Brewing on a time constraint

[Gunshowgreg]

Hey guys long story short I'm taking a new direction with my career and I am doing a lot of training and studying in my free time and I see I dont have much time to brew. But damn I miss it. The feel of crushed grain in my hands after it's been milled. The smell of steeping grains in my mash tun. It's really something few people get to experience or encounter.

I've done some googling on this and have even seen some no boil recipes. If anyone has any recipes, methods, or tips for beer that isnt so time consuming (no boil, short boil, anything) the no boil is interesting but also looks very expensive compared to grain. The recipes I have seen are using DME and stuff. It gets pricey.

Thanks HBT community. Yall are awesome!

 

[TwistedGray]

Why not get something like the Mash & Boil where you can do other stuff without having to constantly monitor? I brew while I work because the small "interrupts" are infrequent but get me off my ass a few times through the day.

 

[Andrew Hodgson]

No boil stuff can be found here:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/no-boil-recipes-new-for-2019.660329/page-4#post-8591795

I like Twisted Gray have a system that allows me to complete other things during my brewday. Once the grain is ground, the system is run through a cleaning circulation, the water is prepped and the grain is in my attention isn't required until the mash time is over and once the boil is set I am free until the end. So the brew day takes a better part of a Saturday morning/afternoon, but I can get other things done while it happens.

 

[Gunshowgreg]

Sweet I'm gonna check out this mash and boil technique

 

[Velnerj]

Check out short and shoddy on brulosophy

 

[kh54s10]

Sweet I'm gonna check out this mash and boil technique

Mash and boil is not a technique, it is a piece of hardware. Electric BIAB. It is standard all grain brewing, but you can eliminate sparging. A savings of about 10-15 minutes over batch sparging.. No where near hands off...

https://www.amazon.com/Brewers-Edge-Mash-and-Boil/dp/B075NNZ3KT

 

[Gunshowgreg]

It's a bit pricey now. I like it but I dont think that toy is on the list. Maybe when I get a promotion lol! It reminds me of the gigawort or grainfather. Same concept I'm sure

 

[kh54s10]

It's a bit pricey now. I like it but I dont think that toy is on the list. Maybe when I get a promotion lol! It reminds me of the gigawort or grainfather. Same concept I'm sure

Yep, stripped down Grainfather.....

 

[bobeer]

Are you just trying to complete a brew day quickly or would spanning the brew across 2 days help any? When my kids were really little I'd split the brew across 2 days and it worked well. No new methods, really, and no new equipment needed.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Check out short and shoddy on brulosophy

Personally I'm not sure I'd go this route. I'd rather spend the time less often and make better beer.

I'm sure there's a degree to which you can sacrifice quality for time, but I figure if I'm trying to save time I can just buy commercial beer and brew less often.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

I've done some googling on this and have even seen some no boil recipes. If anyone has any recipes, methods, or tips for beer that isnt so time consuming (no boil, short boil, anything) the no boil is interesting but also looks very expensive compared to grain. The recipes I have seen are using DME and stuff. It gets pricey.

good, quick, cheap: Pick two.

Some of the best, well organized, information that I am aware of is behind paywalls (good, quick, not free). There have been a couple of presentations at recent HomeBrewCon on brewing when "there is no time" and and on brewing faster. If you can determine which homebrew forum(s) the presenters are active in, one might be able to "piece together" some of the information.

Overnight mashing and "no chilll" allow for shorter blocks of time, but require more blocks of time over consecutive days to finish a batch.

Techniques to minimize the critical path when preparing the wort (heating and cooling faster, ...) can save some time on brew day.

Using prepared ingredients (fresh LME? dry yeast, hop extracts) can also minimize wort creation time.

My take on "short and shoddy" or "20 minute mash / boil" is that it likely works for some styles that I like. For some styles, I find that DME and short boils ("15 minute pale ale", Basic Brewing Radios "Hop Sampler", ...) produce good beers quickly.

good, quick, cheap: Pick two.

 

[lump42]

I've done plenty of 15-min pale ales, saisons, milds. All work well. If you keep an eye out you can purchase DME on sales. (1-1.5 hour brew day)

Look at doing smaller batches. I regularly do 1 or 2.5 gal batches on the stove-top when I'm short on time. Quicker to heat up. Alao, heck out no-chill brewing, may not work for all styles as equally, but cuts out the chilling time. A 2.5 gal low-moderate gravity ale brewday (30 min mash, 15 min boil, no chill) can be done in 2 -2.5 hours with cleanup and no rushing. I've done it with dark milds, pale lagers, porter, and pale ales.

 

[FatDragon]

There's no reason you can't no-boil with all grain. I've only done one no-boil beer, which is still in the fermenter, but it was all-grain. It took me about three hours (much of that time hands off) but with some process refinements I could have most no-boil AG beers pitched and my equipment cleaned within two.

I'll lay out a simple method below, though you'll have to research how to calculate IBUs in a no-boil batch like this.

For a 5-6 gallon BIAB batch at moderate gravity:

Treat your entire volume of water as normal, a day in advance.
Reserve two gallons and chill it overnight.
Heat the rest of your water (probably about 4 gallons) to strike temperature.
Mash in and add your hops while mashing (maybe in a separate bag).
After your scheduled mash time, pull the bag and drain and squeeze while heating the wort up to 170-175F for a short pasteurization rest.
If you bagged your hops separately, you could keep the bag in the kettle during the pasteurization step - I'm not sure how that would affect utilization, though. It might be counterproductive or it might make a real positive difference. You could also treat this step as a whirlpool/steep step and do some or all of your hopping here.
Chill to ~90F and top off with two gallons of chilled water before pitching.

