexing) or you "bump" it somehow. And unless you have unusually hard water to begin with, there probably aren't even any deposits in your tank. I'm on city water, with PEX tubing for my plumbing and a natural gas hot water tank, so none of those are concerns for me. Anyone in similar circumstances can confidently use water from their hot water tank for brewing.

 

[JPicasso]

Grain pre-crushed
5 gallon
60 minute mash
60 minute boil
Biab
3-4 hours

This.
And I crushed my grains while the room-temperature water was heating to 160.
Kids in bed at 8, done at 11:30 with 30 min cleanup the next morning. (equipment makes a bunch of noise banging around the sink, so it got wiped and put away later)