Brew days too long!

[Ilan34]

Another option is to mash, collect runnings and heat to say 190 - 200 degrees to pasteurize the wort, then lid the kettle and come back to it the following day.

Yep, this is exactly what I do - I may have even gotten the idea from you in the first place! (Btw, thanks again for the bag. Been using it since May and it's still going strong.)

As far as overnight mashing feeling longer, I can't say that it does, personally. I used to be pretty wiped at the end of a six hour brew day. Now each part feels like a piece of cake.

With a 21 month old, it's all about reducing my brewing "footprint" while she's awake. SWMBO works from home, so she has her all week. With overnight brewing, my little toddler is only awake for the last two hours of it, and SWMBO generally takes her to the Y at that point.

It's not for everyone, but it works for me.

 

[fartinmartin]

I brewed again today, still a good 5 hours start to finish , I put first gallon to boil on the stove then in to demijohn before sparging and put the rest, boiled in two batches , five gallons into FV bucket and the remaining gallon into a second demijohn. That gives me three variants from the same brew day, so I have different hops in the boils, and they will all get different dry hop, all three brews bubbling now and the place smells great, I am satisfied with my production from my five hours and very low level kit.

 

[billybryson54]

One thing I've done in the past to save a little time is to plug in a heatstick to a timer. That way my strike water is already hot when I wake up and I'm ready to brew. Not a HUGE time saver but it does help and it's convenient


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[TimelessCynic]

Perhaps all grain or home brewing isn't for me. LMFAO


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[wsmith1625]

That sounds pretty standard. Have you thought about trying early morning brewing? A lot of us like to brew first thing in the morning, as it lets us finish up around lunch time and we still have the rest of the day to do other stuff. I often start my brew day at 5:40 AM, which is when I normally wake up to go to work anyway. Except instead of going to work, I get to make beer.

5:40 - 6:00 Wake up, put in contact lenses, get dressed, whatever
6:00 - 6:20 Heat strike water, mill grains (weighed-out the night before)
6:20 - 6:30 Dough-in, seal mash tun
6:30 - 7:15 Make breakfast, watch some TV, whatever
7:15 - 7:30 Heat sparge water
7:30 - 7:45 Vorlauf, draw first runnings, batch sparge. Start heating first runnings.
7:45 - 8:00 Collect second runnings, add to pot, continue heating.
8:00 - 8:15 Heat to boil, wait for hot break, start timer
8:15 - 9:15 Boil
9:15 - 9:30 Knockout, chill to 65° F, rehydrate yeast
9:30 - 9:45 Rack to fermenter
9:45 - 10:00 Carry fermenter downstairs, aerate, pitch yeast, affix airlock
10:00 - 11:00 Clean up, put everything away

That's a reasonable schedule, but I'm not quite the early bird. I typically start at 12:00 and run right into dinner, losing kitchen access to my wife who is starting to cook. This is when my leisurely day starts to be a drag. I wish I had access to hot water and a sink in the garage where I brew. I heard of one person reclaiming hot water from the chiller to clean with. I may have to try this one day.

 

[WestMichBrewer]

That's a reasonable schedule, but I'm not quite the early bird. I typically start at 12:00 and run right into dinner, losing kitchen access to my wife who is starting to cook. This is when my leisurely day starts to be a drag. I wish I had access to hot water and a sink in the garage where I brew. I heard of one person reclaiming hot water from the chiller to clean with. I may have to try this one day.

I like to get a few things ready the night before so I can hit the ground running.
Grains milled and up to room temp, strike water measured and ready to heat.
There's a lot of dead time in the process you can use to help speed things up:
While mash is resting, go set up for boiling, measure your first hop addition, etc.
While the batch sparge water is soaking, begin heating the first runnings for the boil.
While the boil is ongoing, stay on top of your hop addition measuring and use the time to clean your MT.
While the wort is cooling, get your carboy sanitized, clean and put away other stuff.
You get the idea.

 

[kingmatt]

I brew fairly regularly (1-2 times a month) and have definitely been having a harder time finding a free 5+ hours to brew now that I am a Dad. That said, other than some of the time saving tips others have given (get your strike water/salts ready and weigh out grains the night before etc), I don't want to rush my brew days. I love my brew days and don't want to be running around trying to shave time off, as it makes the process less enjoyable and makes me more prone to missing steps/making mistakes.

After brew day, most of what you do is sit around and wait for the yeast to do their job so you can keg and drink; why not take your time and enjoy the portion of the process you have the biggest hand in? If I was only interested in the drinking part I would just buy all my beer.