Now, for an extra ten bucks or so, you could just use extract and cut this down to an hour or less. You could even do the entire brew in the fermenter and have essentially zero cleanup. Just pour 3-4 gallons of boiling water in a bucket that can handle those temps without leaching (steep grains while heating to a boil if you want), add a bit of DME and start your hops schedule (probably add some for primarily bittering when you add the water and some a few minutes later when the temp's dropped as your aroma and flavor hops), then add the rest of your DME, give it a few minutes with an immersion chiller to get down to ~90F, and add a couple gallons of cold top off water. Again, you'll have to research or experiment with the hops schedule, but this brewday could be done in an hour with nothing but your immersion chiller to rinse off.

 

[Gunshowgreg]

Are you just trying to complete a brew day quickly or would spanning the brew across 2 days help any? When my kids were really little I'd split the brew across 2 days and it worked well. No new methods, really, and no new equipment needed.

You know I never considered the second option besides no chill brewing. But yeah shortening the day. Cutting down boil times, better techniques. Or as you mentioned doing a little here and there each day and not spending 8 hrs on new day. I'd like to here your process.

 

[Gunshowgreg]

This is all really good advice. I like the idea of adding ice cold water to cool off wort and save time. Also doing all of the prep the night before. I do that already to some degree. and the idea of over night mashing

 

[RPh_Guy]

FYI

Sour beer doesn't suffer at all from the typical obstacles/issues with hop utilization and bitterness associated with no-boil or no-chill methods. Sour saisons in particular also don't suffer from the contamination issues because they ferment so dry.

Ingredients:
1. DME to reach around 1.050-ish.
2. A very high attenuator saison yeast like Belle.
3. A Brett culture... like Wyeast Brett Lambicus, or any of The Yeast Bay Brett cultures/blends, White Labs, Imperial etc. (Make a starter about a week beforehand)
4. Lacto plantarum.

Heat the DME + water while stirring until the DME is adequately dissolved. Or you could not even bother heating it; whatever.
Chill & transfer.
Pitch yeast + bacteria.
Done.

You're limited only by the time it takes to heat and chill.
Don't even bother sanitizing your cold side equipment.

Dry hop if desired. It should be ready to package in a couple weeks.

Cheers

 

[bobeer]

You know I never considered the second option besides no chill brewing. But yeah shortening the day. Cutting down boil times, better techniques. Or as you mentioned doing a little here and there each day and not spending 8 hrs on new day. I'd like to here your process.

No problemo.
Day 1 was: Weigh out the grist and mill it then cover it in a bucket. Gather everything needed for day 2 and set it out.
Day 2: Mash and sparge.
Day 3: Boil, chill, pitch.

After the mash and sparge on day 2 I'd wrap the kettle in a thick blanket and put a pillow on top of the lid. It would always still be pretty warm the next day. I got the idea from Don O's youtube channel. I figured if he did it it must work pretty alright; and it did.
After a while I was able to cut it down to just 2 days with the no chill method; which I still do now some times.
Day 3- the pitch would sometimes be more like on day 4 depending what time day the boil was finished on day 3.

 

[brownni5]

Personally I'm not sure I'd go this route. I'd rather spend the time less often and make better beer.

I'm sure there's a degree to which you can sacrifice quality for time, but I figure if I'm trying to save time I can just buy commercial beer and brew less often.

What makes you say they're low quality? Have you had them? To each his/her own, but that's sorta the concept behind the experiments - to show that one can brew good beer and cut corners. I don't do it personally, but I can carve out an extra 2 hours when I am able to brew.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

You know I never considered the second option besides no chill brewing. But yeah shortening the day. Cutting down boil times, better techniques. Or as you mentioned doing a little here and there each day and not spending 8 hrs on new day. I'd like to here your process.

8 hours? Not sure how you're taking 8 hours on a brew day. I'm generally done from set-up to breakdown in a little over 5, and I do 10-gallon all-grain (not BIAB) batches with 90-minute boils...

• 30 minutes: roll out sculpture, fire mash tun to bring it up to strike temp, and while it's coming up to temp, handle my water additions and weigh/grind my grain.
• 60 minutes: mash-in and fire my HLT so it's up to 170 by sparge time
• 60 minutes: sparge and bring the wort to a boil. I fly sparge and *try* to shoot to keep it slow. FYI while I'm sparging I'm firing the boil kettle to get heat into it and cut down the time between the end of the sparge and the start of the boil.
• 90 minutes: boil
• (Optional 30 minutes): whirlpool hops
• 30-60 minutes: recirculating chill through CFC, transfer to fermenter, cleanup

If I'm not doing a whirlpool, I've had brewdays done in under 5 hours. Chill time can depend significantly on time of year (hose water temp through counterflow chiller) and whether I need to recirc ice water through the CFC to reduce to pitching temp [i.e. in summer or for lagers]. But I try to clean/organize as I go, so that it's not all done at the end as well. Once I get the wort in the fermenter, the only real thing left to clean is the boil kettle as everything else is ready to be put away.

