How long is your brew day?

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budbo

budbo

Beer is good
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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?
 
I brewed yesterday. I started at 530 am and didn't finish my cleanup until about 130 pm. It's only my second batch ever so I expect I will get better.
 
I started my brew stopwatch when started to pull out my equipment on Saturday. After cleaning it all up and putting it all away, I checked my time : 4h 15m.

But I full volume mash/no sparge.

My goal for a while has been to make brew days faster because carving out time to do it is the real difficulty. Beer is still just has great too!
 
I usually start at 1700 Friday and finish anywhere between 1400 and 1800 Sunday. Not including the starter. I take LOTS of breaks.
I have no reason to hurry, kids are grown up and either on their own or away at college. Just kind of hanging out with my wife while I clean/organize. We both love brew days (weekends!)
 
Total takes me 5-6 hours...this past brew day felt like it flew by...water hit above strike temp at 9:30 AM mashed in...ate breakfast did some yard work, 10:30 added mash out water...mixed let sit for 10 minutes...10:40 vorlauf a gallon empty into pot...batch sparge wait 10 minutes vorlauf empty into boil kettle...start boil on gas stove...takes about 15-20 minutes to get rolling boil...1 hour boil with hop additions...cleaned out mash tun and got fermentor sanitized...once boil was done the mash tun and accessories were already put away...cooled using immersion chiller down to 85...put into fermentor covered and air lock into chest freezer to finish cooling. Cleaned everything else and waited to pitch yeast. 2 hours later yeast pitched and put it in cool brew bag. Done with "cooking" and cleaning by 1:30 done with entire brew day by 3.
 
Finding time is my issue, So trying to get the time down. For me it is a matter of crush while mash water is heating, get everything ready during mash and sparge, clean up mash stuff while wort is heating, then fast clean after draining (I use a therminator, and our ground water is nice and chill so it leaves pot at 190-200 and hits Carboy at 72).
 
Most recent brew day was about 4 hours and 15 minutes from when I lit the burner to yeast being pitched and having most everything cleaned up. That includes nearly an hour to chill my wort. If I can get it down below four hours, I'll be happy. I'd prefer to be able to take my time, but weekends are when I try to give my wife some time off from watching our daughter, so I do my best to finish up as quickly as possible.
 
Though I don't start a stop watch, I est 4 hrs for a 5 gal all grain batch from crushing grain to cooled wort in a fermenter with yeast pitched. I clean as I go so don't count final cleaning and putting everything away. Probably another 30 min to an hour.
 
My brew day started at 715 am.. I hoisted my bag at 9am, squeezed all the wort I could get. Boil started approx 945am. Everything cleaned up for 12. Way too long for me so I'm aiming for 3-3.5 hrs from start to clean up.
I only have 5 brews under my belt so I should get more efficient soon.
 
About 6-7 hrs doing all grain but I like to do hopstands so that adds anywhere from 30-60 min and I was doing a 90 min mash with adds time but typically from starting the boil to final cleanup is about 7hrs.
 
3 hrs 45 minutes, 60 minute mash and boil, batch sparge for a 5 gallon batch. Time is from filling kettle to end of cleanup. 10 gallon batch tends to run closer to 5 hours due to longer boil times and longer sparge times.
 
I'm at about 8 hours. This past Saturday I started malt conditioning around 7:00 am, finished cleaning around 3:00 pm. I don't rush it. It's a fun day.
 
Never seen one of these threads!

3 hrs start to finish all grain.
 
I used to be faster, when I had my old cooler and simple pot system. Now, it's more like 4.5 hours, or 5 hours if I don't batch sparge.

I take a bit longer to chill than I used to, since I do 10 gallon batches and have a CFC, and it takes longer to clean up with my single tier. I love having pumps, so it's worth it, but I used to be finished when the wort was cool and now I'm cleaning the pot and running clean water through the pump and chiller afterwards.
 
4:15 - 4:30 hrs for my 6-10 gallon BIAB batches. That's from pulling equipment out to put away clean. I can cut off 20 - 30 minutes if I mill up the grain the night before and have the strike water come up to room temp.
 
budbo said:
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?
Click to expand...

About the same. I usually start early in the morning and after letting the wort sit after chilling, cleaning as much as I can (BIAB) then pitching yeast I'm usually 5.5 hours from when I setup to add water to when I put away and everything is cleaned.

Using my step fathers 3 tier setup I did it in about the same time and just started cleaning the mash tun and pump/lines during the boil.
 
