What are your ways to split up your brew day/s?

[Qualia]

I'm now past a dozen brews and have noticed that my brew days normally take 5 hours (AG) which conclude with me hosing off my gear at 1am much to my neighbours' delight.

I'm thinking about splitting up my brewing over a few nights to make life (and that of the wife's) easier:

Day 0: Buy ingredients in bulk (done)
Day 1: Crack grain / make starter
Day 2: Mash grain then pump into my HLT/BK
Day 3: Boil, chill and pitch.

Does this sound feasible?

What do you do?

Cheers!

 

[Danscraftbeer]

Note your Wort can start souring leaving for even just one day before boiling. Known as Kettle Souring technique to make tart sour beer.
Cubing, (no chill) is great for breaking up the brew process and cuts out chilling procedure and time. Allows you to brew the beer any time like brew on a rainy day and store it ready to ferment when ever you want, or can get around to it.
I will mill the grains and keep in a sealed pail bucket, not for too long though. Day before, a few days is fine. I have got the mash in the esky and left overnight to sparge, boil next morning that works ok too.

 

[Mardoo]

Easiest way, buy a Braumeister or Grainfather. Set and forget, 'til runoff.

I haven't done so myself, but there are a number of folks on here who have used a 3V system with a slow-ramping HEX, starting it up at bedtime, and working out the timing so mashout comes around morning, with an STC1000 holding the temp at mashout until you're ready to sparge. I've also read of folks using an outlet timer, doughing in cold and setting the timer to start the mash and pump sometime before wakeup.

 

[bradsbrew]

1. Day before - set up rig, fill hlt, millgrain. Put hlt on timer so it is at mash in temp when you get home.
2. Brewday- brew batch and no chill.
3. Day after- clean up

 

[Andy_27]

Day before, I fill urn with water and set timer for about 6am. Get out grains and water additions ready.

Brew day, I wake up, adjust strike water temp. Add water additions, Mill grains and mash in. Have brekky and get the kids sorted while its mashing. The normal brew day follows and Im usually done and cleaned up just after lunch time.

 

[barls]

1. Day before - set up rig, fill hlt, millgrain. Put hlt on timer so it is at mash in temp when you get home.
2. Brewday- brew batch and no chill.
3. Day after- clean up

this is what i do as well.

 

[Black Devil Dog]

I'd much rather condense my brewing, than spread it out over more days

I brew 2 double batches on the same weekend.
That's 96 litres in 2 days.
My brew days generally take about 8 hours. That's with everything cubed and cleaned.
Try to start as early as possible, 7.00 - 8.00am.
The only downside is that there are too many weekends when I'm not brewing.
I've wasted a lot of time in the past trying to decide what to brew on a brew day morning, so a big time saver for me is to have my recipes finalised before brew day.

 

[cliffo]

I do double brew days pretty much as a matter of course.

Set the timer on the Robobrew the night before and aim to get up around 5am, mash in and go back to bed for a bit before getting back up for the mash out and rest of the brew day.

Here we are at 10am and I'm half way through the mash on my 2nd brew for the day.

I'm generally all done and cleaned up by 1pm depending on what I'm brewing (lagers tend to stretch the brew session out a bit longer).

 

[Dan Pratt]

Thursday finalise beer recipe and water designs. 30mins

Friday evening, mill grains, add salts to milled grain and mash in around 9pm. 30mins

Overnight mash on Braumeister with extended mash out for 6hrs.

Wake up Saturday morning 7am, sparge, boil, whirlpool and into No-Chill cube and clean up by 930am.

Pretty much about 3 1/2 hrs of my time for a no chill not including the overnight mash time cos I'm sleeping.

When I make a hoppy beer IPAs then I chill with CFC, that will add another hour or so and those beers are usually a 90min boil.

Investing into an BM lead to massing time savings through overnight mash.

 

[Judanero]

Mill the day before, if brewing on the weekend heat your water about ten degrees over mash in temp the night before (right before bed) and then insulate your pot (wrap in sleeping bag etc).
Wake up EARLY and you should be fairly close to mash in temp, get all your hops, spare water etc ready during mash.
Boil, no chill.

When I brew on a school night I duck home at lunch and bring my water a bit above mash temp, insulate, ready to mash in straight after work.

I guess you could do a short (15 mins or so) boil after mash out, cover the kettle and then actually do the boil the next day if you wanted to split over two days.

 

[manticle]

Start earlier.
Crack grain day before.
Clean day after
No chill.

Brewday for me is a relaxing day for myself - no kids and my partner works both days, so after a 5-6 day working week, I'm super happy to spend the whole day brewing, gardening, listening to music, hanging with cats, watching futsal, doing household chores/maintenance and generally having me time. Just need to start drawing again.

 

[Adr_0]

Not sure what kind of control you have available but you could easily fill up HLT, dechlorinate and set to maintain strike temperature and also crack grain into a bucket w/ lid the day/night before.

And yeah as others have suggested, you can always get a bit of programming into your system, so on day two you strike, hydrate, go through protein/whatever then your conversion rest(s) for a couple of hours then have it sitting on mash out temperature, with your HLT ready to sparge first thing in the morning and come up to boil.

 

[good4whatAlesU]

I'm a bit time poor at the moment too - so thinking about this.

The mash I find quite easy and it's possible to just 'set and forget' for an hour. The boil is the time consuming bit (requires constant supervision).

I'm thinking of ways to speed and get the boil done in 10 minutes. Maybe a few large kitchen jugs - just boil the crappers out of it for 10 minutes and straight into a cube...

 

[manticle]

Not sure I understand GFWAY.

How are you boiling? Vessel, volume?

Sounds like you're going to do several small 10 min boils (which will take how much total?). I know some people do short boils but I think it's a bad idea.

 

[malt junkie]

Enslave your children, my youngest is the mill motor from hell, my eldest isn't bad with lifting and cleaning though he's better at drinking so, I don't know that I'm ahead. And both need supervising with their brew jobs, though that gives me time to sample a few myself. Swings and round-abouts brew day is brew day; preparation is key, and no chill is a gift from the gods.

 

[mofox1]

If you use a herms.. mash in cold the night before, preheat HLT according to where you live in this fine country. Melbourne, might as well get it up to 100 at this time of year, just crack the ice in the morning. QLD'ers might as well use the cold (lol) tap.

Mashing in cold is a godsend - I've found I don't need to throttle the recirc when I turn it on in the morning, unlike mashing in at/near sacc temp. Just flick the switch on and go back to bed. Better yet, use a timer.

 

[good4whatAlesU]

Not sure I understand GFWAY.

How are you boiling? Vessel, volume?

Sounds like you're going to do several small 10 min boils (which will take how much total?). I know some people do short boils but I think it's a bad idea.

Yes not sure myself manticle, just cogitating on it.
The boil is the worst part of brew day, 90 minutes minimum of almost constant supervision - I don't have the time..

edit: Approx 13L boil.

 

[manticle]

Why constant? Boil is the bit I mostly walk away from.

 

[malt junkie]

Why constant? Boil is the bit I mostly walk away from.

He needs a bigger pot, bloody tempted to send him a spare. (cause I love the bloke's banter) Hell steal a keg FFS! No thats bad PM me We'll do a deal.
(100L CB Pot BNIB)
ED: or 30L crown Urn (you can get 22l to the boil) 15L easy!

MJ

 

[good4whatAlesU]

Why constant? Boil is the bit I mostly walk away from.

Adjusting heat and watching for boil-overs, adding hops etc. Can't leave the room really...

I run 9.5L kegs so boil about 13L (lose 3.5L or so before it reaches the kg).