Ambitious brew day coming up - 4 batches, 35 gallons

Time to refill some fermenters and kegs - one of my tap lines is dry, and 3 others ready to kick any day now. Damn you work travel for cutting into my brew time.

I brewed 10 gallons of mild (OG 1.036) to function basically as a starter yesterday. Pitched 5 gallons with notty and 5 gallons with US-05 - both are bubbling away happily this morning at 64 degrees.

Next Sunday - those will get kegged and the yeast washed for 35 gallons to be brewed. I've done 3 batches back to back a few times, I figure why not tack on a 4th. I've gotten pretty efficient with my process and set up - so adding on an additional batch only adds about 1.5 hours to the day.

Still finalizing recipes, but thinking I'll go with:
10 gallons American amber
10 gallons Oatmeal Stout
10 gallons IPA of some sort (debating between my go to New Zealand IPA(~6.5%ABV), a low ABV session IPA, or something designed around centennial hops)
5 gallons of Nut Brown or perhaps a hoppier Irish Red.

Currently, I'm restricted to 35 gallons as I can only fit 5 carboys/buckets in my main chamber, and 2 in a spare chamber area but I've got 5 big mouth bubblers on order from NB - if it turns out they are narrow enough to fit 6 in the main chamber, I'll likely bump that last 5 gallon batch up to 10.

It's just Monday, and I already can't wait for the weekend.

 

That's awesome!

Now that I'm getting close to finishing a keezer build of my own, maybe I'll attempt a multi-batch brew day soon myself...

Report back how it goes...

Giver'er hell!



Yes.... Monday's suck...

 

I was exhausted just reading the OP title. Good luck with that, you're better than I.

 

You're making my parti-gyle this weekend look paltry!

 

Whew, I top out at a double brew day because it takes me 8-9 hours between setup and cleaning (I do a pretty lengthy cleaning run through my system). Now I'm thinking that I'm not sure what my wife would prefer, that I do single brews for 4 weekends in a row, or one marathon brew day?? Hmmm, you've give me a lot to think about... Curious to know what kind of brew system you're using and then what the total time ends up being.

 

My wife has definitely come to prefer that I knock them out all at once rather than taking up a bunch of weekends.

I've got my process for back to back brew days dialed in pretty well. 10 gal cooler MLT, 5 gal cooler HLT, 2 15 gal converted kegs for kettles, a 7 gallon kettle for holding water and 2 burners. All brewing water is run through a charcoal filter, and mash adjustments are done with lactic acid based on the outputs from Bru'n Water.

I get the first mash going, then have the strike water for the second batch heating in one kettle, and the sparge water heating in the other. Once the sparge water gets to temp (usually timed to happen right at the end of the mash) - that goes off to the HLT. Batch sparge into that kettle and head towards the boil. As soon as I can get the MLT cleaned out, I start the second mash. At that point, I heat the strike water for batch three and sparge water for batch two together. Sparge water goes into the HLT, strike water goes into my spare 7 gallon kettle. That generally times up pretty well with the end of the boil - chilling takes 10 minutes or so through the plate chiller (one of the beautiful things about brewing this time of year - tap water temps in the high 40s - I can run full throttle through the 40 plate chiller and be at 65 degrees immediately) . Run off Batch 2 out of the MLT, clean out and go on batch three. Rinse and repeat.

This will be the first time for me doing four batches - I've done three a few times. It makes for a very busy brew day - not much of the normal time for cleaning kegs, racking beer etc. that a single batch brew day allows.

The challenge (both to equipment and motivation) is that the high temp on Sunday is supposed to be 0. Brewing happens in the detached unheated garage so it's going to be a cold one for sure. My biggest concern at this point is keeping the spigot on the side of the house defrosted. So far this winter a hairdryer has been enough to thaw but I may have to break out the bernzomatic. I've found that as long as I disconnect, drain, and coil the hose running from the spigot to the garage between uses I've been able to keep it from freezing. However it goes - I'll try and update this thread as the day goes by. I also close the garage door this time of year most of the way - leaving about a 1' opening. Between the open garage door and the draftiness of the 85 year old garage - it's enough that I'm not worried about CO poisoning but still allows a little bit of heat to be retained from the burners to keep the coiled water hose and water filtration setup from freezing.

According to UPS - my big mouth bubblers are on the truck for delivery, so should be all good there. I also picked up a Dark Star burner as part of the NB promotion (free burner!) which came yesterday, so for the moment I've got three burners available (A Blichmann for my main burner and I've got a bayou I have been borrowing from a friend).

As far as cleaning - that's another beauty of the back to back to back - I start with my lighter/low hopped beers first, and do anything dark, roasty or hoppy last. The mash tun and kettles get a rinse and wipe down between batches, but I don't go through the normal scrubbing and cleaning process as they are getting pressed right back into service. As long as the grain is rinsed from the MLT, and the hop particles and break matter rinsed from the kettle, I'm good to go. Rather than 4 sets of deep cleaning, I do one at the end of the day.

 

Sounds cool, my spigot also freezes up and I just take about a half gallon of hot water from the hlt (140-150 ish) and slowly pour it on the spigot and it usually loosens right up.

 

So far - the hair dryer has worked well enough. I try to not use water around there as it is over the driveway right by the side entrance. I don't want to create anymore of an ice rink than I have to.

 

Btw I do the same thing with regards to cleaning in between batches, just a hose/wipe down and then back in action. The full pbw and sanitizer rinse is the last thing after all batches are done.

 

So anyways - high temp tomorrow of -1, and the trip I had planned for next weekend got postponed. I think I'm going to push back a week and wait for the temperature to at least be a positive number.

Still have 7 pounds of pulled pork and 6 pounds of ribs to toss on the smoker tomorrow for a ski day on Monday - but that at least doesn't require me to stand outside the entire day.

 

I ended up doing a double brew day since my wife and daughter went out of town on Saturday. Between setup, cleaning the conicals, brewing 2 batches (barley wine and extra stout), clean up and break down I spent about 9 hours. I think with my procedure I'm looking at 1 hour setup, 3 hours per beer, 2 hour breakdown. With overlap of mashing while boiling it's hard to nail down exactly but I'm guessing a quadruple brew would take me 15 hours. I'm eager for you to give it a shot first, haha.

 

I had a work trip come up that took me out of town through to Saturday afternoon - so in the interest of marital discourse I scaled back to 3 10 gallon batches so I could still spend Sunday morning with the family.

All in all - went quite well - 10 gallons each of New Zealand IPA, Cascadian Dark, and American Amber all sitting away happily fermenting in the chamber. Took about 10 hours start to finish, wrapping up about 11 PM last night. Also got 5 gallons of English mild kegged and conditioning, from which I washed the yeast for the new batches.

The new Big Mouth Bubblers rock - I've got 5 of the 6 fermenting in those, with the 6th in a 6 gal glass carboy and am able to stuff all of them in the main fermentation chamber. The only downside on the day is the new Dark Star Burner I picked up with the bubblers. It didn't matter how I adjusted the air, yellow flame and soot dominated the burn. It's got a 5 psi regulator on it, and I've read that this is actually too low for this particular burner. I may try and swap out the regulator to see if this helps.