Your brew day

[Jordie_tackles]

Looking at getting back into brewing and I think with a young family kids under 5 I found taking the time out on a weekend challenging.

Anyway I would love to hear about how others handle their brew days?

How long does it take? When do you start? Is it weekends or evenings possible?

Generally when I did it and I only ever did 6-10 brews was a weekend and maybe one late night after work.

I was using a old keg cut open with a heating element and brew in a bag system. I made a couple of good beers in the end before the kids were born.

So how do others do it? Does having a purpose built single vessel make things much easier?

Edit - probably could be moved to the general discussion sorry

Cheers

 

[Drubbing]

I mash one day and cube it. Takes around 3 hours. Trying to chill it and get it fermenting would take most of the day, and I can't be bothered with that anymore. Transferring to fermenter next day takes less than half an hour including cleaning.

So how do others do it? Does having a purpose built single vessel make things much easier?

I have a 1 vessel 35l Digiboil set up, currently BIAB but will upgrade to a malt pipe, I think it'll make sparge easier. I imagine 1 vessel takes longer to get up to a boil after removing the bag, where a multi system would be quicker, but you've got more stuff to clean as well.

I found the bag sparge a pain, so I followed advice here and upped my mash vol to 27l, then a 29l boil for a 23l batch. The extra volume holds mash temp more easily and there's not much to sparge. I've done 3 brews this way and all worked fine.

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

My days are too long but I’m lucky I’ve got an understanding wife. So typically just book in a Saturday and it takes most of the day on my triple batch 3V. I have a 20L braumeister too and that brew day is significantly shorter.

I also cube, but recently tried hot filling a kegmenter, charging the headspace with CO2 pressure (to account for the cooling drop in pressure) and this worked really well. The next morning it was at pitching temp I just oxygenated and threw the yeast in. I can see myself doing a lot more of that…

 

[Maves]

My days are too long but I’m lucky I’ve got an understanding wife. So typically just book in a Saturday and it takes most of the day on my triple batch 3V. I have a 20L braumeister too and that brew day is significantly shorter.

I also cube, but recently tried hot filling a kegmenter, charging the headspace with CO2 pressure (to account for the cooling drop in pressure) and this worked really well. The next morning it was at pitching temp I just oxygenated and threw the yeast in. I can see myself doing a lot more of that…

How did you oxygenate? With O2 or air?

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Looking at getting back into brewing and I think with a young family kids under 5 I found taking the time out on a weekend challenging.

Anyway I would love to hear about how others handle their brew days?

How long does it take? When do you start? Is it weekends or evenings possible?

Generally when I did it and I only ever did 6-10 brews was a weekend and maybe one late night after work.

I was using a old keg cut open with a heating element and brew in a bag system. I made a couple of good beers in the end before the kids were born.

So how do others do it? Does having a purpose built single vessel make things much easier?

Edit - probably could be moved to the general discussion sorry

Cheers

Yes, get yourself a SVB to make life easier, no need to change out temperature controllers doesn't matter what you have they are only as good as the temperatures relayed to them from the probe. Grain when mashed in will have varying temperatures throughout in the mash higher or lower stirring is the best solution after about 20 -25 minutes the mash will become more fluid as the starch converts.
BM it isn't necessary as the pump does the equivalent of a stir.
No sparge will save an hour on brew day, there are no short cuts like 30 minute boils stick to the 60-90 minute boils and 60 minute mash.

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

How did you oxygenate? With O2 or air?

Oxygen.

 

[Jordie_tackles]

Thanks for the replies, I think I was doing it a bit on the cheap previously and didn’t have all the gear which would help efficiency.

Eg. My heating element probably struggled to heat the full 40-50 litres what ever I was doing at the time.

Then I didn’t have a counter flow cooling system I would just lift it into the bath tub with ice.

All things which just dragged out my brew day ontop of the usual heat liquor, mash boil ect.

Now I have the capacity to get a more purpose built system I will probably be much better off time wise straight away.

One thing I was hoping is as I was out of the game for a while, if I had heated my mash water would it be a very rough process of about:

30 minutes mash
60-90 boil
Cool and ferment

So really 3-4 hours after work is possible, I guess that is still 6-10 at night though

 

[Judanero]

Tips to shorten brew day/factor in the family...

-Brew EARLY in the morning (or late at night once the dinner/bath/bed routine is done)
-You can do a short mash if you're brewing a lower abv beer and mashing high (70-72c)
-No boil is a thing but I always get a kind of grainy flavour, not a show stopper if it's a hazy/heavily hopped beer but something to be aware of
-No chill/cubing
-No sparge/full volume mash
-Make sure your kettle is well insulated- will help ramp times

 

[MHB]

I would be very reluctant to mash or boil for less than 60 minutes.
You won’t get the beer you want if you don’t mash and boil properly. A 60 minute boil is a short boil; my default is 90 minutes; until very recently brewing textbooks would be recommending 2 hour boils as standard. For some beers it’s still a good idea!
Mark

 

[clickeral]

I set my 3v up the night before and have the heatup on a timer/inkbird controller so that when I get up its heated to mash in temp
Mash in 60-90min mash depending on style
Mashout/sparge is around 60-90mins
Say an extra 30mins to boil temp (depends on sparge length etc)
30-60min boil
Cube 30min
Cleanup 30-60min

Say 6hrs worse case if everything goes well and thats doing 44-46L atm, new kettle is 170L so will do larger batches once I get more cubes/another fermenter

I have done 4hr brew days however

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Agree with Mark don't go there with the 30 minute boil, you have taken up a hobby and want to achieve the best end result possible. DMS is driven off during the boil while you will get rid of some of the DMS you won't get rid of near as much with a 30 minute boil.
That is only one of the reasons coagulation is another, cool rapidly to prevent SMM converting to DMS.
As for efficiency don't go down that rabbit hole high efficiency doesn't necessarily produce better beer, accept your efficiency for the method you use.
Doing full volume will hit your BHE when I started doing full volume mash I pegged mine at 60% (a lot of sugar is left in the grain bed) improving my technique for full volume I now get 64-5% BHE
Just try and slot the time in to achieve a decent beer, its well worth it.

 

[Jordie_tackles]

Thanks guys, definitely not trying to cut corners has been a few years since my last batch so times I mentioned above were just top of my head and really has driven the better discussion about how long I need to plan for when I get started again.

Really appreciate all the input you have provided.

 

[elmoMakesBeer]

There’s no escaping that all grain brewing takes time, so you need to plan ahead and make sure you do have that time available. Apart from that, I fill my kettles with water the night before (helps with dechlorination as well as time) and turn them on to heat first thing in the morning if I plan to start brewing after breakfast. Weighing and milling grain (if you do it yourself) the night before saves a bit more time.
Definitely no chill into cubes. Ferment the next day/week/whenever. I occasionally use a chiller coil but it wastes so much time and water I rarely bother unless doing something with lots of “whirlpool” hops that go too bitter otherwise (although there are other ways around this with no-chill).
Cleaning straight away is best practice. But if it has to be the next day (or weekend) so be it.
If I do have a whole day to brew I’ll aim for two batches. Saves cleaning and set-up time for the second and means you can go twice as long between brew days before running out of beer.

 

[TwoCrows]

Allow time between temp rests, it is not instant to go from one temp to another. Heat water , mash in , mash out, sparge and boil. Package wort. Takes me 5-6 hours to do a double batch, 2 x 22 litre cubes.