How long is your brew day?

[barry.hastings]

Hi guys , you blokes blow my mind . I do 80 litre batches with a 90 minute boil , 90 minute mash , 60 minute fly sparge 60 minute trub filtration . It’s a 10 hour day including cleaning but not including milling . With big batches like 80 litres , huge amounts of time are also used up getting the water to mash in temperature and getting wort to boil . I would take 5 hours any day but that’s a pipe dream with my system .
Cheers and beers

 

[OleBrewing]

Hi guys , you blokes blow my mind . I do 80 litre batches with a 90 minute boil , 90 minute mash , 60 minute fly sparge 60 minute trub filtration . It’s a 10 hour day including cleaning but not including milling . With big batches like 80 litres , huge amounts of time are also used up getting the water to mash in temperature and getting wort to boil . I would take 5 hours any day but that’s a pipe dream with my system .
Cheers and beers

i should have clarified in my post i recirculate mash and batch sparge for 10 gallon batches. then run the rest of my sparge water to get some 1.025/1.03 runnings for the next yeast starter. I did not see where the efficiency with fly sparging out weighed batch sparging with my results.

 

[Wolfbayte]

We run all grain about 3.5 hours on a typical 5-gallon batch: start the gas to heat the strike water and set up the rest while it's heating up. 30 minute mash in a bag, then pull the bag out, let it drip a bit, light the gas again to get up to a boil while we sparge in a ZapPap, pour in the second runnings and let bag drip while we do a 30 minute boil with the first hop addition. During the boil we set up our other hop additions, finings, yeast nutrient and sanitize the fermenter, chiller, and strainer bag. Wort chiller goes in with 15 minutes left and already hooked up to the hoses (in/out). We pour in what's dripped since, and put away and clean what we can. At flame out we cut the gas, turn on the hose and stir so it cools in about 10-15 minutes. Pour into fermenter through paint strainer bag, pitch yeast, snap lid, insert bubbler and put bucket in the ferm freezer taping the probe to the side. If I have help, I'm cleaning as I go, otherwise, I clean after. Use the brew table as a draining rack, and throw the bags in the washing machine on rinse/spin. Usually put away what's left the next morning when they are dry.​

Swapping to 30 minute mash save us 1/2 hour, 30 minute boil saves us 1/2 hour, and no vourlaf/lauter saves 1/2 hour of vourlaf and lauter cutting an hour and a half off the brew day. Swapping to gas camp stove over using kitchen stove saves 1/2 hour in heating time. Setting up while strike water is heating up saves some time as well. Sometimes it feels like it takes more time to put everything away than it did to brew.​

 

[Oleson M.D.]

Start to finish, milling the grain, 90 minute boil, 90 minute mash, 10 gallons, everything cleaned and put away, 10+ hours.
Quality takes time.

 

[Scottyward]

5-6 hours from grain crush to last item clean making a 5 gal batch in my Anvil 10.5. Not including yeast starter 2 days prior

 

[Cloud Surfer]

It makes me smile to hear of a 3 hour brew day. I just did a Barley Wine that had a 3 hour boil. Plus a re-iterated mash at 90 minutes each, plus two sparges. I'm over 7 hours with just that. Add in prepping, milling, heating water to mash temp, whirlpool, chilling and transferring into fermenter, oxygenating and pitching yeast, cleaning up. That big beer is a 12 hour day.

 

[ross.filipek]

I'm typically at 6-7 hours (including cleanup) for a 7-gallon all-grain batch on propane.

 

[beren]

4h or so. All grain, no biab. 5 gal batches. Longer if 90min mash or boil.

 

[kevin58]

Always an hour longer than I wish.

 

[Deadalus]

On a good day with zero eff-ups I can get a 10 gallon batch done in 7 hours.
I tried to go through a session and add up all the activities - but I can't seem to account for a good 90 minutes.
This says I should be done in 5.5 hours
I listed parallel activities in the Notes column - things that get done while the Action is happening.
I guess there's 90 minutes of "slop" in my brew days...

View attachment 822317

It's a mystery

Cheers!

Could be your sparge and runoff rates as you are using theoretical rates. I've noticed that when I fly sparge at a valve just cracked rate and actually watch the time it is much longer than I thought. Also just 15 minutes for cleaning? Do you CIP, 15 minutes seems short for cleaning?

I move pretty efficiently through to the boil but post boil I tend to lollygag. I heat up some water to CIP and then I let that pump through the system for about 30 minutes and don't often switch to cleaning right away. I often go eat a meal or take a break, have a beer. I've been trying to keep better notes on time but marking the time doesn't always get recorded as I am focusing on other measuements.

