What creative/interesting ways do you make your brew day more efficient?

[jakehoodlum]

I want to know the steps you guys take to must efficiently run your brew day.

My HLT is a converted igloo cooler so I have to take some extra time to heat it up and then heat sparge water while sharing my one propane burner and I don't know how to cut down the extra time that takes.

What creative/interesting ways do you make your brew day more efficient?

 

[billybryson54]

It may seem basic but for me it's all about doing things while waiting for other things to happen. When the strike water is heating up, I'm milling grain and weighing out brewing salts. During the mash I'm weighing out hops. When the boil is going, I'm sanitizing equipment and cleaning out the mash tun. About the only time I'm sitting still is when my CFC is doing its job. Even that requires my attention because my wastewater is dumped into my washing machine for laundry so I'm not so wasteful, so I need to be sure my washing machine doesn't overfill (it's happened). All of this leads to a quick and efficient brew day for me

I'm in the camp where my converted keg is both my HLT and my boil kettle. I use a converted cooler for a mash tun, but I also use a 5500 watt element in the keggle so heating up water is very quick for me.

 

[beergolf]

I usually bottle while I am brewing. I rack to my bottling bucket while my strike water is heating up. Once I start the mash I start bottling. I can finish easily before the mash is done. Then during the boil I can clean the empty fermenter, clean the mash tun etc.

That way at theend there really is very little to do after pitching the yeast. Makes for an easy day.

 

[RM-MN]

I BIAB so that in itself is a shortcut that can save some time. I bring all my equipment and grains up from my basement because I brew in my kitchen on the kitchen stove. I normally do a 2 1/2 gallon batch so moving to a 5 gallon batch would add some time for heating water to strike and wort to boil. While the pot is filling, I'm weighing out the grains. When the pot is full and heating, I mill my grains. Note that I am BIAB so my grains are milled very fine. Usually when the grains are milled the water is near strike temp so I put the bag into the pot and stir in the grains. Mashing is 20 to 25 minutes because that is all it takes with finely milled grains.

I then pull the bag of grains out and set the bag into a colander that sits in a bowl and start heating the wort collected so far I'll squeeze out the wort that I can and return it to the pot, then put another pot on a different burner and heat the water in there to boiling for the sparge that I need because my boil pot is too small to do full volume. When the first collected wort has begun boiling and the hot break has settled, I'll pour the boiling water over the bag of grains and return that wort to the pot too. By using boiling water for sparging I only stop the boil for just a couple minutes. After that second wort addition has finished hot break I add the hops and take the grains out to dump. I'll be boiling for just 30 minutes because I'll be doing no chill too. I let the pot of boiled wort sit for a bit to begin cooling, then dump it into my bucket fermenter and put the lid on. Total time from equipment in the basement to wort in fermenter and equipment cleaned and returned to the basement is under 2 1/2 hours. When the wort is cool enough I'll rehydrate the dry yeast and pitch.

 

[kpr121]

Look into building an eHLT. They can be built relatively cheaply and you can either put a temperature controller on it or plug it into a timer to turn on an hour or so before your ready to brew. That way you’re ready to dough in immediately (because of course you weighed and crushed your grains the night before like a good brewer!)

Just be forewarned, once you start to go electric its likely you end up with a full fledged control panel. But even those can be built relatively inexpensive if you are creative and flexible.

I have a fully temp controlled setup and I’ve even gone so far as to mash overnight when I knew I only had a couple hours in the morning to finish a brew. Nothing like waking up to the sweet smell of mash!

 

[SnakeRidge]

I'm another who bottles while mashing. Clean as you go. I usually do some laundry and sweep the kitchen during the boil so I'm not spending a chunk of time solely devoted to brewing.

 

[Onkel_Udo]

I want to know the steps you guys take to must efficiently run your brew day.

My HLT is a converted igloo cooler so I have to take some extra time to heat it up and then heat sparge water while sharing my one propane burner and I don't know how to cut down the extra time that takes.

