All-Grain Brew Time versus Extract

[djonesax]

I have never brewed an extract beer since I jumped strait into AG from the start. My brew days are about 5-6 hours for 10 gallon batches so I end up only brewing ever 4-6 weeks because of time. Assuming extract takes less time, I would like to find a good simple extract brew that I can brew more often and keep on tap as a "house" brew.

So to the extract brewers out there... From dragging the equipment out, to putting it away, how long is your brew day for 5-10 gallon batches?

Thanks,

David

 

[ol-hazza]

A straight extract brew can be knocked out within an hour with the missus not even knowing you have been in the kitchen, with ease. Unfortunately these aren't great.
Steeping some grain can add 30 mins, but ideally you will want to boil and thats when you would just remove the mash time off you current brew day.

 

[jschein]

Using extract about 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

 

[Psylocide]

I don't have an IC yet, so not including time to cool/pitch, I clock in around 4 hrs.

I'm still a noob, there are a few things I could do to speed up the process... but you can't speed up the boil time for first hop addition or steeping time for grains. So, that's usually around an hour and a half combined.

Takes my turkey burner about a half hour to get 5 gals to a good rolling boil.

So that's two hours, the rest is dragging stuff out/measuring stuff/crushing grain/clean-up/drinking/etc. This is where I could improve, but I've been getting decently hammered on brew day.

So... I'm not a great source.

 

[carlk47]

Using two pots and steeping the specialty grain in a small pot while bringing the main kettle up to temp and begin the hour boil can save time. I read a BYO article where the author consistently has 2 hour brew days by doing it this way.

Also OP look up the recipe 15 minute pale ale on this site. Looks to be very good feedback on that recipe and can be tweaked a ton.

 

[Psylocide]

I have also seen that you can steep your grains by adding to the cool water that you're heating for the boil at the beginning, once it gets up to 160°, you remove the grains.

Haven't tried this, but not sure if it's a good way to go about it or not.

 

[djonesax]

Based on my notes from Sunday I would save about 3 hours not mashing. 37 min to heat water, 75 min mash, 15 minutes mash out and plus time to heat mash, 40 min sparge.

David

 

[BrewHound71]

A good safe bet is about half the time, I generally knock out 5 gallon batches in about 2 hours, maybe 2.5 including cleanup. Depending on the brew.

 

[chuckcomm]

Check this out. Its a very good beer brewed in very little time. I am preparing to do my second batch this weekend. It was a hit with everyone that I gave it to.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/15-minute-cascade-pale-ale-210253/

 

[Onkel_Udo]

Reducing the total time of a all-grain brew day is relatively difficult. Reduce the time babysitting it is not.

Plug in eHLT and grind grain while drinking morning coffee and watching dogs play
Mix grain and eHLT water and stir until equalibrium
Back-fill eHLT
Shower
Re-check Mash temp and likely add a bit of boiling water
Eat breakfast
Check eHLT temp
Vorlauf and drain mashtun to boiler...light boiler once the bottom of the kettle is damp
Take out the trash
Batch sparge and stir like mad
Vorlauf and drain to kettle (while smoking a stogie and having short beer watching the dogs play again)
Organize the garage
Finally see real boiling and adjust burn for steady rolling boil
Add hops
Finish organizing garage or work on race car peeking at the kettle occasionally adding hops as needed
Drop in immersion chiller and set up bucket and pump
Last hop addition, kill burner, kick on pump for immersion chiller and add ice
Clean mash tun
Sanitize fermentors and tubing
Drink a homebrew, watch the dogs play and have a smoke
Drain to fermentors
Check temp
Pitch yeast
Haul to basement
Clean boil kettle
"pack" brewery and roll back to garage

All told I would geuss I spend about two active hours brewing...the rest is just doing things I needed to do anyway or enjoying time outside with the pups.

Oh, and bumping that to two 10 gallon batches adds an hour of time but about doubles my active brewing engagement time.

Extract brewing used to take me about 2 hours including chilling and an extra 20 minutes chilling. So about the same to me.

 

[TheMilkMan]

From getting the equipment out to all cleaned up and yeast pitched I usually do about 3 hours.

 

[djonesax]

On my next brew day, I think I am going to do an extract while mashing an all grain. Since the time it takes to do an extract seems to be the same as it takes me to mash. Will need more fermenters.