 

[eric19312]

I think I'm pretty close to @barry.hastings ... brew day for me is pretty much all day

My batches are 17.5-18 gallons to the fermentor. I keg and brew on same day. Kegging and cleaning the fermentor gets done during down time during the brewing process. I don't believe the kegging and cleaning add time to the critical path but keeps me from seeing any real relaxation / down time during mash and boil.

I heat with low pressure household natural gas and cool with groundwater.

Typical process looks like
1 hr to collect, treat and heat mash water, weigh and grind grains and dough in
2 hr mash (beta rest, temp ramp to alpha rest, alpha rest, temp ramp to mash out, mash out)
1 hr sparge/lauter
0.5 hr to reach rolling boil
1 hr boil
0.5 hr whirlpool
1 hr to chill (counterflow chiller into fermentor)
1 hr to clean kettle and put away majority of gear
adds up to 8 hours which seems about right...if I start at 10am I'm done by 6pm

At this point I'll probably take a break for dinner while wort chills to pitching temperature, then dump the cold break, pitch my yeast and oxygenate.
I've done some LODO lagers lately that started with 2 hour Yeast Oxygen Scavenging step but these didn't mash or lauter as long or have the whirlpool step so overall took about same amount of time.

 

[Red over White]

I'm about 1 hr setup the night before and 8 hours on brewday for 10-15 gals. I can do 5 gals in 6 hours if I hustle. I plan brewdays when I have uninterrupted time and I really enjoy the process. I crack the first beer when I am chilling and put everything up clean and dry. As a professional cleaner the cleaning part isn't a drag for me, I enjoy it which probably isn't normal (I like shiny equipment in perfect condition).

 

[day_trippr]

15 minutes seems short for cleaning?

At that point in the day the only items needing cleaning are indeed the BK, two hoses for the boil pump in and out, and one bucket, everything else gets cleaned in parallel with the main line activities. I timed that today and I was done in 20 minutes, so just a little bit longer than I had thought.

That said I did find a few things I had missed or under counted. Biggest one was bringing the BK up a boil: I fly sparge using ~168°F liquor and tend not to run the BK burner very high until the end of the fly sparge, hence there's typically a good 35-40°F rise needed to get the full boil up to a nice roll. That took 30 minutes today, and it wasn't in yesterday's table.

Also my chill time was off by 10 minutes at least and it took 10 minutes to get the chamber loaded. Between those three and the five minutes added to the BK cleanup phase I added 50 minutes to my table...

Today took just over 7 hours so I'm still missing almost 40 minutes. Next batch I'll check the elapsed time for the sparge and runoff. I don't think I'm far off there though as I actually time a couple of quarts while setting the flow rates to 1 quart per minute...

Cheers!

 

[eric19312]

I find I could speed up the brew day by accepting efficiency hit...single infusion mash and lauter in 20-30 min. Would cost me maybe 10 points on a moderate gravity beer. A 5% ABV beer on my system is about 30 pounds of grain...If I needed to hurry it along another 6 pounds of grain would not much money to save 90 minutes. But...no I never do that...just a thought experiment.

 

[day_trippr]

I hear you. If I did a single batch sparge, drop the Hop Stopper protracted lautering and just pump the kettle straight into the carboys, I could shave maybe 80 minutes off my typical brew day. But I don't think the beer would be as good

Cheers!

 

[DonT]

My last brewday I moseyed out to the garage around 8am, poured my first homebrew for lunch at noon, finished washing everything (almost) around 2pm and closed the garage door. And that's if I don't screw up too much... pretty typical.

 

[OakIslandBrewery]

Great thread, and I'm late at seeing this but I'd say I'm in line with everyone else. I brew z ten gallon all grain batch. The first day is milling grain into the mashtun and filling the electric HLT with the desired water and set the temp.

The next day, whenever I get going, water is heated and it's mash time. It's a 4-5 hour day before it's in the fermenter and maybe some cleanup into the next day. All told 6-7 hours. I move slow and have lots of time so it's not a race to get done.

Thanks, great to see what we're all doing!

 

[ZapperMike]

Great thread, and I'm late at seeing this but I'd say I'm in line with everyone else. I brew z ten gallon all grain batch. The first day is milling grain into the mashtun and filling the electric HLT with the desired water and set the temp.

The next day, whenever I get going, water is heated and it's mash time. It's a 4-5 hour day before it's in the fermenter and maybe some cleanup into the next day. All told 6-7 hours. I move slow and have lots of time so it's not a race to get done.

Thanks, great to see what we're all doing!

One things for sure we all love our craft to put this kind of time into it!

 

[Drewch]

BLUF: About 4 hours for a 10L (2.5gal) all-grain BIAB batch.