I'm wondering if you can maybe lay out your own process, start to finish, and we can look at it to see where it might be made more efficient.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

What makes you say they're low quality? Have you had them? To each his/her own, but that's sorta the concept behind the experiments - to show that one can brew good beer and cut corners. I don't do it personally, but I can carve out an extra 2 hours when I am able to brew.

Well, as far as I can tell he has only one "short & shoddy" experiment, and enough people were able to tell the difference that it clearly affected the beer: http://brulosophy.com/2017/06/26/traditional-vs-short-shoddy-brewing-process-exbeeriment-results/

Now, whether it affected it *enough* to matter is personal preference. And two of his independent variables (yeast starter vs no starter, and fermentation temp) were not time-savers on brew day so I can't say that an abbreviated mash or boil is the key factor.

My point is that if I'm taking the time to make 10 gallons of beer, I'm deliberately trying to avoid cutting corners. It's not worth it to me to cut corners to brew "good beer" if it's 5%+ worse than the beer I'm capable of brewing, with a slightly increased time investment.

I appreciate what Brulosophy is doing, because my thought on brewing is that it should be as simple as it needs to be--but no simpler--and Brulosophy is one entity that is trying to figure out where that line is best drawn.

But I think the short & shoddy experiment showed that the cumulative effect of cutting various corners relative to tried and true "best practices" results in a worse beer even if those individual cut corners don't show any statistically significant effect.

My takeaway from that is that if I don't know which cut corners are the ones that are okay to do and which ones to avoid, I'm going to choose not to cut corners.

 

[Velnerj]

Well, as far as I can tell he has only one "short & shoddy" experiment, and enough people were able to tell the difference that it clearly affected the beer: http://brulosophy.com/2017/06/26/traditional-vs-short-shoddy-brewing-process-exbeeriment-results/

Now, whether it affected it *enough* to matter is personal preference. And two of his independent variables (yeast starter vs no starter, and fermentation temp) were not time-savers on brew day so I can't say that an abbreviated mash or boil is the key factor.

My point is that if I'm taking the time to make 10 gallons of beer, I'm deliberately trying to avoid cutting corners. It's not worth it to me to cut corners to brew "good beer" if it's 5%+ worse than the beer I'm capable of brewing, with a slightly increased time investment.

I appreciate what Brulosophy is doing, because my thought on brewing is that it should be as simple as it needs to be--but no simpler--and Brulosophy is one entity that is trying to figure out where that line is best drawn.

But I think the short & shoddy experiment showed that the cumulative effect of cutting various corners relative to tried and true "best practices" results in a worse beer even if those individual cut corners don't show any statistically significant effect.

My takeaway from that is that if I don't know which cut corners are the ones that are okay to do and which ones to avoid, I'm going to choose not to cut corners.

I don't think you're aware of the short and shoddy tab on their website. They've done over 20 short and shoddy brews on there...

 

[CascadesBrewer]

I have been doing a number of 2.5 gal stove top BIAB batches. It is not a drastically shorter day (maybe 25% less than a 5 gal batch) but since I am doing the brewing in my kitchen, it is a lot easier to get other chores around the house done and I don't feel as tired afterward.

I have also done a number of hop sampler batches following the Basic Brewing Radio process. They might not be award winning beers, but it turns out an enjoyable 6 pack of a pale ale with very little effort and I have learned a lot. My last few batches I changed from their "no-boil, ~1 oz at flameout, hopstand for 20 min" approach to "1/3 oz at 10 min, 1/3 oz at 0 min, 1/3 oz dry hop" and I like the hop character in the beers more.

Maybe if your schedule does not let you focus on making the "best beer possible", you can instead direct your efforts to brewing beers to build your education (extract batches fermented with different yeasts, fermenting at yeast a different temps, trying out the impact of hop addition timing, etc.).

Moving my all-grain process to BIAB last December shaved an hour off a fly sparge brew day.

 

[Goblism]

I bought a picobrew Z2 for this very reason. Busy with work, kids, and my other hobbies so I needed to be able to make batches quicker when I want to, maybe not necessarily quicker from a time per brew standpoint but my hands on time is probably a tenth of the time I spent on my electric RIMS once you factor in clean up and putting away everything.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

I don't think you're aware of the short and shoddy tab on their website. They've done over 20 short and shoddy brews on there...

I understand those, but they're also not anywhere near the level of control that an experiment provides.

In every one of those short and shoddy beers it's a question of "is it good or bad?", not "is it as good as doing it using full 'best practices' methods?"

I'm not saying you can't make "good beer" using short and shoddy methods. The brulosophy guys wouldn't be who they are without the ability to brew consistently good beer using repeatable processes. That doesn't mean that the beer is equal to the beer you can brew if you follow best practices.

Let me put it this way... My wife and I cook dinner almost every night every week. We rarely go out to eat. On a lot of weekdays, we cook something that would probably be considered "short & shoddy" methods because we know we need to get something on the plate. We're both good cooks, so most nights it's still delicious, but it's certainly not our best.

When we have guests for dinner, though, or if we're cooking for a special occasion, or even if we're just cooking something "special" for each other on a Friday night, we pull out all the stops.

