Two Day Brew?

[kajjia]

Hi All,

I've done a several batches of extract brew and have moved on to all-grain brewing. I've knocked out two batches so far with minimal issues (except efficiency...practice makes perfect I guess). However, it's rough for me to dedicate a full day to the hobby over the weekend and still get all of that "adult-stuff" done.

I've done some reading this evening on breaking out the all-grain brew process into two days. It appears this is doable and may folks out there have mentioned they've tried this with great success.

Here's my plan:
- Conduct the lauter/sparge
- Transfer to the brew kettle
- Bring the wort up to 160 and hold for 30 seconds
- Leave the wort (now theoretically pasteurized) in the brew kettle, wrap in a towel to "insulate" it and leave until the following evening
- The following evening - boil as usual!

Anyone have any comments? Anyone with success in this process? Anyone have this turn horribly wrong on them?

Thanks in advance!

 

[konrad]

I was thinking of going this on my next brew day.

Do everything up to my boil in the evening and boil and clean up next morning.


Let me know how it goes.

 

[Clementine]

I would be interested in the results, just some food for thought on issues I can see

I doubt if the 160 degrees is enough to kill everything in the pot but I'm no scientist. Then as the pot cools over night it will draw in more air as the heated air over the wort cools bring with it the wee beasties that make things go bad. Now that would not be a problem as you are boiling it however if significant number have grown then it could result in a off flavor from large numbers of bacteria (bodies of dead ones) can cause things to taste wrong. I have no idea is over night is enough time for this to happen, I know guys who split the AG day into setup and mash then leaves the mash over night however their point is to maintain temps above 130 over night to stop thing growing however they have not gone above 160 as you will be and there is significant bacteria and fungi spores on the mashed grain to inoculate the mash in this case, so you might be OK.

Like it said not a scientist and I would be very interested in the results, You can put the kids and the Misses to bed, start the brew leave it wake up before them and have the beer in the fermenter and wake her with Coffee, almost sounds too good to be true.

Clem

 

[acefaser]

I have heard of guys doing this with good results. Don't think you need to bring the wort up to 160. Just transfer to boil kettle and leave it for the next day. The boil will destroy anything that tries to grow overnight. I am curious to know if there would be off flavors, but I doubt it. Probably not enough time to grow a significant amount of nasties to produce off flavors.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

I've heard of this working fine with people doing it in the evening and boiling the next morning. If you're going to go until the next evening, you might want to hit it with some more heat in the morning to ensure you remain close to 160.

That said, I find myself in the same situation as you. I've got two young kids, so devoting 4.5 hours on a weekend during the day to brewing just isn't very feasible.

So I usually do the following:

1) Pick a night that's not "bath night", particularly a night where my wife doesn't have any pressing things to deal with. Usually a Sunday or a weeknight works best.
2) Wait until 6:30 or so to start, so my wife has only 1.5-2 hrs of time with the kids without my support until their bedtime.
3) Brew until I'm done.

Sometimes that means I'm not done until 11 PM or later. So be it.

You don't have to "devote a full day" to brewing -- you just have to extend your day a little later than usual.

 

[54BelAir]

I thought that I was the only one with this problem. I usually wait until the wife goes out of town and brew my ass off.

 

[idigg]

Do what I do! Do a single batch sparge...

1. Heat strike water 15*F hotter than desired strike temp and dump in MLT, allow it to heat up.
2. Once water is at strike temp, dough-in and start mash.
3. If mash contains a lot of base grain, usually 30min is enough for conversion. You can get away with 30-45min mash which saves a little time.
4. After mash starts, heat up sparge water.
5. Vorlauf first runnings into boil kettle, and start to heat that up
6. Add sparge, mix well, vorlauf second runnings
7. Start 60 min boil like normal

I can do a 3.5hr all grain session with 78-79% eff. with barley crusher.

 

[dslater]

Like a previous poster, my approach is to brew during "family down time."

After everyone's in bed I set out my mash tun, etc measure out grain & water and go to bed.


At 5am I'm heating my water and by 9:30 am or so I'm done and ready to start the day with family.

 

[Mysticmead]

if you clean as you go and either batch sparge or BIAB you can be done in 3-4 hours. that's not an entire day dedicated to brewing. while you wait for the mash you can do other things on the honey do list as well.

 

[gruffudd]

I guess I'm lucky in that aspect. My brew days usually end up becoming family time. Tho it can get interesting with a 4 year old wanting to help with "Daddies Science Projects". Thankfully he knows to stay away from the kettles/flames/other hot stuff. useful/funnny to have him enthusiastically yell 'It's hopping time!!!!!" when the timer goes off.

 

[asterix404]

Something that you can do any time is crush your own grain.

The mash and sparge have to happen at the same time, there is no getting around that which basically means that you will have to heat up water twice and this could take upwards of 2h.

At this point as long as the wort is hot enough you can leave it on the stove overnight and continue in the morning. I have done this when the brew day gets too long.

Next you have to boil off liquid and boil the the wort with the hops. Basically this is in fact something you can split over a few days, and you can do almost all of the prep work ahead of time, fill a bucket with starsan and let it sit for a few days, nothing bad will happen, crush the grain as it's fine for 2 weeks etc.

 

[dslater]

I guess I'm lucky in that aspect. My brew days usually end up becoming family time. Tho it can get interesting with a 4 year old wanting to help with "Daddies Science Projects" [\QOUTE]

Yes, when my daughter was younger, she was fascinated with the whole process and was always a willing helper. Now she's 8 and other than the occasional wort or hop tasting she has little interest. Although she is still quite fascinated by the refractometer.

 

[Dr. Francois]

I have a toddler and a pregnant wife. I have my process down to 3.5 hours.

For your situation, I would likely mash right after work and let it mash for as long as necessary. 3 hours isn't much of a problem if your temp doesn't drop.
When kids hit the bed, drain the wort and continue.
I wonder, though, if you lose a significant amount of time bringing a room temp pot of wort to a boil versus a pot of 140F fresh wort.

A few shortcuts I use:
--No sparge. I just take first runnings from my grain. Saves 15-30 minutes for 2-3 dollars. My time is worth more than $6/hr. I calculate my recipe based on 55% efficiency.
--Use a mixture of hot tap water (140F) and boiling water for strike. For me, that is a 2:1 ratio hot tap water to boiling water to reach strike temp. **Note: you want to make sure your water heater is safe to drink. Mine is. No off flavors or nasties.worth the cost of a water report to find out and save time.**
--measure and bag hop additions and whirlfloc the day before. Felt tip marker the addition time.
--sanitize fermenter the night before. Seal it up like it has wort in it.
--don't be afraid of a long mash. I routinely start the mash in the morning on the weekends while I'm making breakfast and start my boil when toddler takes his nap. I mash in the kitchen. I stir every time toddler requires a new juice or milk.
--if it looks like brewing is going to be stressful, don't brew. I would rather have a happy wife and beer from the store than a grumbly wife and homebrew.

Best of luck!