What do you hate most about brew day?

Williams 728
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Getting my brewing equipment up from the basement into bathroom for cleaning. 3-4 trips up the stairs with full arms gets old.
 
Definitely hate all the waiting. Except when you fill the waiting with drinking beer. Then it's all good.


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I don't mind the cleaning and the waiting lets me multitask (nurse the baby, change a diaper, etc), but I hate sanitizing.


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I don't mind the cleanup, either. It's nice to have everything cleaned and put away, and time to crack open another brew and look back on a satisfying brew day.

But my back does get stiff from the lifting of everything. Only real complaint.
 
I actually just did a kit where it told me to pour the wort right into the cold water that I had in my fermenter.

The winter time was great, i would just put my wort outside.


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I hate cleaning afterward. Especially after drinking all brew day.


Primary: House stout
Secondary: zombie dust clone
Bottled: moose drool clone
 
I brew to relax, among other things. But brewing is supposed to be a stress free day for me. I hate it when my OCD and anal retentiveness starts to kick in during all the processes of brewing. It sometimes is a challenge for me to say its ok that I missed a gravity point by .001 or got an extra quarter gallon for the boil. It is, in the long run, very therapeutic for me, cleaning and all :)
 
another vote for the after cleaning...
I am good up to the chilling then i start thinking about all the cleaning of BK, MT, HLT - ugh....
 
I would have to say cleaning and a very close second is chilling/getting the wort in the fermenter.
 
I don't mind waiting as some have said but I'm with the majority in saying I hate cleaning!!


Almost Famous Brewing Company
 
Beernik said:
Why all the hate for cleaning? Cleaning my MLT keeps me busy while the wort is boiling for 60-90 minutes.
Click to expand...

My MLT cleaning is as difficult as walking back to the compost pile and dumping it out. As I said in my post, it's not really "cleaning" as much as the whole process of cleaning up. Only so much I can get cleaned and picked up before the actual end of the boil.
 
The cleaning and countless trips up and down the basement stairs.

Which since I've started brewing I've gained a few pounds, so I hustle up the stairs for a little exercise. Then reward myself for a good hustle with a sip of homebrew.
 
Thinking about bottling day for me. As soon as I get the $$ saved up for kegging I'll be very happy! Cleaning is very close behind..
 
The smell of the spent grains the next day. I know the topic is on brew day, but unless you spread them out well or have a healthy compost pile they really do smell like a dead animal. And I definitely do not have a good compost pile going.
 
I don't like hauling the equip up from the basement and then back down. Like someone earlier said, the waiting gives me time to think.


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I've got to the point that I set my system up in the garage every spring and don't tear it down until fall. So if I want to brew all I have to do is a quick clean to the pots and tun and a good clean to the rest of the equipment but no hauling stuff out. The only reason I don't leave it in there fall and winter is my other sport and business takes over and I need the garage space and have lack of time by then. I would say the constant cleaning and lifting is the hardest part for me.
 
I hate gathering up my stuff to brew, I have a piece here and a piece there and where did I put that other piece again? It was just in my hand..., and I seem to lose stuff right as I need it.

My world is peaceful, daughter minding her business, wife doing her thing, dog sleeping, UNTIL I START TO BREW then it is chaos. Daughter wants to help (she is 3), wife wants me to do something or I am in her way, dog becomes my best friend. I have even waited for them all to leave just for them to come right back in mid mash or boil get my help with something. Needless to say I have never had a brew day go right, and I am used to it, I love it all...

I also find waiting on the beer to condition to be the hardest.

-edit- the best, nice sunny day when I start then it rains...
 
Clarke said:
I hate gathering up my stuff to brew, I have a piece here and a piece there and where did I put that other piece again? It was just in my hand..., and I seem to lose stuff right as I need it.

My world is peaceful, daughter minding her business, wife doing her thing, dog sleeping, UNTIL I START TO BREW then it is chaos. Daughter wants to help (she is 3), wife wants me to do something or I am in her way, dog becomes my best friend. I have even waited for them all to leave just for them to come right back in mid mash or boil get my help with something. Needless to say I have never had a brew day go right, and I am used to it, I love it all...

I also find waiting on the beer to condition to be the hardest.

-edit- the best, nice sunny day when I start then it rains...
Click to expand...

I was in the same boat. I switched my brewdays to 9PM. That may not work for you, and I am sure tired in the AM. But it is nice and quiet.
 
well, all that has been said is pretty much it.
I clean as I go and when cooling I fill 3 or 4 5 gal buckets or the like for the finish cleaning when all is done.
I really had issues with my lower back and all the lifting. I orig had planned a 3 tier stand but ended up going with a Brutus 10 type stand a few years ago I pulled the trigger and welded one up.
I love the process, even more so with my AWESOME stand. I still have items here and there but thats more from me not putting stuff back where it should be.
So that's what I hate the most... not being able to find something!!! Ugggg...
 
geoffm33 said:
I was in the same boat. I switched my brewdays to 9PM. That may not work for you, and I am sure tired in the AM. But it is nice and quiet.
Click to expand...

I am an early to bed and early to rise kind of guy, by 10pm I can't keep my eyes open and by 4am I am wide awake.

I tried to start my brew day at 4am on a Saturday or Sunday when I wake up but I get into trouble because I make too much noise. Can't win for losing...