My typical brew is all day. Often some time the day before is spent tidying up garage and getting ready for brew day. That day may involve previous batches and cleaning fermenters to get ready.

Brew day starts with coffee, recipe review, preparing log sheets.
Around 10 will start actually measuring grain, heating strike water etc leading to dough in of first batch at about 11.

Then it is
1 hour mash
1 hour lauter and bring wort to boil
1 hour boil
1 hour whirlpool / chill / transfer to fermenter

followed by
(repeat of the above)

I only have one pump and it gets used full time during mash (recirc), lauter, and chill stages so I can't start batch 2 until batch 1 is done. Really need to get that second pump...

Frequently I run into a 90 minute boil or a 90 minute mash extending the brew day. For beers without hop stand I can reduce chilling time to about 20 min shortening the brew day.

Cleanup at the end is another hour even assuming I've been cleaning as you go and really only have the brew kettle left to deal with.

This is for a 2x11 gallon batch brew day.
 
too long! I biab so i do a 90 minute mash then an hour boil. ad bringing everything up to the right temperature, then cooling, fermenting and cleanup, and i am looking at 6 hours.
 
I usually get going at 0800 (to beat the heat) and won't start mashing in till 0930ish. Takes an hour to get everything out and set-up. From there, I'm constantly doing, cleaning, moving something. With an hour lauter and most of the time 90-minute boil. I can clean up and be finished by 3/4PM.

So I'm about a 6 - 7 Hour brew day....
 
Around 5 - 5.5 hours from starting to unpack my brewing stuff from a big container in the garage until yeast is pitched and all the gear is put away.

I just switched to all grain with BIAB (3 batches so far), so there is still room for improvement. Though I do a 75-90 min mash so that adds a little bit.
 
budbo said:
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?
Click to expand...

As long as it takes. Usually 4-6 hours for an all grain BIAB and ghetto chill method.
 
I'm at 4 hours on a perfect brew day, without interruptions, but the average i'd say is about 5 hours. If I don't do any prep the night before- make sanitizer, crush the grain, measure out hops, get carboy's ready, get water, etc... then it could be little longer.
I really don't like long brew days so I try to be as ready to go as I can be. I used to brew at night and be up half the night. Those days are long gone and now it's all about getting up before the family and getting as much clean up done as I'm waiting on the mash/boil/chill/whirlpool as I can.
 
budbo said:
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?
Click to expand...

Just BIAB, so much faster and the best mash efficiency. A lot of the craft breweries are doing it now because of the wort viability.
 
bobeer said:
I used to brew at night and be up half the night. Those days are long gone and now it's all about getting up before the family and getting as much clean up done as I'm waiting on the mash/boil/chill/whirlpool as I can.
Click to expand...

Yeah I have started right after dinner on Friday night and finish around 1am... It sucks but then it still gives me a whole weekend for the wife to boss me around. But that might not be the best plan though since I'll get to sleep around 2 and the kids always wake us up around 7... :(
 
I do BIAB with a second mash vessel (a cooler) so there's a few extra steps than normal BIAB. I also do 90 minute mashes to boost my efficiency, so with that in mind my brew day is anywhere from 4 hours to 7 hours depending on how much of a rush I'm really in. I enjoy having a nice long brew day though. The process is relaxing, and I enjoy taking my time and not feeling rushed. It's like building a model airplane for me, just a nice calm slow process.
 
If I could manage to have a brew day where everything went as planned, it would probably take me 4-5 hours.

But I almost always have an extra hour tacked on there due to something not working right.

that's what makes this an adventure!!
 
bobeer said:
I'm at 4 hours on a perfect brew day, without interruptions, but the average i'd say is about 5 hours.QUOTE]

I agree. It usually takes around 5 hours. This includes bring all the brew equipment out and putting it back up clean. I brew all grain.
Click to expand...
 
I greatly enjoy the process of learning my brewing hobby, and focusing on not screwing something up. SWMBO understands that brew day is my day, and that she should not interrupt me unless (a) the house is actually on fire, or (b) one of the kids has died. That said, I start heating the mash water before breakfast, and am happy if I finish cleanup by suppertime.
Bob
 
I do 15 gallon batches and almost always brew two batches in one day. I made this little chart once to estimate my time and forecast my overlap between the two batches.

Brewing_Timeline.JPG
 
I do 10 gallon batches with a fly sparge. From filling kettles with water at the beginning to pitching yeast and finishing cleaning I average about 4.5 hours. It used to take me a lot longer, but over the years I have refined my process to the point I could likely do it sleepwalking.
 

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