How long is your brew day?

[kombat]

Placed the pot in an icebath while I figured out the wort chiller. Then once I was set, it was about another 20 minutes to get from 100F to 20F.

Wow, that's a heck of a chiller. The lowest I've ever been able to chill to was 55° F. How did you get the coil out afterwards?

 

[AQUILAS]

Wow, that's a heck of a chiller. The lowest I've ever been able to chill to was 55° F. How did you get the coil out afterwards?

DOH!

I meant 80F. I have no idea why I put 20F....I haven't had any homebrew yet!

 

[Chris_Primavera]

So I wondered this morning how efficient have I really gotten?

I moved the cars at 0725 this morning, Started the mash water and started Crushing grain at 0730. At noon, I was cleaned up, Wort oxygenated and yeast pitched (and I mowed the lawn between the first hop addition and second).

How long is your brew day?

Almost exactly five hours from start to finish. (Finish means that the kitchen meets SWMBO's standards)

I brew every three weeks and use the 90 minute mash to clean and sanitize everything, including the bottles for the previous batch.

I then use the 90 minute boil to bottle the last batch and reuse the yeast.

I may not be fast, but I make the most of the time.

 

[philosofool]

I usually set up the water, burner, mash tun, etc. the night before brewing, which takes about 15 minutes.

Assuming a 60 minute mash and a 60 minute boil with no hop stand, I get something like this:

heating strike water, 20 minutes
Mashing, 60 minutes
Recirculating, 10 minutes
Sparging, 40 minutes (I could improve this, I know)
Heating sweet wort, 30 minutes
Boiling, 60 minutes
Chilling, 5 minutes
Transfering to fermenter, 2 minutes
Shaking, pitching, and putting into fermchamber, 12 minutes
Cleaning, 45 minutes...

That gets me just under 5 hours, which sounds about 15 minutes longer than it actually would take. Sparging and sweet wort heating kinda overlap, so that sounds like the source of the issue.

However, I frequently do beers with longer mashes (147 for 75 minutes for Saisons and double IPAs, for example) and 75 or 90 minutes boils (for strong ales, pilsner malted beers, etc.) and hop stands (15 minutes), all of which add some time.

In light of this, I sometimes finish my sparge and heat the sweet wort to a boil to pasturize (this probably also kills a ton of DMS) and then finish the brew day the next day, or in the evening or whatever.

 

[CJ-3]

Did my first all grain batch 2 weeks ago. Took around 6.5 hours

It was very relaxing and it felt like SWMBO and I just hung out the entire time.

 

[esteiner16]

Including prep, cleanup, and my inevitable screwups, about 5hrs

 

[Bulls Beers]

Started my strike water at 830 and finished the cleanup at 130. Both 90 min mash and boil.

 

[fosaisu]

4.5 to 5 hours for 11 gallon, all-grain, batch sparge batches, with a 60 min mash and 60 min boil. 5.5 gallon batches go faster since heating and cooling take less time.