I view brewing beer in that same vein, because it's something I do maybe once a month if I'm lucky, I'm going to be doing 10 gallons of it, and I'm going to likely have it on tap a couple of months for both myself and for guests. Why am I going to brew beer that is just "good" when I can brew beer that is "great"?

 

[Velnerj]

I understand those, but they're also not anywhere near the level of control that an experiment provides.

In every one of those short and shoddy beers it's a question of "is it good or bad?", not "is it as good as doing it using full 'best practices' methods?"

I'm not saying you can't make "good beer" using short and shoddy methods. The brulosophy guys wouldn't be who they are without the ability to brew consistently good beer using repeatable processes. That doesn't mean that the beer is equal to the beer you can brew if you follow best practices.

Let me put it this way... My wife and I cook dinner almost every night every week. We rarely go out to eat. On a lot of weekdays, we cook something that would probably be considered "short & shoddy" methods because we know we need to get something on the plate. We're both good cooks, so most nights it's still delicious, but it's certainly not our best.

When we have guests for dinner, though, or if we're cooking for a special occasion, or even if we're just cooking something "special" for each other on a Friday night, we pull out all the stops.

I view brewing beer in that same vein, because it's something I do maybe once a month if I'm lucky, I'm going to be doing 10 gallons of it, and I'm going to likely have it on tap a couple of months for both myself and for guests. Why am I going to brew beer that is just "good" when I can brew beer that is "great"?

I completely agree with everything you said. If I had the choice between short and shoddy "good" beer or normal processes and "great" beer I'd go for the great beer every time.

I love brewing and if I'm going to do it I'm going to do it right. This usually results in me only brewing once every 8-10 weeks.

But I understood that the OP doesn't have that luxurious choice at the moment. It's either short and shoddy "good" beer or no beer at all.

Which would you choose?

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

I completely agree with everything you said. If I had the choice between short and shoddy "good" beer or normal processes and "great" beer I'd go for the great beer every time.

I love brewing and if I'm going to do it I'm going to do it right. This usually results in me only brewing once every 8-10 weeks.

But I understood that the OP doesn't have that luxurious choice at the moment. It's either short and shoddy "good" beer or no beer at all.

Which would you choose?

I'd look at a number of things:

1. He had mentioned upthread something about an 8-hour brew day. I'm not sure if that was serious or not, but if he's taking 8 hours for a brew day, there are a LOT of places where it could be made more efficient. As I mentioned, I can knock out a 10 gal all-grain brew in a little over 5 hours, and that's with a full fly sparge and 90 minute boil.
2. Some of the suggestions about breaking brew days into multiple smaller chunks make sense. For example, setting everything up the night before (water, crushed grain, etc) will help. I don't know if OP has the ability to use an electric heater, or sous vide circulator, or something of the sort to get his strike water up to temp without having to direct fire a kettle, but that might be a good option. I think a lot of sous vide circulators these days can connect to wi-fi and be set up based on an schedule to click on at a certain time of day--he may not even need to be home to get his strike water going. But even with a conventional sous vide circulator or an electric heat element connected to a temp controller, he could do it without being "present".
3. He hasn't given us any idea of his process. If he's doing 3-vessel brewing, I would recommend transitioning to BIAB. I've never seen any evidence that BIAB results in lower quality beer than 3-vessel brewing, but it should shorten time by removing the sparge step.
4. I'm not that familiar with no-chill and its effects. I've heard good things, but I've never tried it. So I'm not going to offer my opinion on it. But it's certainly a time-saver.

Essentially I understand his conundrum and how he needs to shave time off his brew day. I'm just saying that it's important to be smart about where you shave time. I'd rather go from 3-vessel to BIAB and still boil than do a traditional mash and no boil, for example. You save 30+ minutes of sparge time doing that, but you still get the effects of a boil.

I could easily see shaving time by prepping everything the day before, having strike water electrically heated so all you need to do is walk in and drop in the grain bag, mashing 45-60 minutes and pulling the bag while firing the kettle, doing a traditional boil, and perhaps chill quickly straight from the BK through a CFC into the fermenter (i.e. a hybrid "no chill" in that you should still get cold break from the CFC but won't be chilling to pitching temps--you can get the rest of the way in the fermentation chamber). I could see that finishing in 2 1/2 to 3 hours without sacrificing nearly any "best practices" steps.

 

[balrog]

Prepping on day (-1) is crucial.
15m setup (brew stuff at other end of house, in basement; brewspace is the garage)
20m heat to strike
45-60m mash (158F mashes will be 45m for instance)
15m heat to boil
30-60m boil (some late hop only pales will get 30m for instance)
20m chill (groundwater immersion chiller to 110, recirc icewater pond pump, easily to 60F in 20m)
30m pitch, cleanup
~4hr
That's 5Gal, BIAB, consistently.
What kills that?
Someone stops by to chat; erroneously thinking "oh I can keg/bottle this while mashing"; things like that.

So Split the mash from boil days and it's only ~1/2hr mash evening then ~2-2.5hr boil day.

 

[Gunshowgreg]

8 hours? Not sure how you're taking 8 hours on a brew day. I'm generally done from set-up to breakdown in a little over 5, and I do 10-gallon all-grain (not BIAB) batches with 90-minute boils...

