My Short n Shoddy brew based on Brulosophy xBmt

[TANSTAAFB]

After reading Marshall's write up on his 1 hr all grain brew day... http://brulosophy.com/2015/11/12/short-shoddy-my-1-hour-all-grain-brew-day/ ...
I decided to try something similar. It's cold, snow on the ground, and I've been trying to figure out a way to squeeze more brews into a busy schedule while keeping warm! I tossed together a 3 gallon recipe (we'll call it a Dark American Wheat) and when my wife ran to the store I started putting everything together. I managed to brew 3 gallons BIAB from weighing everything out to clean up finished in about 2.5 hours...And I cooked a meatloaf, Mediterranean egg bake, and an Italian stew at the same time! 🤘
I extended the mash to 30 minutes, got about 65% efficiency, and whirlpooled while I chilled with an IC. I'm pretty confident I can brew a decent beer in 1-2 hours start to finish with this method which is freakin AWESOME!

 

[k1ngl1ves]

I can make 5 gallons of kool-aid in a carboy, pitch some yeast in it, and go about my day.

Bam! 10 minute hooch!

It won't be the best hooch I can make, but it's still hooch... and that's what really matters.

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Are you being facetious or actually comparing a beer with reduced mash and boil times to hooch? Sorry, can't tell...

 

[RM-MN]

After reading Marshall's write up on his 1 hr all grain brew day... http://brulosophy.com/2015/11/12/short-shoddy-my-1-hour-all-grain-brew-day/ ...
I decided to try something similar. It's cold, snow on the ground, and I've been trying to figure out a way to squeeze more brews into a busy schedule while keeping warm! I tossed together a 3 gallon recipe (we'll call it a Dark American Wheat) and when my wife ran to the store I started putting everything together. I managed to brew 3 gallons BIAB from weighing everything out to clean up finished in about 2.5 hours...And I cooked a meatloaf, Mediterranean egg bake, and an Italian stew at the same time! 🤘
I extended the mash to 30 minutes, got about 65% efficiency, and whirlpooled while I chilled with an IC. I'm pretty confident I can brew a decent beer in 1-2 hours start to finish with this method which is freakin AWESOME!

If you get your grain milled finer you will get a better efficiency. I expect about 80% with n0 sparge, higher if I sparge. With that the conversion is really quick but extraction of flavors takes more time so I usually recommend no shorter than 30 minutes for the mash. By adjusting the hops to account for the less bittering I shorten the boil to 30 minutes too. I brew on the kitchen stove so I have to wait for it to heat the water for strike temp and to get the boil started so I am limited to about 2.75 hours but I think that with a higher output burner I could shorten that.

k1ngl1ves can make hooch in 10 minutes but I can make good beer in that 2.75 hours.

 

[broadbill]

I can make 5 gallons of kool-aid in a carboy, pitch some yeast in it, and go about my day.

Bam! 10 minute hooch!

It won't be the best hooch I can make, but it's still hooch... and that's what really matters.

I've been around this board for awhile now, and its funny to see the same old reactions to new ideas come up time and time again....

I remember when Denny Conn's batch sparge technique came around, when we were all fumbling around fly-sparges on Charlie P's Zapap system.

Chemicals leaching out of plastics, efficiency issues, etc. etc. Nowadays you look around and if a homebrewer is doing AG, its a good chance they have a cooler and SS-braid setup.

I remember when BIAB came around and it was the same old thing: Oh, the loss in efficiency! The temperature loss! Don't you know batch sparging in a cooler is the only way to do it? (Saint Denny said so!) Kinda funny that Denny was fighting the same battles just a few years before that...

So here we are with RM-MN and company doing something else that's new and different....and here we are with the nay-sayers saying the same things. I wonder how we'll all be brewing a few years from now, and what we'll all be nay-saying at that point.

Cheers!

 

[Biscuits]

I would like to see how the same recipe, brewed 'normally' vs one brewed the 'short n shoddy' way would compare....might be a cool Exbeeriment.

 

[TANSTAAFB]

If you get your grain milled finer you will get a better efficiency. I expect about 80% with n0 sparge, higher if I sparge. With that the conversion is really quick but extraction of flavors takes more time so I usually recommend no shorter than 30 minutes for the mash. By adjusting the hops to account for the less bittering I shorten the boil to 30 minutes too. I brew on the kitchen stove so I have to wait for it to heat the water for strike temp and to get the boil started so I am limited to about 2.75 hours but I think that with a higher output burner I could shorten that.

k1ngl1ves can make hooch in 10 minutes but I can make good beer in that 2.75 hours.

Forgot to mention the boil was only 15 minutes! I added a 15 minute whirlpool then started chilling because I was cooking. I have been struggling with efficiency on my full size setups as well. It's part of what prompted me to move from my cooler to BIAB. But still getting crappy efficiency when milling to damn near flour! I have to gap on my ole Barley Crusher as tight as it will go when I re-crush now. So I have been getting 60% when mashing 60-75 minutes. This was the first time I filtered my water and tossed in .5 tsp CaCl2, so getting 60% after 30 minutes and no sparge is encouraging me that taking the dive into water chemistry that I didn't want to take has me on the right track to fixing my efficiency issues. I did not test the pH because bringing out the calibration buffering solutions on top of everything else I had going on seemed like a poor life choice!

