New brew schedule... or how to brew with toddlers! (input/advice sought!)

[Zymurgrafi]

Okay. So, I have been having a real hard time brewing for a while. I did one extract batch recently as a "quick and easy" brew. Tweren't really all that much of a tme saver of AG. I figured I would stick with extract for a while to get back me sea legs, err, sorry pirate day yesterday and all.


But,

I have at least 40 lbs. of MO sitting there and I do not wnt it to go bad. So, I need a new schedule.

Weekends are pretty much out. That is my work time and I need to use it as such. I find it mostly impossible to brew weekdays with my son. He is 2.5 and VERY active. Actively getting into mischief if I do not pay a lot of attention. Evening is out too. I tried it once. Mashed in when my wife got home. Was up until 1. I cannot do that anymore.

So, here is my current plan. Anybody else with little ones care to chime in tips tricks or ideas please do.

I am thinking that if I can mash/sparge in the afternoon when my son is napping and prepare for the boil. Then let it sit a few hours (3-4) and do the boil in the evening. Hopefully I won't be up all night. I was thinking mash early AM and then let it sit 'til afternoon. Problem is once you've got the boil going you pretty much have to follow through to pitching and I cannot do that in an 1.5-2 hours (nap duration)

It is pretty tough to split things up, I cannot really think of a good way. I was thinking mash one day, boil the next. However I imagine tht could lead to contaminaton funkiness. Any help here folk? Any ideas, plans I am over looking? I would love to be able to get a good system down so I can brew a couple times a month (or more!!!)

Grrrrrr. It is frustrating to be thinking about brewing and not be able to do it.

 

[rdwj]

My last brew, I collected the evening before and boiled in the morning - no problems. Keep it covered just to be safe, but really anything that's there is going to be eliminated by the boil.

 

[Zymurgrafi]

Did you keep it in the fridge or anything? Also, I imagine you definately need to make sure you did a mash-out so the enzymes are stopped. I am not very good at controlling my mash temps yet.

 

[Evets]

Hire a babysitter.

 

[Catfish]

My last brew, I collected the evening before and boiled in the morning - no problems. Keep it covered just to be safe, but really anything that's there is going to be eliminated by the boil.

I've done it too, but you still need to worry about anything that is produced while it is sitting. You wouldn't want to do this with a really light flavored beer. If you are going to let it sit over night I'd say cool it down as low as possible.

I have a 1 year old, I do night brews on the weekend (10pm to 7am) and then nap when I can the next day.

If you're doing extract you can really speed things up by doing late extract additions and late hopping. You can effectively limit your boil to 20 minutes. I just did a pale ale this way, see how it comes out.

No decoctions for you.

 

[PseudoChef]

Where do you mash/boil? I am fortunate to be able to do mine in the kitchen.

The last brew day I went ahead and started heating strike water and sanitized everything while le child (also 2.5) was up and about (@1130am). I know putting 6 gallons on the stove is going to take a while to get up to temp, so I didn't have to watch over it like a hawk. Sanitizing just is in a bucket which I can either stick up on the counter out of reach, or outside.

Right as the temp came up on the water, I mashed in (~12:30)...that's what? 10 min max? I just made sure my daughter was next to me, playing with her dolls or the magnets on the fridge.

That leaves an hour to just hang with her while I mash. Once the mash was done and it required my attention, it was naptime (1:30).

During her 2 hour nap, I collected runnings (45 min), boiled (1 hr), and started the immersion chiller. As the wort was coming to a boil, I aliquoted my hops, etc.

when she got up, I got her a snack of crackers (no cooking required), which gets her to sit still. Chilling took about 30 min. Then just racked into carboy and pitched.

I'm lucky as she loves to clean, so she thought that was fun and jumped in and helped.

It can be done!

 

[Zymurgrafi]

...which gets her to sit still...

Ah, there in lies a big difference. My son NEVER sits still. He is either asleep, or moving!

Yeah, I have tried it before but it is really frustrating and usually ends up with him breaking, spilling, or getting into something he should not or hurting himself!


I have been brewing outside with a propane burner. Definately not safe having him around that. My stove sucks. Can't handle a rolling boil.

 

[Cheesefood]

Ah, there in lies a big difference. My son NEVER sits still. He is either asleep, or moving!

Yeah, I have tried it before but it is really frustrating and usually ends up with him breaking, spilling, or getting into something he should not or hurting himself!


I have been brewing outside with a propane burner. Definately not safe having him around that. My stove sucks. Can't handle a rolling boil.

Bring him over. Our sons can be idiots together and we'll brew.

 

[mrk305]

That's why I still use extract with steeping grains. I start at 10 p.m. Saturday night and finish at 1 a.m. My little man is up with the sun.

 

[casper0074]

Trade your son for a conical and a kegerator

Kidding of course! I have a 3 year old son and a 1 year old daughter and I stick to drinking beer when they're around. Brewing is out of the question. Even if I could do it, I wouldn't enjoy it. They are just too demanding. Luckily, neither my wife or I work weekends so I can reserve saturday mornings for brewing in exchange for Sunday morning of shopping for SWMBO.

