Cleaning. God damn cleaning.
Happened to me twice - once from a passerby that thought I was making moonshine, and a second time when a new neighbor thought I was cooking meth!
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Why all the hate for cleaning? Cleaning my MLT keeps me busy while the wort is boiling for 60-90 minutes.
Having to poop
I hate gathering up my stuff to brew, I have a piece here and a piece there and where did I put that other piece again? It was just in my hand..., and I seem to lose stuff right as I need it.
My world is peaceful, daughter minding her business, wife doing her thing, dog sleeping, UNTIL I START TO BREW then it is chaos. Daughter wants to help (she is 3), wife wants me to do something or I am in her way, dog becomes my best friend. I have even waited for them all to leave just for them to come right back in mid mash or boil get my help with something. Needless to say I have never had a brew day go right, and I am used to it, I love it all...
I also find waiting on the beer to condition to be the hardest.
-edit- the best, nice sunny day when I start then it rains...
I was in the same boat. I switched my brewdays to 9PM. That may not work for you, and I am sure tired in the AM. But it is nice and quiet.
Really? You're speaking of one of lifes simple pleasures. Sounds like someone needs to take a moment to smell the roses, as the saying goes...
Great question, OP, and I've really enjoyed the responses. It has made me appreciate the ways I've set up my brewing over the years to enjoy the whole process with a minimum of wasted time. Things I used to hate, the lugging of heavy objects, the gathering of equipment from various locations, even the cleaning - I've just worked out over the years ways to do it without hating it. A pump, shelving, a brew stand, wash tubs, PBW - they all help make it go smoother. I think my only gripe is that I don't have running water in my garage, so I have to run a hose out for brewing water and for chilling, and there's no instant hot water, so I have to be creative when I'm trying to rinse everything. I heat a few extra gallons of sparge water, so I have some for washing up the MLT, and then I use the first runnings of the immersion chiller to fill a wash tub and rinse tub with hot water. A lot of my cleaning takes place while something else is going on: MLT gets cleaned during the boil, other equipment gets cleaned after I remove the immersion chiller and am letting the trub settle after whirlpooling.
What I really hate, though, is when I injure myself or break/damage some of my equipment. Two weeks ago while I was rinsing PBW out of my boil kettle, I grabbed the chine, which had been several hundred degrees just a few minutes earlier. The whimper that escaped my lips was more out of the realization of my own stupidity than of pain. The scars are mostly gone. It's for this reason that I never crack open a brew until the wort is in the boil kettle - just make too many mistakes.
In a week and a half, I'm going to do my first ever double brew day - so I'm interested to see how long it will take, trying to be efficient in my multitasking. Hopefully I won't break anything...
What do I hate? Trying to keep wife and kids outta my F'n way! That's just about it.
Whether at home or in a brewery, dealing with the spent mash is my least fave part of the process
I think I spend all of 40 seconds cleaning on a 6 hour brewday so I am gonna go with managing boil time. I think I got ADD when it comes to standing over the kettle for that long so I constantly walk away and do other things. I cringe at recipes with lots of hop additions.
Do you have a small boil kettle or something?
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