• 30 minutes: roll out sculpture, fire mash tun to bring it up to strike temp, and while it's coming up to temp, handle my water additions and weigh/grind my grain.
• 60 minutes: mash-in and fire my HLT so it's up to 170 by sparge time
• 60 minutes: sparge and bring the wort to a boil. I fly sparge and *try* to shoot to keep it slow. FYI while I'm sparging I'm firing the boil kettle to get heat into it and cut down the time between the end of the sparge and the start of the boil.
• 90 minutes: boil
• (Optional 30 minutes): whirlpool hops
• 30-60 minutes: recirculating chill through CFC, transfer to fermenter, cleanup

If I'm not doing a whirlpool, I've had brewdays done in under 5 hours. Chill time can depend significantly on time of year (hose water temp through counterflow chiller) and whether I need to recirc ice water through the CFC to reduce to pitching temp [i.e. in summer or for lagers]. But I try to clean/organize as I go, so that it's not all done at the end as well. Once I get the wort in the fermenter, the only real thing left to clean is the boil kettle as everything else is ready to be put away.

I'm wondering if you can maybe lay out your own process, start to finish, and we can look at it to see where it might be made more efficient.

'm a terrible OP

Let me see if I can break this down and not bore you.

Night before measure my strike water and have that in pots on the stove ready to go. When I wake up I turn the heat on Brush my teeth and wait some more. Once it gets hot into my cooler it goes. Taskes about 40 mins get hot while I wait I give my mash tun a quick cleaning and set it up.. Add my grains and wait 1 hr. Then I slowly sparge. Add some more sparge water and do it again. Can take about an hr-90 mins. When I get enough wort collected I start to boil and take about 30-40 mins to get to boiling . I boil an hour then shut off the heat cool for an hr our before racking into fermenter. Racking takes about 20 mins for me. . Then time to clean up the pot. About 20 mins. While I wait for my wort to boil I clean my mash tun. My last recipe called for a 2 hour boil when I was making a scotch ale. I however did a rasberry wheat ale and found that it took me about 6 hours start to finish for clean up. I was pretty tired after all of that. This is a basic set up. Of course times are differnt based on the recipes.

I do not use electric kettles. I use a propane burner outside. I heat my strike water in seperate pots on an electric stove to save on propane. I batch sparge. Idk if going electric is the answer.

Also when I chill i use an immersion copper chiller and hook it up to a pump that has ice inside a cooler. I have been just bringing the temp down to about 120 degrees and racking it over like that. Put an airlock on it and wait til the next day to pitch the yeast. I dont feel like waiting all day.

 

[Gunshowgreg]

good, quick, cheap: Pick two.

Some of the best, well organized, information that I am aware of is behind paywalls (good, quick, not free). There have been a couple of presentations at recent HomeBrewCon on brewing when "there is no time" and and on brewing faster. If you can determine which homebrew forum(s) the presenters are active in, one might be able to "piece together" some of the information.

Overnight mashing and "no chilll" allow for shorter blocks of time, but require more blocks of time over consecutive days to finish a batch.

Techniques to minimize the critical path when preparing the wort (heating and cooling faster, ...) can save some time on brew day.

Using prepared ingredients (fresh LME? dry yeast, hop extracts) can also minimize wort creation time.

My take on "short and shoddy" or "20 minute mash / boil" is that it likely works for some styles that I like. For some styles, I find that DME and short boils ("15 minute pale ale", Basic Brewing Radios "Hop Sampler", ...) produce good beers quickly.

good, quick, cheap: Pick two.

Over light mashing sounds like a nice idea accampanied by a no boil method. Doesnt sound farfetched

 

[Gunshowgreg]

I'd look at a number of things:

1. He had mentioned upthread something about an 8-hour brew day. I'm not sure if that was serious or not, but if he's taking 8 hours for a brew day, there are a LOT of places where it could be made more efficient. As I mentioned, I can knock out a 10 gal all-grain brew in a little over 5 hours, and that's with a full fly sparge and 90 minute boil.
2. Some of the suggestions about breaking brew days into multiple smaller chunks make sense. For example, setting everything up the night before (water, crushed grain, etc) will help. I don't know if OP has the ability to use an electric heater, or sous vide circulator, or something of the sort to get his strike water up to temp without having to direct fire a kettle, but that might be a good option. I think a lot of sous vide circulators these days can connect to wi-fi and be set up based on an schedule to click on at a certain time of day--he may not even need to be home to get his strike water going. But even with a conventional sous vide circulator or an electric heat element connected to a temp controller, he could do it without being "present".
3. He hasn't given us any idea of his process. If he's doing 3-vessel brewing, I would recommend transitioning to BIAB. I've never seen any evidence that BIAB results in lower quality beer than 3-vessel brewing, but it should shorten time by removing the sparge step.
4. I'm not that familiar with no-chill and its effects. I've heard good things, but I've never tried it. So I'm not going to offer my opinion on it. But it's certainly a time-saver.

Essentially I understand his conundrum and how he needs to shave time off his brew day. I'm just saying that it's important to be smart about where you shave time. I'd rather go from 3-vessel to BIAB and still boil than do a traditional mash and no boil, for example. You save 30+ minutes of sparge time doing that, but you still get the effects of a boil.

