Who has no chilled a Mash?

[andy@67]

I also tend to brew at night. We have 14 year old twin boys and a 4 year old boy. I usually crank things up and dough in just before dinner, put the little one to bed with obligatory argument over how many stories we read. That way it does not really matter if I am a few minutes late getting back to the brew.

I've noticed that the time thing does not really get any better as the younguns get older, it just changes. We are driving to Shepparton this weekend for the twins to play hockey, we are in Albury next weekend and Melbourne (actually Peninsula) the weekend after that, all for hockey. The littlest one tends to get dragged along to what ever the older boys are doing. On the up side he can already trap and pass a hockey ball, and is already asking for goalie gear (one of the twins keeps goal, and we've been told he is pretty good. He managed selection to the North West zone team, earlier this year, after playing about 10 games of hockey).

Sorry to hi jack the thread, I guess I am saying find what works for your situation and roll with it. It is important for both you and your partner to make time for yourselves and each other. if you manage to do that you will enjoy the bub a lot more and they are small for such a short time, at least it seems that way when you look back at it.


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[contrarian]

On the original post I can't see any reason why you couldn't cube wort after a short boil and then boil again later on if you think that will keep you brewing.

We have a 2.5 year old and a 7 week old and I still manage to brew every couple of weeks. I've had some mashes that went for longer than expected and some missed hop additions but still made beer. If you can dough in about 5:30/6:00 you can be cleaned up and off to bed by 10:30 or 11:00.

My feeling is that by the time the wort was boiling you might as well just press on but will be interested in hearing how you go.

 

[TSMill]

The answer is to take up cricket, golf, football etc...something that takes you out of the house all day, every saturday. After a couple of weeks, a return to a hobby that has you at home within arms reach all day will be a blessing.

 

[dicko]

The answer is to take up cricket, golf, football etc...something that takes you out of the house all day, every saturday. After a couple of weeks, a return to a hobby that has you at home within arms reach all day will be a blessing.

Or
Spend $140.00 per week on top shelf beers until it is realised by the one making the rules that it is a bit of a saving to brew at home...

 

[DJR]

Following on from some other threads I just finished off a beer today that I only did a 30 min main infusion step on (100% Briess Pale), 30 mins of mashout/batch sparge, then 20 mins or so to get up to the boil and 30 min boil. Seems that'd be one way to hit your target. Modern malts don't need a very long mash at all, 30 mins is often enough (do a starch test). Unless you have a high degree of unmalted grains in the grist or a malt with not much diastatic power (no pale or pils malt nowadays will have a low DP) then you can save time there.

Another thing if you are short on time is to double batch it... draw off one into a cube and draw the rest off into a cube or chill it

As the kids get older (congrats btw) you'll find you have some more time to brew. Mine are 6 and 4 now and still enjoy asking for and eating grain Nowadays I brew on autopilot so I only need to spend a few minutes at each process point to get a batch down. Long bits are cleaning, crushing and measuring malt/hops, the rest is easy

 

[toncils]

I suspect you wouldn't be able to leave it for more than a few days before a full boil: I once filled a no chill cube, didn't let ALL the air out and opened it a few days later for another squeeze. Bad move, within a few weeks it was a bubble of plastic! I was sure I didn't let anything in.