 

[TANSTAAFB]

I've been around this board for awhile now, and its funny to see the same old reactions to new ideas come up time and time again....

I remember when Denny Conn's batch sparge technique came around, when we were all fumbling around fly-sparges on Charlie P's Zapap system.

Chemicals leaching out of plastics, efficiency issues, etc. etc. Nowadays you look around and if a homebrewer is doing AG, its a good chance they have a cooler and SS-braid setup.

I remember when BIAB came around and it was the same old thing: Oh, the loss in efficiency! The temperature loss! Don't you know batch sparging in a cooler is the only way to do it? (Saint Denny said so!) Kinda funny that Denny was fighting the same battles just a few years before that...

So here we are with RM-MN and company doing something else that's new and different....and here we are with the nay-sayers saying the same things. I wonder how we'll all be brewing a few years from now, and what we'll all be nay-saying at that point.

Cheers!

From the time I started brewing this forum has helped me challenge preconceived notions and brew better beer. I'm a skeptic by nature but want to see the data, so what Marshall is doing is freakin awesome!

 

[TANSTAAFB]

I would like to see how the same recipe, brewed 'normally' vs one brewed the 'short n shoddy' way would compare....might be a cool Exbeeriment.

I used up some old ingredients I had lying around, so that would be hard on this one! BUT, I have several brews I keep on rotation-and have a few examples on hand-that I could do a Short n Shoddy batch and compare in a triangle tasting. I'm really curious how my simple brews like a blonde and a cream ale turn out with reduced mash and boil times!

 

[Kent88]

Am always glad to see people try to reproduce the results from Brulosophy. I don't like people seeing one "exbeeriment" and taking that as the absolute truth. It should only be one piece of the larger picture, just a starting point. I don't think the authors want people to consider their experiments to be the end of the discussion either, and often around here I see people citing them without any other supporting information.

 

[TANSTAAFB]

I have no intention of making all my beers this way, but it is really nice to know I can keep the pipeline going and don't have to wait until I have a free Saturday to brew. I want to enjoy this hobby and lately it has been more stressful than enjoyable. When I do get a chance to brew I try to brew too much at one time because I went to the trouble of dragging out all the equipment. I think I'll be able to enjoy both these small batch, shortened sessions as well as a nice, long, leisurely brew day now🍻

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Has anyone else tried this approach? I'd love to hear about your results.

 

[Ashevillain]

Excellent brulosophy read and i am very interested to see how your batch turns out. Of course we can always do more and take more time to try and make a batch our best, and I am always trying to improve my techniques, but if i can make solid beer in half the time sign me up! Not to say i would brew this way every time, but it would certainly enable me to brew 1-2 times a week instead of once every other week.

 

[TANSTAAFB]

My feelings as well...I love to take the time to have a nice leisurely brew day but sometimes the weather sucks or the pipeline is running low. But if the finished product isn't up to par this experiment has reminded me that I can brew smaller batches inside with minimal effort, even if I mash and boil closer to traditional times

 

[TANSTAAFB]

I made a rye pale today with this method...Sort of. I planned on a 30 minute mash but by the time I got my new pH meter calibrated and a sample cooled it was 45--not exactly Short n Shoddy! I did make up for it with a 20 minute boil though 😉
I do have a water question if anyone's up for it. I added 3g CaCl, 3g gypsum, & a campden tablet to my charcoal filtered water as well as 2% acid malt to the grist:
5.5# 2 row
8oz C40
2# flaked rye
1# flaked oats
3oz acid malt

Ended up at 5.6 pH which I was pretty happy with for quick & dirty water additions. I also increased my efficiency to 70% which tells me my water chemistry was definitely a part of my efficiency issues.

My question is, what is your target pH for pale ales and IPAs?

 

[TANSTAAFB]

I kegged the Dark Wheat tonight, quick carbed a 1/2 gallon with the ManCan setup. Initial impressions are... Tasty, hoppy, it'll be better in a week!

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Hmmm...Pretty sure I gotta call this a Cascadian Dark Wheat 🤘

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Cdw

View attachment 1487570846138.jpg

 

[Paps]

There are some threads on here about "No-boil/no-chill" beers.
Plus i've tried some from members of the local homebrew club.
They tasted fine to me.

If efficiency can be made up for with an extra 4-5 $$$ in grains, then i am sure some will definately believe that, that it is worth the 30 minutes saved in the mash.

 

[madscientist451]

I did some "short brew day" experimental brews a while back, the beers were OK and drinkable, but I went back to the standard 60 min mash, 60-90 min boil because I felt I was getting better flavor and overall was more satisfied with the beer. I didn't do any side by side taste tests. I may revisit the shortened brew day idea again.