 

[VirginiaHops1]

My brew day takes 6 hours or so but I don't mind so much because a lot of it is not that involved(mash, boil, ice bath cooling) and I can be doing other things with the family during parts of the process. It helps I'm able to brew in my kitchen because my batches are smaller. Also going from bottling to kegging removed a major timesuck on the back end so that made brew days more enjoyable too.

I've found little ways to make the process go a little faster, like having water, grains and everything measured out the night before and ready to go first thing in the morning. Also I started covering the kettle as I'm heating up to boil which may make it go a little faster but still takes awhile.

I've heard of overnight mashing being a viable option and I tried it once without issue but I probably wouldn't feel comfortable letting it sit longer than that but YMMV.

 

[day_trippr]

I run a 10 gallon batch 3 vessel herms rig with mash-out heat ramp and fly-sparging. So, pretty much "the hard way"
I consider it a major victory of a brew day if the carboys have been pitched, oxygenated and stuffed in a ferm chamber and all the gear is cleaned and put away - in under 6 hours.

It hardly takes any disruption to push the day past that benchmark. In the ~6 years I've been running my current rig (~ one hundred batches) I think I've only done it a half-dozen times. It's my white whale...

Cheers!

 

[Snuffy]

If I'm brewing all-grain, I figure on 8 hours of washing, sanitizing, organizing, weighing, drinking, mashing, sparging, boiling, drinking, chilling, transferring, drinking, pitching, drinking, cleaning, disposing, washing, drinking, and putting it all away again. If it takes too long, you don't enjoy the process and should probably pick another hobby. For extract, I can knock a couple of hours off, of course. If it was cheap, quick and simple everybody would do it. An apprentice to do all the prep and cleanup would be awesome. Never gonna happen.

 

[LittleRiver]

I single vessel BIAB with a propane burner. Brew sessions typically last 3:30 - 3:45. That's everything, from starting to everything cleaned and put away, with no prior prep. I mash and boil for 1hr each. I have done 3hr brews, by shortening my mash & boil times by 15 min each.

Time savers are:

• A simple rig. There's just less to setup, clean, and put away. There's never a problem with a pump or controller, etc. They're not used, because they're not needed. I do use a pump with my chiller, but it only moves water, so it doesn't have to be cleaned.
• An alarm thermometer with a remote probe. It's all the automation I need. Not having to manually measure water temp frees me up to do other things. For heating mash water I set the alarm a few degrees below strike temp, then go weigh and grind grains. For ramping to a boil, I set the alarm a few degrees below boiling, then go get my hops ready or do other stuff. The alarm thermometer also has a timer, which I use to time my boil.
  
• A hot burner. With the KAB4 burner I have to be quick if I want to have my grains ready before the thermometer beeps me that the mash water is ready.
• Finely milled grains. With BIAB there's no worries of a stuck mash, so grains can be milled very fine (.025"). Full conversion happens quicker than with coarser milled grain. I generally mash for 60min, but I've done 45min without any loss of efficiency or other issues.
• Insulation. I maintain mash temps by insulating the kettle with a kids sleeping bag. It's quick and easy to use, and doesn't need to be cleaned up like a RIMS rig, etc. Holding temps within a degree or two for 60min is not a problem. Temps have dropped more than a degree or two when it's really cold, but they have always held within one degree during the first 15-20 min, by which time the finely milled grains are fully converted.
• No sparge. Finely milled grains give a boost to efficiency -- so much so that I do not have to sparge to get great efficiency. I routinely hit or exceed recipe targets without sparging, without adding additional grain. My BH efficiency is generally in the low 80's. I only sparge if I'm brewing a big beer, say 8+% ABV.
• No squeeze. I raise the bag with an overhead rope/pulley, and immediately fire the burner for the boil. I leave the bag hanging over the kettle for the entire boil, so gravity can completely drain it. The hot sticky mess of squeezing (which also adds things to clean up afterward), makes no sense when gravity will do it for free. When it comes time for grain disposal, the bag is lightweight & cooled.
• Recirculating immersion chiller. I first recirculate from a 5gal bucket of water, the resulting hot water is saved for cleanup. I finish chilling by recirculating from a cooler filled with ice water, the resulting warm water is saved for rinsing during cleanup. Using ice insures that I always get a quick chill, regardless of tap water temp. A 20lb bag of ice costs $2 at a local discount grocery, I go get it during the mash.
• Organization. I set up a rolling storage rack to hold clear plastic bins. I know right where everything is, and I can grab it quickly.

