Show Us Your Short-Cuts

[homebrewer_99]

Just shaved some more time (10 to 15 minutes). I only have to remember....Freeze unopened bottles of water (after opening and pouring a little out), they are sterile, with my equipment, I always have to top off the carboy a touch after pitching. I am figuring about 4 frozen bottles of water is what I have to add, will save me considerable time.

I've been placing 3-4 gals of filtered tap water in the freezer ever since I started brewing in 1994. I used to do all small boils and topped the primary off with the water. Got it down into the 60s in seconds. Great time saver.

 

[DaveMcPhee]

I have a massive time saver, hopefully no one has posted it yet

1. Keep a super detailed brew log with accurate time stamps
2. Review your last few brews

This has helped me hugely identifying time when I stand around, I now know exactly how long my stove takes to heat 2.5G to 155, how long it takes to cool 5 gallons of 180F wort to 80, etc etc. My extract brews are down from over 3 hours to 1.5 including clean up - because now I know exactly when I will have 10 minutes to clean while I wait for something.
My brew logs even told me how my baby takes to go to sleep, they where that detailed. 10:57 - put 2.5G on the boil, baby crying
11:10 - water boiling, baby asleep

 

[jldc]

Quickest was 4 on the dot and I don't mind spending an 8th of a day on something that tastes so good and perplexes the average beer drinker.

Where do you live that days last 32 hours???

(Sorry, I couldn't help myself)

 

[jds]

Could you tell me what kind of pump? I am interested in doing the same. Maybe a pond/fountain pump? I'd buy a pump just for the chiller but I suppose I could use it the rest of the time on my fermentation water bath too. Thanks.

Exactly. A pond pump works fine for recirculating chiller water. Sump pumps with hose fittings on them are pretty good, too.

 

[MeatyPortion]

My short cut is driving to the liquor store. Anything else is too risky.

 

[Photopilot]

Boooo! Hisssssss! Booooo! Hisssss!

Sober while brewing, that is not right.

I have no shortcuts, it takes me 4 to 5 hours no matter what.

For a while I was on a late shift and was able to brew before going to work. So most of my brewing has been sober recently, and it still takes me 6 hours.

The one shortcut that has helped a lot is to set everything up the night before and boil the water then. Fill up all vessels with hot water and have it all pre-heated when I get up.

 

[SC_Ryan]

I use rice hulls in all of my beers regardless of grain bill. It allows me to collect my first runnings and sparge much faster without channeling or stuck sparges.

 

[japhroaig]

1. Start mash water before cracking grains
2. Start boil while sparging
3. Minimize build and teardown (muuuuuch easier with my current setup)
4. Clean as you go
5. Heat your sparge water during the mash, and store it in an insulated container when it hits temp. Even if I have 40 minutes left on a mash, it is awesome to have the sparge water ready and willing

And lastly, brew by yourself

 

[ZWood15]

My favorite time saver is one that I added last brew day. I calibrated a piece of aluminum to show me the water level in my kettle. No more measuring water out by the gallon/half gallon. Put in the dipstick and fill it up to the right level.

 

[masonsjax]

I was lucky in that most of these tips were already posted on this site before I started brewing. I'm only about 13 months into this hobby, so none of the shortcuts had to be discovered, they were just part of the process. Thanks HBT!

 

[kniles38]

Stuck Sparge? I have a small copper tube that fits my valve end (loosely) that I can force air to unstick the sparge and away I go again, works like a charm.[/COLOR]

These are the only two I can think of at this point. Care to share? And happy brewing.

How do you force the air in?

 

[Stuntman]

How do you force the air in?

Tube is less than a foot, doesn't hook up to anything....figure it out. In my original post I had myself explaining it in a way that I do not wish to be visualized in this forum. So I changed it to what it is now.


OK, I will say it this way. I turn valve off, put tube to valve end, turn it open as I use the air from my lungs.

 

[FromZwolle]

for indoor extract/partial boil batches i usually heat half the water on the stovetop and the other half in the microwave. that way, after your steep/mash is done on the stove, you can dump in nearly boiling water from the microwave that you didn't have to use another burner to heat.

 

[Alehouserock]

I extract brew and started doing my specialty grain in a small saucepan and getting my large brew pot up to a boil while the grain soaks.
I save about a half hour there.

 

[samc]

Used a BIAB bag in my keggle MLT last brew. Cut way down on cleanup time for MLT and gave me the clearest wort I've ever seen.

 

[Stuntman]

Used a BIAB bag in my keggle MLT last brew. Cut way down on cleanup time for MLT and gave me the clearest wort I've ever seen.

I need to order one (this time I will). I am still going to MT since I do ten gallon batches mostly, but to pour the cool wort in to a sanitized pot, lined with a BIAB then go to fermenter with strained wort.... Clear Beer! Thanks for the reminder.