I could easily see shaving time by prepping everything the day before, having strike water electrically heated so all you need to do is walk in and drop in the grain bag, mashing 45-60 minutes and pulling the bag while firing the kettle, doing a traditional boil, and perhaps chill quickly straight from the BK through a CFC into the fermenter (i.e. a hybrid "no chill" in that you should still get cold break from the CFC but won't be chilling to pitching temps--you can get the rest of the way in the fermentation chamber). I could see that finishing in 2 1/2 to 3 hours without sacrificing nearly any "best practices" steps.

Do you have recommendations on electric kettles? I was under the assumption that electric sucks for cooking and gas was the way to go. In terms of brewing is electric actually better?

 

[shoreman]

Short & Shotty mixed with Mosher's lazy guide to mashing http://allaboutbeer.com/article/the-lazy-brewers-guide-to-mashing/

I've been brewing this way for a couple years to stay in the hobby - can crank out a beer in 2 hours if you are good with your time & precrush, prewash.

 

[ESBrewer]

Yes, doing a no-sparge, slightly shortened boil, no-chill batch in two days utilizing dry yeast would break it into more manageable days. And remember to crush your grains and measure some ingredients beforehand. I've noticed that some people do 30min boils with decent results if not quite the brightest beers. You could also cut the mash time. Do a single step infusion at 150F so you would expect to see a drop in attenuation that is only 2-5% compared to a full 1hr mash.

 

[LittleRiver]

...doing a little here and there each day and not spending 8 hrs on new day. I'd like to here your process.

A 5gal all grain brew day for me takes about 3:40. That's everything, from start of pulling out the gear to everything cleaned and put away. That's with no prior prep, other than creating the recipe & checklist. I do a full hour mash and a full hour boil. If I cut 15 min off my mash and boil I could do a 3hr brew day.

I BIAB on a single vessel rig. That's one of the main reasons my times are good. There's just less gear to handle and clean. I don't rush at all, but I'm efficient with my time. While the mash water is heating I grind grains and get organized. I use a thermometer that has a remote probe and an alarm, so I don't have to be at the kettle to monitor temps, it will beep me when the water is ready.

I don't re-circulate during the mash, I just insulate the kettle (it typically stays within 1deg during the entire hour). That way I don't have to be at the kettle to monitor it. During the mash I do other things, including going to buy a 20lb bag of ice for $2 at a local grocery store, and measure my hops.

I don't sparge. I can hit or exceed recipe targets without it. My brewhouse efficiency is consistently in the low 80's. I grind at .025", which causes no problems in my process.

When the mash is complete I hoist the bag and tie it off so it can drain into the kettle. I immediately fire the heat for the boil. The bag is left hanging over the kettle during the boil, so gravity can fully drain it. By the end of the boil the bag is light and cool, easy to handle for disposal. There's no need to squeeze the bag, gravity has fully drained it. During the boil I prep my chilling system.

I use an inexpensive water transfer pump to recirculate water through my immersion chiller. I first recirculate from a 5gal bucket of tap water. The resulting hot water is saved to use as wash water during cleanup. Then I move the hoses over to a cooler that contains the ice and another 5gal of water. That quickly takes the wort down to pitching temp. The resulting warm water is saved for rinse water during cleanup.

Cleanup is a breeze. There's very little to clean, and my wash & rinse water are right there ready to use. I put some oxiclean in the hot water and use it to clean the kettle, etc. The immersion chiller gets cleaned by dunking in the cooler of warm water. The bag is the easiest thing to clean, it gets a dunking in the wash water, the rinse water, then hung up to dry.

Here's a photo of a pale ale, in case you have heard the myth that BIAB makes cloudy beer. The only thing I did to help clarity was a cold crash at the end of fermentation, no fining agents were used.

 

[kh54s10]

'm a terrible OP

Let me see if I can break this down and not bore you.

Night before measure my strike water and have that in pots on the stove ready to go. When I wake up I turn the heat on Brush my teeth and wait some more. Once it gets hot into my cooler it goes. Taskes about 40 mins get hot while I wait I give my mash tun a quick cleaning and set it up.. Add my grains and wait 1 hr. Then I slowly sparge. Add some more sparge water and do it again. Can take about an hr-90 mins. When I get enough wort collected I start to boil and take about 30-40 mins to get to boiling . I boil an hour then shut off the heat cool for an hr our before racking into fermenter. Racking takes about 20 mins for me. . Then time to clean up the pot. About 20 mins. While I wait for my wort to boil I clean my mash tun. My last recipe called for a 2 hour boil when I was making a scotch ale. I however did a rasberry wheat ale and found that it took me about 6 hours start to finish for clean up. I was pretty tired after all of that. This is a basic set up. Of course times are differnt based on the recipes.

I do not use electric kettles. I use a propane burner outside. I heat my strike water in seperate pots on an electric stove to save on propane. I batch sparge. Idk if going electric is the answer.

Also when I chill i use an immersion copper chiller and hook it up to a pump that has ice inside a cooler. I have been just bringing the temp down to about 120 degrees and racking it over like that. Put an airlock on it and wait til the next day to pitch the yeast. I dont feel like waiting all day.

