Faster Brew Day Tips for a New Dad

[FirstAidBrewing]

Hey All,

So my wife and I welcomed our first child into the world about a month ago.

Based on how the past few weeks have gone, I can tell that time over the next few months will come at a premium (surprise, surprise), particularly blocks large enough where I can manage to brew an AG batch.

Any advice from those of you who have ventured down this path before as to how to speed up the brew day while also possibly having to hold a miniature apprentice brewer in one hand :cross:?

I'm wondering if I put all-grain on hold for a bit and just brew extract, although I know people have seemingly had success with an overnight mash.

Any other ideas?

 

[WouldBeBrewmaster]

Extract is an option. BIAB also speeds up your brew day by eliminating the sparge step.

 

[aryoung1980]

I have a two year old and twin infants so I know the time constraints. I still manage to do one all grain batch per month. I pick a brew day well in advance and put it on the calendar the day it switches to a new month.This gives the SWMBO plenty of opportunity to veto my brew day. Many of times it gets rescheduled but I still get it in during the calendar month.

The bonus to infants is that they sleep...a lot! My last brew day had everything timed so I was feeding the twins during brewing downtime; mash and boil. My toddler is happy just hanging around. I let her play around with ingredients and equipment which generally entertains her for awhile. I do my cleanup when all three are napping.

Generally SWMBO gives me the time to brew without doing too much as far as feedings, diaper changes, and entertaining the kiddos is concerned.

EDIT: Keep in mind that SWMBO gets one or two days a month to do what she wants while I'm on full-time daddy duty.

 

[timrox1212]

What I do to make brew day at least seem shorter is do chores while brewing. I.e. Start mashing then mow the lawn in between. And whenever I get a second during the brewing I do other stuff, dishes, laundry, whatever. My wife loves it because I get stuff done around the house and I love it because I can brew without having to watch the kids lol.

 

[drgonzo2k2]

Yeah, I have a 4 month old son and a 9 year old daughter, but with good planning and communication with SWMBO I'm still able to get, on average, 2 all grain brew sessions in each month. It's really about time management and trade-offs. As an example, I generally start my brew days at 6 am on Saturday, which means I'm done brewing around noon. The little guy is sleeping about 1/2 of that time anyway, and there's enough down time during my brew session waiting for water to heat up, during the mash, etc., that I can still pop in the house, lend a hand here or there, make a quick breakfast, etc.

I generally plan the brew schedule about two months out, and let her know the dates as soon as I know them, so she can let me know if there's any conflicts. Then she knows I'm going to be busy for about 6 hours every other Saturday, while she has her own things she likes to go do, so I know she's going to be out of the house for a couple of hours every other Thursday night and Sunday afternoons. Plus starting early I'm finished with plenty of time in the day to do whatever else we want or need to do.

As far as shaving time off the actual brew day, I recommend getting your water heating as the very first thing you do. While that's going get your grain weighed out and milled. Get your mash going, and then weigh out your hops additions, and once that's done start getting all of your other equipment out and ready for the day. Then clean everything as you go. Generally by the end of the brew session, when I drain into my fermenter, all I have left to do is fill the kettle up with some PBW solution to let it soak overnight and I'm done. Then I get up and scrub that out the next morning generally while everyone else in the house is still asleep.

Hope that's helpful!

 

[FirstAidBrewing]

All good stuff guys. Thanks a ton. SWMBO has a goofy work schedule so I'm Mr. Mom on Saturdays, which has been my normal brew day. Perhaps the easiest thing to do it shift to Sundays.

Sounds like that whole concept of "communication" will come in handy

 

[TycoRossBrewing]

What i find with my son is that most of the time i am just waiting for things to finish mashing or boiling or cooling. Generally as long as i can pick my son up while i am waiting for the beer to brew itself im good to go. Clean up is the worst part since it takes about twenty minutes.

Extract might be a good plan if you are overwhelmed but i find even doing an all grain batch i dont have to worry as long as i keep the recipe easy. Just keep it simply and do a two step mash. Have all you ratios down before you start as well...that helps a lot. Also do an ice bath plus the immersion coil. I find that shaves off 15-20 minutes

 

[David_Trucks]

I'm thinking that my next time-saving move is to go the no-chill method and just pitch the next day. I've got two little ones, but still manage to brew every month or so. I currently BIAB so a fine mill also allows me a shorter mash time.

 

[Psylocide]

30 min mash and arrange brew day around naps. It's not that hard but seems duanting at first.

 

[Pour_Man]

My son is just about 4 months old, and I've brewed more in the last 4 months than I have in the year before that. I found that BIAB, simple recipes and cleaning up as I go have made the biggest difference. Switching to BIAB has my total brew day, cleaned and stored, down to 4.5 hours. Having a simple recipe (pale ales and blondes) keeps the prep, cleanup and fermentation easier. No bourbon barrel vanilla coffee milk stouts here. Cleaning as I go is pretty self explanatory. Keep it efficient and you'll be good to go.

 

[PlexVector]

Also part of the process mix to the aforementioned is breaking it up into phases. Setup/prep for brewing, Brewing, Cleanup. I can brew over 3 evenings rather than one day. Of course the car is parked outside the garage during this time. First evening is set up everything, since I don't have a sculpture, which may include filling the HLT with water. Second evening is brewing, cleaning where possible, but may only mean filling with water to soak. 3rd night is full cleaning and sanitizing. fourth night is putting everything away. Okay, usually it's 4 nights and not 3. It varies. I tend to use dry yeast, because it is less committal than slap pack or liquid.

Write down your process and see where the committed time sections are. The yeast is one, and milling grain may be another. Once it took all week skipping some nights and I was able to brew twice in a 7 day period since I had everything out and the time to do it again so to speak.