 

[Brewsumore]

Check with your water company to see if they use chlorine or chloramines. If they do not, then there's no need to filter or otherwise de-chlorinate your water.

 

[Stuntman]

Frozen (previously boiled) water introduced to hot wort can really speed up the chill time. Chance of contamination, need to figure the amount of water introduced frozen, and be short that much at flame out.

Read somewhere on the net that you can put unopened frozen bottles of water in hot wort, just make sure that you sterilize them.

 

[unclephilly]

I stayed sober today. I started at 8 am, though.

Good time for a Breakfast Beer!

 

[ThreeRatBastards]

I don't have a 3tier system or pump for my AG setup.

My poor man's brew rig is keggle + burner on 8 cinder blocks ($2.00 each).

I heat up my strike/sparge water inside on my gas stove in a 4 gallon pot, put the mash tun on the counter.

I batch sparge so instead of draining the runnings from the mash into the keggle and then carrying that full heavy bastard outside and lifting it up onto the aforementioned poor man's brew rig, I drain the runnings into an ale pail, then carry the 2 - 3 gallons of wort outside and pour it into the keggle.

Then back inside with the now empty pail to get the rest.

Rinse and repeat till I'm happy with the amount I have collected and start the boil.

Maybe it's common sense here, but it took me two AG brew sessions to figure out to transfer the wort a little at a time in a lightweight bucket as opposed to carrying the ~90lb keggle & wort through the kitchen, down the deck stairs, and hoist it up on top of the brew rig.

 

[bob1852]

Mobile mashing. My pickup truck is my brewstand. A couple times I have filled up my cooler with water a little hotter than usual, and then drove to LHBS to buy my grains. I stirred in right there in their parking lot.

You too, huh?

 

[Scooby_Brew]

This is how I fly sparge without building a 3-tier system:

 

[Stuntman]

You too, huh?

Good idea, I just need to get the whole thing a few more inches off the ground, so that when wort is cool, I can then go from the Brew Kettle to the fermenter.

New shortcut : I was dealing with a stuck sparge AGAIN! I finally realized, one bag of rice hulls? I am doing a ten gallon batch. Put the second bag of rice hulls and I got a nice fast free flowing stream. .48 cents a bag, no headaches. Anyone know where to get them cheaper, as a Garbage bag full of rice hulls would be great.

Shortcut for today...Don't be like me, and keep you head out of your @ss.

 

[mrk305]

You too, huh?

That's awesome...
.... but I drive home and finish up in the carport

 

[curlyfat]

Here's my three-tier: Brew Stand.

My friend had some spare metal, so other than the burners, it cost me several pints of homebrew and an afternoon.

A great short-cut is to make friends with a welder who likes beer!

 

[Saint Aardvark]

Nowadays, I will go off and do other things around the house while mashing, sparging, boiling, etc. and let things take their natural course. I will check email, watch TV, do laundry, etc. Sometimes I will be finished pretty fast, and sometimes it will take me 6-7 hours to make a batch. Even if you're completely minimizing the time it takes to brew, for AG you've got at least a couple hours of downtime, so I just plan to be around and keep an eye on things, and not worry about rushing. I do the same thing when I bake bread.

I do the same -- I've got two boys, 4 & 2, so I'm w/them on the wkends. (one sleeping in my arms now!) Brewday stretches fr. 5:30am to around 4pm or so -- looooong mash, then boil/chill/cleanup during naptime.

 

[SC_Ryan]

Here's my three-tier: Brew Stand.

My friend had some spare metal, so other than the burners, it cost me several pints of homebrew and an afternoon.

A great short-cut is to make friends with a welder who likes beer!

Beautiful. That's about the most artful photograph I've ever seen of a brew stand too.

 

[Stuntman]

Here's my three-tier: Brew Stand.

My friend had some spare metal, so other than the burners, it cost me several pints of homebrew and an afternoon.

A great short-cut is to make friends with a welder who likes beer!

That looks good, it is exactly what I need. A little taller is the only thing I would change, so that there was room to gravity the wort through a chiller into primaries. heaviest thing to lift on brew day is the full primaries.

New short cut, for me that is....spending about a hundred on a chill plate.:rockin:

 

[aMillionDreams]

I also like to bake my own bread. I've found the crewing beer and baking bread go hand in hand, they both take the same time, they both center around yeast. So usually I use my down time waiting for boils to bake a loaf of bread. Yesterday I made a pot of chicken stock instead of bread.

 

[DavidP]

My biggest, most recent time-saver has been using a PID-controlled HLT. That gets set up first and heating while I get the rest of my equipment out.

But a tip for newer brewers? How about going for as clean a wort as possible in order to avoid a transfer to secondary.