What creative/interesting ways do you make your brew day more efficient?

Slap a water heater element in that cooler...problem solved.

For me I stopped trying to make my brew day efficient in the sense you mean. I make sure I make the most of brew day.

There are many variations but most go along these lines:

Let the dogs out int he morning and plug in the redneck eHLT you pre-filled last night
Drink a cup of coffee and start a load of laundry
Measure and grind grain
Check strike water temp
Measure hops
Dough in and stir like made
Add boiling water to bring up temp
Stir like mad
Back fill eHlt
Swap laundry
Load dishwasher
Drink more coffee and play with the dogs
Check mash temp and add more boiling water
Check sparge water temp
Eat breakfast
Vorlauf then drain mash tun while eating breakfast (light burner once boil kettle is even damp)
Fill mash tun for batch sparge while switching out laundry
Stir, vorlauf and drain mash tun
Organize garage while waiting for boil
Muck out mash tun and wash mash tun while making hop additions
Sanitize ferementors and drop immersion chiller in boiling wort
Prep bucket and pond pump
kill burner, start circulating, add ice
Drink a homebrew, smoke a stogie and toss the tennis ball for the dog
Check temp and drain with lots of splash into fermentors
Haul buckets to basement and pitch yeast
Clean boil kettle, fold up the brewer, put it away and relax with a homebrew

So not efficient but relaxing. best way to be more efficient is multiple sessions on the same day.

 

[tooldudetool]

Are you batch or fly sparging? If you are fly sparging, that's your biggest waste of time right there IMO. I batch sparge, I don't need a HLT. I use one pot, a 10 gallon round cooler and my brew bucket. Heat up mash water to 10 degrees above calculated strike temp, add water to mash tun, do other stuff for 5-10 minutes as MT absorbs heat and water temp drops to correct strike temp, then mash in. About 40 minutes through mash start heating batch sparge water, once mash is done, vorlauf, drain first runnings into bucket. Add sparge water to MT, mix thoroughly. Pour first runnings into brew pot, start heating it up. Vorlauf, run second runnings right into heating brew pot (using high temp silicone hose), usually finish the sparge runnings in about 10 minutes, and my wort is usually already around 200 degrees, then quickly on to the boil. I usually have very little down time throughout my brew day, but from start to finish is 4.5-5 hours including cleanup.

 

[Hoppity]

1. prepare starter
2. pre-crush grains
3. start brew day in AM.

 

[TheHappyHopper]

I agree with Onkel_Udo, I am doing all kinds of other chores while I am brewing, so I don't feel like I used up half a day just watching water boil.

I have recently started doing 30 minute mashes, as I have heard that the sugars are all converted by that point (at least for the lower OG beers that I like to brew). With my mini mash tun, I measured almost 90% efficiency last weekend, so I think I will continue that route until I start to see problems in my finished beer.

After doing 5 gallon all-grain batches for about a year, I took a step (backwards? sideways?) and started doing partial mashes, using a 2 gallon cooler that can mash about 5 pounds of grain. I end up with less grains to dispose of at the end of the day and a smaller mash tun to clean, so I think that saves me a few minutes. There is a link to my Mini Mash Tun in my signature if you are interested in checking that out.

 

[solbes]

I always make sure I am doing something else while I am heating the strike water. Whether its a quick trip to the grocery store for RO water or milling grains, I usually fill that time up.

Plenty of time during mashing and boiling to be doing chores or other brewing tasks (kegging, bottling, racking, etc). Of course you have to leave time for drinking a homebrew or two as well. Though two is my limit until after getting the wort chilled down.

 

[jdub1782]

I have two burners, so I heat a couple gallons of water on second burner to use for heating up my mash cooler (you could do this on stove top also) I then recover this hot water in a bucket with PBW to use for miscellaneous cleaning during my brewday. I also usually have a couple kegs to clean while boiling wort.