The details:

On the order of ½ hour prep time a couple of days ahead to weigh and mill grains.

0.5 Weigh & heat mash water, measure mineral additions
1.0 Mash
0.1 Remove and drain grain bag
0.3 Heat to boil & weigh hop additions
1.0 Boil
0.5 Cool, transfer, and pitch
0.25 Clean kettle, pack away tools, etc

So, if I'm running at 100% efficiency, ~~ 4 hrs. But I usually have other household and parental duties that add extra time.

 

[grampamark]

I brewed a 5 gal batch of Irish Red Ale at the farm yesterday. I have a 3 vessel gravity system and the luxury of a dedicated brewing space in the semi-finished part of our basement. Everything is set up and ready to go whenever the opportunity to brew presents itself, so I don’t have any setup time. I fill the HLT and start heating strike water while weighing and milling grain and gravity takes over from there. I started at 2 PM and finished cleaning up at 7.

I’ve been using this same, basic, setup and process for a little over 10 years now with only a few minor tweaks. In that time I’ve brewed about 1000 gallons and everything is pretty well dialed in. My brewery is pretty basic (maybe a step above ghetto quality ), but not having to share space with other household activities makes a big difference in the time spent producing a batch of beer.

 

[Vinny]

I'm at about 7 - 8 hours with all the prep and clean up. I like to get all the water minerals, malt and hops measured the day before. This last batch I loaded the water in the mash tun the night before brew day and set the timer so it was ready to mash in when I got up.

Vinny D.

 

[z-bob]

I do 4 gallon batches, and it's usually about 5 hours unless I do a no-boil recipe. But recently I did one with a full boil in about 3.5 hours (including most but not all of the cleanup) by measuring and grinding the grain a few hours before, and getting all my equipment ready before I started. That's exciting because I get 3 to 4 hour blocks of time that I can brew quite frequently, but anything longer than that comes along few and far between.

I brew BIAB on a gas stovetop with a 1600W heat stick for an assist.

 

[bobtheUKbrewer2]

9 hours BIAB

 

[malchizedec]

I have a single vessel system and do a triple brew day in 18 hours, so 6 hours per brew with a lot of opportunity for improvement.

 

[Bazza McKenzie]

7 hours, 20 litres, Brewzilla v3.1.1, 240VAC, single infusion mash, hand cranked mill. Setup to packed away.

 

[seatazzz]

Actual brew day (BIAB) is about 4 hours; but I mill grain/set up water the night before, so maybe add 30 minutes. Rarely need to mash longer than 45 minutes. I force myself to clean as I go; grain bag gets dumped/cleaned while waiting on the boil. After chilling and transferring I run about 4g of hot hot water from the water heater into the BK, through the pump, chiller, and hoses; half goes straight through, then the other half backflushes the chiller. I let the BK/false bottom soak while I'm getting the fermenter in the fridge, and it's then ready for a quick scrub/rinse. Hop spider is usually the last thing to get done, only takes a few minutes. I do not miss the longer brewdays back a few years ago; at least 7 hours start to finish, with me absolutely dragged out at the end.

 

[OakIslandBrewery]

I think most of us can agree that during the actual brew day there's pockets of time where other things can be done. Like during the mash where you can either sit and watch or go about getting ready for the next step. I take that time and have breakfast, brew some coffee or go through email.

 

[AZ Maverick]

Mill my own grain, BIAB in the garage. I make a starter a couple of days before brew day, then on brew day about 6 hours from setup to finish clean up with wort in the fermentation chamber. If I'm making a lager, a few more waiting hours to hit pitching temp.

 

[eric19312]

I think most of us can agree that during the actual brew day there's pockets of time where other things can be done. Like during the mash where you can either sit and watch or go about getting ready for the next step. I take that time and have breakfast, brew some coffee or go through email.

Not me. I am working pretty steady one end of the brew day to the other.

While the mash water is heating I am measuring and crushing grain, treating water with salts and campden, getting pilot light on brew stand lit and cleaning kegs.
During mash I purge kegs, keg the beer and get it into keezer.
During lauter I rinse and disassemble the fermentor followed by CIP, sanitizer rinse and reassembly.
During boil I'm heating cleaning water getting the grain out of the mash tun, rinsing the mash tun well in the driveway.

Can be some down time during chilling but if I'm wanting to be done I get as much general cleaning and tidying done during the chilling so once the wort is into the fermentor all that is left to clean is the pump, chiller and brew kettle.

 

[day_trippr]

I am similarly focused on brewing as efficiently as I can manage, and I never drink adult beverages on brew days until everything is done. If things go right there are smatterings of time when I can finish reading the Boston Globe and catch up on HBT, but not a lot more than that...

Cheers!