1. setup, sanitizing
2. yeast, milling, mashing
3. boiling, sanitizing, chilling, Fermentor
4. pre-cleaning/soak
5. Final cleaning, sanitizing, drying
6. breakdown, storage

Now that I think about it. Brewing is all in one day or spread out variably over a week. Very flexible. I watch a lot less TV now which is fine with me.

 

[2doorsdown]

My son just turned 1, and after looking at the past year, i've had 5 brew sessions. It's helped that I've turned to 10 gallon batches.
The first 3 months my Awesome Wife was off from work, so scheduling 2 sessions during that time was pretty easy. My mother-in-law lived with us as well, which helped (and caused me to "escape to the garage" from time to time). The next session I had the day off from work, m-i-L was watching the little awesome dude, and I planned the day out to take all of 5 hours. I started at 05:00, when most of the family was still sleeping.
This last brew day was another one of those off days, but I had everything set up the night before and my sons play pen setup in the garage. I again started the brew day before everyone was up, but took over Daddy duties around 08:00. He hung out with me and we worked around his nap schedule. I took the time to show him what I was doing, explain equipment, and change his diaper a couple of times. It took six hours from start to fermenter/clean up and we were able to finish up right before his afternoon nap.
Plan well, pamper your wife, and make sure your little one is part of the process.

 

[locolorenzo22]

Make it part of the little one's life, and they might just suprise you. My kid watched me dump my bad beer the other night and went "daddy's beer go bye bye!".

 

[1977Brewer]

I brew and do Dad stuff all the time. "Babe, give me an hour or so to mash in, and I'm yours for an hour."

Works like magic.

 

[CliftIndy]

Brew days will probably start at four am or eight pm. I was doing partial boil extract batches and topping off with ice to get to volume for a while with decent results. That was with our second child. With the first kid, I was still doing one gallon ag batches on the stove with brew days ending around midnight. It's a labor of love. Soon you might long for a few minutes to yourself, but things get easier and you'll find yourself watching an airlock with a little guy or gal right by your side.
You can always score some points by crafting a recipe with your wife so it's not something that's all about you. I did a lavender wheat that was fantastic!

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Try recipes that are a bit forgiving time wise. Eg. hops only at 60min and flameout so that if you can't start chilling at exactly the right time, it's not a problem.

Crush grain before brew day.

Have a FAST chill setup - plate chiller or big immersion chiller and a pump. You don't want to be stuck stirring wort while it chills for 30mins.

Really, if things are organised before you start, you only need blocks of 5 to 10 minutes at a time where you actually need to physically do something.

 

[dryboroughbrewing]

I brew at night when everyone else is asleep. My ability to go long periods of time on little to no sleep has come in handy over the years.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

One kid? Easy. Brew away!

Just be REALLY nice to SWMBO before and after, and she'll give you a brew day.

It's when your kids get mobile, or you have multiple, that it gets hard. But until the little one is crawling/walking, it's easy.

 

[TX_Brewing]

I brew at night when everyone else is asleep. My ability to go long periods of time on little to no sleep has come in handy over the years.

This! Get the little ones in bed and brew into the night. Just don't complain the next day if you are tired, drink a little more coffee. I have 3 kids between 11 and 2 and am able to brew once a month with planning.

 

[chuckcomm]

I always get everything ready the night before brew day.

Grain weighed and ready

Hops weighed and ready in sandwich bags with addition times written on a label stuck to each bag.

All equipment i will use is put into the fermenting bucket.

Propane burner out of shed and onto patio connected to a full (hopefully) propane tank.

BK is filled with starting amount of water and lid put on to keep any nasties out.

If you dont have sanitizer mixed up get that ready too.

Its nice to have everything ready to go on brew day.

 

[andrewmaixner]

As a relatively new dad (2 and 0.5), my technique is based around time flexibility and minimal time use. Basically breaking stuff up into sub-tasks that can have an hour, or two hours even, between then without any problem arising from the wait.

1) single infusion, no sparge, no mashout. see brewlosophy for good article on this. Your mash can sit there for an hour+ extra if needed, with no ill effects.

2) measure/calculate bittering hops at maximum hop utilization. then you can boil for an hour, or twice that long even, with no noticable ill effects. add them as first wort hop, for reduced foamup.

3) fermcap, or similar chamical. Then you don't need to babysit your boil. Just get it to a good boil, and walk away for an hour.

4) I just bought an ANOVA sous vide heater to use for heating my strike water (got a really good price). Spend 10 minutes setting it up the mash cooler and heater, come back in 1 to 3 hours (depending on temperatures and volumes) ready to dump in your grain, stir, and come back in another hour to start boil.

5) I don't have it yet, but a whirlpool arm and pump for my immersion chiller sounds pretty handy.

6) I don't BIAB, but strongly considered it. I decided that the mash-of-indeterminite-time workes better for me. Get a deer hanging block and tackle, mount to the ceiling or to a tall ladder. Then you can just pull the bag and tie it off, dump in hops, and crank up the gas.

 

[Craigmn]

My kids go to bed late and wake up late, so I'm up at 6 and I have a brew session done before they wake up, I did a double brew (thanks work for the extra pot) and was coolinng the wort when they woke up at 10. Most people have the reverse so just do it after they go to bed.

I weigh and crush grains day before, and measure and treat water before. I've brewed with my son and just told my wife the times I would need her hell to keep them away.

Communication and sacrifice are keys to brewing (and a lot of things in marriage). I am just getting into brewing regularly and will be discussing a future brew day with her once she gets back from hanging out with a friend.