 

[WOP31]

I find that brewing outside and inviting friends with kids over helps a lot! A buddy of mine, also a homebrewer has a son one year older then mine and they keep each other occupied while we brew and keep an eye on them.

Cheese maybe the next time i am up that way maybe our boys can be idiots together then we can film it and put it on youtube.

Cheers

 

[BierMuncher]

......I was thinking mash one day, boil the next. However I imagine tht could lead to contaminaton funkiness...(

I mash/PM and boil/AM all the time.

Nothing to it. No refrigeration. No special anything except a lid for your boil pot.

Works out real good when I've got "some" spare time in the evening and "some" flex time the next day. My last three brews have been like that.

One hint though, clean thoses grains out that night or be prepared for some SWMBO shellacking.

 

[DAAB]

how to brew with toddlers! (input/advice sought!)

add them to a mash with a diastatic malt and check for complete conversion after 60 mins. (a single infusion mash is fine)

 

[CBBaron]

My 3 yr old daughter is pretty good about staying out of trouble and thinks daddy's brewing is neat. She likes tasting the caramel and chocolate malts and helping run the crusher. So she helps me mash in in the evening then I put here to bed and start my first sparge about 8:30. I'm usually cleaned up by 12 but it has stretched to 1 am. By doing it at that time my wife has no complaints about stuff I should be doing instead. That time will probably have to change for winter as day time temps are cold enough but night time will be very uncomfortable.
The mash at nap and boil after bed may be your best solution.
Craig

 

[JeffNYC]

Same issue here, with a ~2 year old girl and a 3 month old baby girl (the latter of which takes my wife's time). We found a "mother's helper", someone about 8 years old that plays with my oldest ($3 per hour and she loves it). This weekend we're going to leave our oldest with my wife's sister for the weekend so I'm free to brew!

But I agree, tough to find the time.

 

[zoebisch01]

Ok, I have been experimenting with what I call 'time challenged brewing'. As has been suggested earlier, split the brew day in half but I'll up the ante.

Night one, ~2.5 hrs....:

1) Mash, vorlauf, lauter and sparge.
2) Put the brew kettle on the stove and raise the wort temperature to 170 °F for about 10 to 15 minutes. This does two things. Assures that you have mashout and will kill off any lactobacter, which is your prime enemy here. I have done experimentation and I can get sour mash (really sour mash) in 24 hours if I want to. You must perform this step.
3)Put the cover on the pot and leave it wherever, and I do mean this as long as it is in a safe place away from kids, pets.... It will probably still be warm when you come home the next day from work, etc.
4)Clean up.

Night two ~2.5 hrs....:

5) Uncover your kettle and bring the wort to a boil (this may take longer than usual because your wort temp will be much lower than usual)
6) Hops
7) Chill
8) Place wort into fermentor
9) Pitch
10) Clean up.

I have done this twice with complete 100% success and not even a hint of souring with the mash.

 

[the_bird]

I've got a daughter about your son's age, but I guess I'm not of any help because my wife always helps out on Daddy's brew days.

How tight are your weekends? I've been thinking about mashing in REAL early next time, like 5:00 AM or so, so that I can be cleaned up and done before noon. Not so much for childcare purposes, but so that the whole day isn't wasted and I can keep working on the house. Can you get started way early in the morning and get your wife to watch him? Even if you started mashing at 6:00, you'd be done by noon. Just depends on how tight a schdeule your "work" on the weekends is.

 

[Drunkensatyr]

With a 3 yr old boy running around, I feel your pain. I brew in the garage though, so we have outside play time. When I need to be really watching the boil, or transfering fluids, I just hand him a bottle of bubbles and Viola...He is busy for atleast 15 min. Since wifey brews too, most of the time we just swap off who is watching him. Really though, for an AG batch, I am only in the garage for mabey 30 min. The rest of the time is spent in the house watching movies or playing with my son. It will make beer wether you are standing next to it or not.

 

[the_bird]

Here's another thought, too.

I'll usually mash in in my kitchen, because I don't need my stove to bring the water to a full boil. I don't see why you couldn't heat the strike water, use a digital probe thermometer to be able to keep an eye on the temp, and still watch your son. When the temp hits, mash in, which doesn't take more than a minute or two unless you miss your temps. Then, get your sparge water going while the mash sits there for an hour. Again, that's an activity that doesn't require much oversight other than occassionally popping your head into the kitchen and checking temps.

Time it so you'll be sparging when your wife gets home, and beg and cajole her to take care of baby-duties while you sparge and boil. If you're batch sparging, it shouldn't be more than 2.5 hours between starting the sparge and chiling the wort. Pitch the yeast. At my house, wife is home at 5:00, Cassie's goes up for her bath at 7:30, so 2.5 hours would be perfect. If the timing is right, put your son to bed, come back and clean up.

Basically, half the process should be do-able even with an insane toddler; do that before wife gets home, then do the rest afterwards. But, it depends on how that would fit into your particular schedule.