I can save you at least 1 hour. Add your sparge water, stir, vorlauf and drain = 10 minutes, If you do a second half batch sparge - another 10 minutes. There is no need to let it sit. You are just rinsing sugars out of the grain.
20 minutes to rack? Get a ball valve in your kettle = racking then should take about 5 minutes.
Seems like a long time to cool if you are pumping ice water.
If you are racking at 120 degrees make sure you are not using glass carboys. That temperature into a colder carboy will weaken the glass Each thermal shock will add up until you have a failure. With PET fermenters that is close to the temperature that will deform the plastic.
What do you use for fermentation temperature control? I get the wort temperature as low as I can, put the fermenter in my chest freezer chamber and can pitch a few hours later. I usually finish brewing in the afternoon and pitch later that evening.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Add my grains and wait 1 hr. Then I slowly sparge. Add some more sparge water and do it again. Can take about an hr-90 mins. When I get enough wort collected I start to boil and take about 30-40 mins to get to boiling . I boil an hour then shut off the heat cool for an hr our before racking into fermenter. Racking takes about 20 mins for me. . Then time to clean up the pot. About 20 mins. While I wait for my wort to boil I clean my mash tun. My last recipe called for a 2 hour boil when I was making a scotch ale. I however did a rasberry wheat ale and found that it took me about 6 hours start to finish for clean up. I was pretty tired after all of that. This is a basic set up. Of course times are differnt based on the recipes.

Got it... So 8 hours was hyperbole. Understood. Based on the process you've described, I can see how you're looking at a 5-6 hour brew day. I think you can do better.

I can save you at least 1 hour. Add your sparge water, stir, vorlauf and drain = 10 minutes, If you do a second half batch sparge - another 10 minutes. There is no need to let it sit. You are just rinsing sugars out of the grain.
20 minutes to rack? Get a ball valve in your kettle = racking then should take about 5 minutes.

@kh54s10 has your first time saving tip right here. Batch sparging does NOT need to be done slowly like fly sparging. Drain the tun at full open. Add water, vorlauf, and drain the tun again at full open. No need to go slowly.

I BIAB on a single vessel rig. That's one of the main reasons my times are good. There's just less gear to handle and clean.
<snip>
I don't sparge. I can hit or exceed recipe targets without it. My brewhouse efficiency is consistently in the low 80's. I grind at .025", which causes no problems in my process.

When the mash is complete I hoist the bag and tie it off so it can drain into the kettle. I immediately fire the heat for the boil. The bag is left hanging over the kettle during the boil, so gravity can fully drain it. By the end of the boil the bag is light and cool, easy to handle for disposal. There's no need to squeeze the bag, gravity has fully drained it. During the boil I prep my chilling system.

@LittleRiver has time-saver #2. BIAB. No need for the separate mash tun and sparge step. Basically you don't have to sparge at all, so as soon as the mash is complete, you can start the burner for the boil. As mentioned, if you hoist the bag above the kettle, it will continue to drain as your boil kettle gets to temp.

Do you have recommendations on electric kettles? I was under the assumption that electric sucks for cooking and gas was the way to go. In terms of brewing is electric actually better?

Nah, based on what you've said, I don't think there's a reason to go electric. You mentioned upthread that you were also interested in conserving $$$, so transitioning to an electric brewery doesn't really help accomplish that.

Rather, what I'd do is heat your water right on your propane burner outside in your kettle. Especially if you transition to BIAB, that's where your mash will occur anyway. Those outdoor propane burners are WAY hotter than your stove. If you want to save time [rather than saving propane], use it.

So here would be my proposed process for you:

1. Set everything up, fill your BK on the propane burner with the appropriate amount of water and turn on the flame. Given that the heating the water is the slowest part, I'd do the burner first and then set up things like your BIAB hoist, etc.
2. While waiting for the mash to heat up, grind your grain, get it into the bag for BIAB.
3. BIAB mash for 1 hr. Hoist the bag hanging above the BK.
4. Start the burner for the boil. Assume 20-30 minutes to get to boil.
5. 60 minute boil.
6. Try to improve your chill speed. One tip is to move the chiller around in the kettle constantly to agitate the water. Another is that your pump pushing the ice water may not be very strong. It might actually be better to just use the hose if your house has good water pressure (ice in the chiller is most important for that last bit of chilling to pitching temps--not the early stuff to bring it from boil to 120).
7. As mentioned above, if you can modify your boil kettle to have an outlet on the bottom and a ball valve, you can get the wort into the fermenter much more quickly rather than taking that time to rack it.
8. Get it into the fermentation chamber and let the chamber bring it from 120ish down to pitching temps.

That's basically 3 hours, plus chill time [and hopefully you can get that improved to be better than 1 hour].

I think @LittleRiver had his target at 3:40 completely from start to finish. I think that's a valid target for you to shoot for. And to the extent that you can get some setup/grinding grain/etc done the night before, you might squeeze a bit more time out of it.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

FYI if you stick with batch sparging, it still won't entirely slow you down that much. I'd estimate an extra 20 minutes or so.

Once the first batch sparge is in the boil kettle, you can turn on the flame so that it's heating while you do your second batch sparge.

 

[Gunshowgreg]

I can save you at least 1 hour. Add your sparge water, stir, vorlauf and drain = 10 minutes, If you do a second half batch sparge - another 10 minutes. There is no need to let it sit. You are just rinsing sugars out of the grain.
20 minutes to rack? Get a ball valve in your kettle = racking then should take about 5 minutes.
Seems like a long time to cool if you are pumping ice water.
If you are racking at 120 degrees make sure you are not using glass carboys. That temperature into a colder carboy will weaken the glass Each thermal shock will add up until you have a failure. With PET fermenters that is close to the temperature that will deform the plastic.
What do you use for fermentation temperature control? I get the wort temperature as low as I can, put the fermenter in my chest freezer chamber and can pitch a few hours later. I usually finish brewing in the afternoon and pitch later that evening.