The next one doesn't apply to brew day, but it's a big time saver.

• Kegging. Getting set up for kegging takes some time & expense, but the payback is huge. Both in time saved for every brew, and for the freshness & longevity of flavors (using a simple gravity powered closed transfer between fermenter and keg). There's still cleaning involved with kegging, but cleaning one vessel is a whole lot easier and quicker than cleaning 50+ bottles (for a 5gal batch). I set up my keezer so that kegs can be added/removed without the hassle of coiled hoses being in the way.

 

[Snuffy]

I single vessel BIAB with a propane burner. Brew sessions typically last 3:30 - 3:45. That's everything, from starting to everything cleaned and put away, with no prior prep. I mash and boil for 1hr each. I have done 3hr brews, by shortening my mash & boil times by 15 min each.

Time savers are:

• A simple rig. There's just less to setup, clean, and put away. There's never a problem with a pump or controller, etc. They're not used, because they're not needed. I do use a pump with my chiller, but it only moves water, so it doesn't have to be cleaned.
• An alarm thermometer with a remote probe. It's all the automation I need. Not having to manually measure water temp frees me up to do other things. For heating mash water I set the alarm a few degrees below strike temp, then go weigh and grind grains. For ramping to a boil, I set the alarm a few degrees below boiling, then go get my hops ready or do other stuff. The alarm thermometer also has a timer, which I use to time my boil.
  
• A hot burner. With the KAB4 burner I have to be quick if I want to have my grains ready before the thermometer beeps me that the mash water is ready.
• Finely milled grains. With BIAB there's no worries of a stuck mash, so grains can be milled very fine (.025"). Full conversion happens quicker than with coarser milled grain. I generally mash for 60min, but I've done 45min without any loss of efficiency or other issues.
• Insulation. I maintain mash temps by insulating the kettle with a kids sleeping bag. It's quick and easy to use, and doesn't need to be cleaned up like a RIMS rig, etc. Holding temps within a degree or two for 60min is not a problem. Temps have dropped more than a degree or two when it's really cold, but they have always held within one degree during the first 15-20 min, by which time the finely milled grains are fully converted.
• No sparge. Finely milled grains give a boost to efficiency -- so much so that I do not have to sparge to get great efficiency. I routinely hit or exceed recipe targets without sparging, without adding additional grain. My BH efficiency is generally in the low 80's. I only sparge if I'm brewing a big beer, say 8+% ABV.
• No squeeze. I raise the bag with an overhead rope/pulley, and immediately fire the burner for the boil. I leave the bag hanging over the kettle for the entire boil, so gravity can completely drain it. The hot sticky mess of squeezing (which also adds things to clean up afterward), makes no sense when gravity will do it for free. When it comes time for grain disposal, the bag is lightweight & cooled.
• Recirculating immersion chiller. I first recirculate from a 5gal bucket of water, the resulting hot water is saved for cleanup. I finish chilling by recirculating from a cooler filled with ice water, the resulting warm water is saved for rinsing during cleanup. Using ice insures that I always get a quick chill, regardless of tap water temp. A 20lb bag of ice costs $2 at a local discount grocery, I go get it during the mash.
• Organization. I set up a rolling storage rack to hold clear plastic bins. I know right where everything is, and I can grab it quickly.

The next one doesn't apply to brew day, but it's a big time saver.

• Kegging. Getting set up for kegging takes some time & expense, but the payback is huge. Both in time saved for every brew, and for the freshness & longevity of flavors (using a simple gravity powered closed transfer between fermenter and keg). There's still cleaning involved with kegging, but cleaning one vessel is a whole lot easier and quicker than cleaning 50+ bottles (for a 5gal batch). I set up my keezer so that kegs can be added/removed without the hassle of coiled hoses being in the way.

Dude. I am impressed. I wish I could be that organized. By comparison, my brew setup looks like the cul de sac morning after 4th of July fireworks. I like the recirculating chiller deal. I don't have a way to connect to the sink so I hang the chiller hoses out the laundry room window and hookup to the garden hose. My wife banished me to the laundry room after I brewed my first all-grain batch cause she said I made the whole house smell like I was washing a horse. At least it's got a sink and a tile floor.

**Snuffy

 

[tellyho]

Didn't read intervening posts, but I often mash at one time and boil later. Sometimes overnight. Never more than 13 hours later though.