 

[Kharz]

This is all something I am trying to figure out as well. Ive got a 17 month old son and currently do extract / partial mash .... which I can do after work (stove rocks and gets to a full boil quickly). But I am looking into AG and a little concerned about timing ...

 

[Beerthoven]

Sharing brewing and childcare duties with a supportive SWMBO is key.

I have two boys, 4.5 and 1.5 years. The last two brews, the kids watched a DVD while SWMBO made dinner and I prepped the brewing equipment and ingredients. Then at 6:00 I mashed in just as we sat down for dinner. At 7:00 SWMBO gave the kids their bath while I drained the MLT and sparged. At 7:30 SWMBO put the little one to bed while the older one 'helped' me watch the kettle as it came to a boil. Then SWMBO put the older one to bed while I did hop additions and prepped for cooling and pitching. All the equipment was cleaned and put away by 10:45 pm.

Next time, SWMBO will get to do the hop additions while I put the older one to bed and clean the kitchen. Fair's fair, plus I want SWMBO to be more involved in brewing and not feel like she does all the work with the kids while I get to drink beer and watch the pot boil.

I've thought about getting up extra early and brewing on a weekend morning, but the evening schedule seems to work ok for now. I could even do it on a weeknight and not be up any later than normal.

 

[krispy d]

 

[EvilTOJ]

These are all great suggestions (except krispy_d's, who is sick and wrong and frickin hilarious!). I no longer have small children, they're 12 and 10, but I still do some tricks to shorten my brew day.

You didn't mention if you do any sort of prep work the day before, or earlier in the week, so here's some suggestions. I measure out my hop schedule into plastic bags, and write what they are and what addition (cascade, 5 min). My mill is... well... it's not so great so it takes me about 30 minutes to get it all ground up, so when I know I'm brewing soon I crush my grain up and store it in a plastic trashbag in the freezer or refrigerator. I basically make my own kit, and all I gotta do after that is just mash and boil.

 

[Wables]

My children are 11 years old and 16 months old. I can usually break away from the homework and havoc for enough time to weigh out my grains and get my brew sculpture set up. When the little one goes to bet at 8:00, I go out and get started. I can usually get a 10 gallon batch done by 1:00 am. I have pulled this off on week nights a couple of times, but working on 5 hours of sleep is no fun. My 5 gallon batches are about 45 minutes shorter because of sparge, boil, and cooling times, so this is more doable during the week. I can't imagine attempting a brew while the little monster is awake.

 

[the_bird]

I got Cassie to help me bottle the other day (had the day off on Daddy-duty when her daycare provider got sick). So, she helped with the Belgian, filling the boxes with bottles after I had capped them.

As I was racking into the bottling bucket, though, I took a sniff as usual (I'm real happy with this one). Cassie, of course, got up on her little stepstool and did the same. Turned to me and exclaimed "YUMMY, YUMMY! Cassie LIKE beer!"

I can't wait until she's 16, at her first high school party, and some senior tries to give her a Bud Light (or Cheesefood's son slips her a Vanilla beer):

"Uh, do you have a saison, or a nice Belgian dark strong, or something good like that"

 

[Zymurgrafi]

update.

Thanks for all the tips. Yeah a babysitter is probably the best/easiest way. Problem is getting one. All of ours are students (high school and college) so they are not available in the day mostly.

Last Friday I had a babysitter though. Unfortunately, I was doing the boil after she left and while he napped. The unfortunate part is I funked up. He is "potty training" and I forgot to put a diaper back on him for nap! DOH! He woke up in a half hour screaming and standing in a puddle.

I know this is ludicrous but I still hope, I reasoned with him (those of you with a toddler or baby know how well that works ) that he needed to help me. It actually worked for once. I let him add the hops. By the end he was getting bored of being held and decided to go play in his sand box while I chilled the wort.

Was not ideal but it was reletively successful. I'll definately consider the other strategies listed here. 'Cept maybe Krispy_d's :cross:


Though I did try the playpen when he was under a year. Did not work. This guy is too much of a mover.

 

[jdoiv]

I basically took a couple of years off when we had our second child. Too much to do and the SWMBO really needed the help with the kids. Now that they are a little older (7 and 4) I can take the time to brew more. Not that that helps the OP. But to shorten the time, I've gone to premeasuring my grain and water the day before I brew. I'll do a night time brew where I'll mash in around 6 or 7, have dinner, put the kidos to bed, then come back out to do the sparge at 8pm or so. Boil and put everything away by midnight if I'm lucky. It makes for a rough day the next day, but I try and do it on Thursdays so I'm only worn out on Friday (which is usually a slow day workwise).

 

[Glibbidy]

On Saturday I will present a demonstration on brewing with toddlers.

 

[the_bird]

On Saturday I will present a demonstration on brewing with toddlers.

Wifey wanted to come along with the toddler in tow, but I figured it was going to be a REALLY long day and not terribly exciting if one was not a brewer... at some point, I'd love for Cassie to meet your girls, I think they'd have a blast playing together.

 

[Glibbidy]

Oh so true they would. Truth be told my grisl will be milling about in the morning then engaged for late morning, and then into my hands at the end of the day.