Happy wife, happy life... learn it live it...
 
Great question, OP, and I've really enjoyed the responses. It has made me appreciate the ways I've set up my brewing over the years to enjoy the whole process with a minimum of wasted time. Things I used to hate, the lugging of heavy objects, the gathering of equipment from various locations, even the cleaning - I've just worked out over the years ways to do it without hating it. A pump, shelving, a brew stand, wash tubs, PBW - they all help make it go smoother. I think my only gripe is that I don't have running water in my garage, so I have to run a hose out for brewing water and for chilling, and there's no instant hot water, so I have to be creative when I'm trying to rinse everything. I heat a few extra gallons of sparge water, so I have some for washing up the MLT, and then I use the first runnings of the immersion chiller to fill a wash tub and rinse tub with hot water. A lot of my cleaning takes place while something else is going on: MLT gets cleaned during the boil, other equipment gets cleaned after I remove the immersion chiller and am letting the trub settle after whirlpooling.

What I really hate, though, is when I injure myself or break/damage some of my equipment. Two weeks ago while I was rinsing PBW out of my boil kettle, I grabbed the chine, which had been several hundred degrees just a few minutes earlier. The whimper that escaped my lips was more out of the realization of my own stupidity than of pain. The scars are mostly gone. It's for this reason that I never crack open a brew until the wort is in the boil kettle - just make too many mistakes.

In a week and a half, I'm going to do my first ever double brew day - so I'm interested to see how long it will take, trying to be efficient in my multitasking. Hopefully I won't break anything...
 
It used to be bottling. Then I started kegging. Now I would say hauling equipment up to the kitchen to clean and hauling water downstairs. Which is why plans are in the works for adding a pot filler over the brew table and adding a bathroom with a basin sink. Like someone else said though, it's like complaining about going to the beach (or in my case, the mountains). All the hard work is more than worth the end result. :mug:
 
Black Island Brewer said:
Great question, OP, and I've really enjoyed the responses. It has made me appreciate the ways I've set up my brewing over the years to enjoy the whole process with a minimum of wasted time. Things I used to hate, the lugging of heavy objects, the gathering of equipment from various locations, even the cleaning - I've just worked out over the years ways to do it without hating it. A pump, shelving, a brew stand, wash tubs, PBW - they all help make it go smoother. I think my only gripe is that I don't have running water in my garage, so I have to run a hose out for brewing water and for chilling, and there's no instant hot water, so I have to be creative when I'm trying to rinse everything. I heat a few extra gallons of sparge water, so I have some for washing up the MLT, and then I use the first runnings of the immersion chiller to fill a wash tub and rinse tub with hot water. A lot of my cleaning takes place while something else is going on: MLT gets cleaned during the boil, other equipment gets cleaned after I remove the immersion chiller and am letting the trub settle after whirlpooling.

What I really hate, though, is when I injure myself or break/damage some of my equipment. Two weeks ago while I was rinsing PBW out of my boil kettle, I grabbed the chine, which had been several hundred degrees just a few minutes earlier. The whimper that escaped my lips was more out of the realization of my own stupidity than of pain. The scars are mostly gone. It's for this reason that I never crack open a brew until the wort is in the boil kettle - just make too many mistakes.

In a week and a half, I'm going to do my first ever double brew day - so I'm interested to see how long it will take, trying to be efficient in my multitasking. Hopefully I won't break anything...
Click to expand...

I'm pretty much in agreement with this...over the years, I've made the same kind of improvements. And now it's even better because I have access to instant hot water and sink in the garage. My three tier brew stand is on wheels so I just roll it out the garage door with everything hanging off it and set up some folding tables for stuff......damn things..if I pinch my fingers one more time :cross: ......

All this had enabled me to do double brew days! I can do a 12 gallon batch in 5 hours, start to end....I can do a double day, one 12 gal and one 6 gal in about 8-1/2.....but I am beat at the end.

And like Black Island, I don't drink till the last batch is in the fermenter....I do need a beer to wash that boil kettle though :D
But to answer the question....nothing...I really enjoy every minute and the downtime has given me the chance to think about how to improve the process.

"Perfection is not obtainable. But if we chase perfection, we might catch excellence."
 
Not a big fan of the cleaning, but honestly my least favorite part of the hobby doesn't occur during brew day.

For whatever reason, I find packaging beer (i.e. kegging/bottling) to be really annoying. I don't dig it. I keg almost all of my beer (I bottle 1 or 2 5gal batches a year) and, while I definitely think kegging is an improvement over bottling (for me/my style - I'm not hating on bottling here), I still find it very tedious and generally lacking in awesomeness.

That's my deal. At the end of the day though, this is still the most badass hobby ever and I'm obviously going to keep filling kegs up with tastiness.

Cheers.
 
I think I spend all of 40 seconds cleaning on a 6 hour brewday so I am gonna go with managing boil time. I think I got ADD when it comes to standing over the kettle for that long so I constantly walk away and do other things. I cringe at recipes with lots of hop additions.
 
grathan said:
I think I spend all of 40 seconds cleaning on a 6 hour brewday so I am gonna go with managing boil time. I think I got ADD when it comes to standing over the kettle for that long so I constantly walk away and do other things. I cringe at recipes with lots of hop additions.
Click to expand...

Do you have a small boil kettle or something?
 

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