Do you spend a lot of time cleaning/sanitizing? Just got done with my first all grain no-chill batch. Transferred it from cube to the fermenter today. In my head this seemed like a quick job, but it ends up taking me 1-2 hours just to clean, sanitize, transfer wort, and pitch yeast. Equipment involved was a wine thief, auto siphon, better bottle, stopper, airlock, thermometer, and a pot for rehydrating my dry yeast, so I guess it adds up. Hit everything with pbw, rinsed well, then hit everything with starsan.
Am I spending way too much time cleaning/sanitizing, or is this typical?
It's different for everyone.. But after a while, you'll start developing a routine/system that is appropriate for your system/equipment.. It all starts becoming somewhat 'automatic' and you make less mistakes this way too...
Then you'll start looking for ways to revise your method via new home made solutions and those available for purchase...
I have gotten in the habit of doing my mash one afternoon, and cleaning all that stuff up.. Then measuring the results that evening, adjusting the boil times and hop additions and all that according to what was collected, and then brewing the next day...
For me. doing it all in one day made the day too long, and it became a chore and I was exhausted afterwards... But now, I've split it up into two days and it's fun again...
Clean up afterwards takes an hour or two, but it's easy now.. because I have a routine... Most of that time isn't spent working, just soaking stuff in Oxyclean or whatever...
I generally clean my buckets that I used for collecting wort in the dishwasher, and since I can only fit one in there at a time, that I do over a couple days following the brew...
I'm generally ready to pitch yeast immediately after brewing, so by the time I'm through cleaning and storing everything, I start to see signs of some flocculation starting to happen in the carboys...
Seems like it takes longer to clean the carboys and cornys on transfer day, than it does to clean up the brew day equipment...