Yeah I may get a ball valve soon to aid in the faster process if I'm using glass I will wait til about 80 degrees. I think my chiller might be too small. I got it on amazon for about 60$ I dont have any fancy means to control temp. I keep my house around 67-63 degrees. So far my beers are good.

 

[Gunshowgreg]

Got it... So 8 hours was hyperbole. Understood. Based on the process you've described, I can see how you're looking at a 5-6 hour brew day. I think you can do better.



@kh54s10 has your first time saving tip right here. Batch sparging does NOT need to be done slowly like fly sparging. Drain the tun at full open. Add water, vorlauf, and drain the tun again at full open. No need to go slowly.



@LittleRiver has time-saver #2. BIAB. No need for the separate mash tun and sparge step. Basically you don't have to sparge at all, so as soon as the mash is complete, you can start the burner for the boil. As mentioned, if you hoist the bag above the kettle, it will continue to drain as your boil kettle gets to temp.



Nah, based on what you've said, I don't think there's a reason to go electric. You mentioned upthread that you were also interested in conserving $$$, so transitioning to an electric brewery doesn't really help accomplish that.

Rather, what I'd do is heat your water right on your propane burner outside in your kettle. Especially if you transition to BIAB, that's where your mash will occur anyway. Those outdoor propane burners are WAY hotter than your stove. If you want to save time [rather than saving propane], use it.

So here would be my proposed process for you:

1. Set everything up, fill your BK on the propane burner with the appropriate amount of water and turn on the flame. Given that the heating the water is the slowest part, I'd do the burner first and then set up things like your BIAB hoist, etc.
2. While waiting for the mash to heat up, grind your grain, get it into the bag for BIAB.
3. BIAB mash for 1 hr. Hoist the bag hanging above the BK.
4. Start the burner for the boil. Assume 20-30 minutes to get to boil.
5. 60 minute boil.
6. Try to improve your chill speed. One tip is to move the chiller around in the kettle constantly to agitate the water. Another is that your pump pushing the ice water may not be very strong. It might actually be better to just use the hose if your house has good water pressure (ice in the chiller is most important for that last bit of chilling to pitching temps--not the early stuff to bring it from boil to 120).
7. As mentioned above, if you can modify your boil kettle to have an outlet on the bottom and a ball valve, you can get the wort into the fermenter much more quickly rather than taking that time to rack it.
8. Get it into the fermentation chamber and let the chamber bring it from 120ish down to pitching temps.

That's basically 3 hours, plus chill time [and hopefully you can get that improved to be better than 1 hour].

I think @LittleRiver had his target at 3:40 completely from start to finish. I think that's a valid target for you to shoot for. And to the extent that you can get some setup/grinding grain/etc done the night before, you might squeeze a bit more time out of it.

Brew in a bag sounds very attractive and would probably be about 30$ with a bag and pulley system to upgrade? It's just an idea to entertain. Yeah my pump is kinda weak. I'm no tree hugger but I liked the idea of being environmentally friendly and not wasting water. I do use garden hose water first before using the ice bath method. I save the hot water to clean with. I may continue stiring with the cooler as opposed to doing it intermentently. As far as the slow sparge i read that it was a good way to increase efficiency. So that where that started.

Got a really dumb question for the BIAB guys. Can you damage the bag if the burner is on and scorch the bottom of the bag because it is making contact? Or are they pretty heat resistant? I'm just curious.

 

[LittleRiver]

...for the BIAB guys. Can you damage the bag if the burner is on ....

There's no need to have the heat on when the bag is in the kettle. Heat to strike temp, add bag & grains, stir, cover, insulate the kettle, then leave it alone for an hour.

To answer your question, if you turn on the heat full blast with the bag and grains in the kettle you will destroy your bag. If you come across a situation where you need to add some heat, you can turn your flame on very low, constantly stirring, without damaging your bag. If you have an overhead hoist, you can also temporarily raise your bag. But none of that should be needed.

With BIAB you can crush your grains very fine (to flour) without causing any problems. That allows conversion to happen very quickly, 10-15min. If you insulate your kettle, even outdoors in the winter your temps are going to be fine for the first 10-15min (but do mash longer than that for flavor).

 

[Gunshowgreg]

There's no need to have the heat on when the bag is in the kettle. Heat to strike temp, add bag & grains, stir, cover, insulate the kettle, then leave it alone for an hour.

To answer your question, if you turn on the heat full blast with the bag and grains in the kettle you will destroy your bag. If you come across a situation where you need to add some heat, you can turn your flame on very low, constantly stirring, without damaging your bag. If you have an overhead hoist, you can also temporarily raise your bag. But none of that should be needed.

With BIAB you can crush your grains very fine (to flour) without causing any problems. That allows conversion to happen very quickly, 10-15min. If you insulate your kettle, even outdoors in the winter your temps are going to be fine for the first 10-15min (but do mash longer than that for flavor).

Thanks for answering my rookie question

The finner crush will also aid in efficiency correct? No worries of a stuck sparge I'm sure (obviously) . Is there a bunch of grain matter left in the kettle?