How long is your brew day?

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I've recently made a couple of refinements to my cleaning regimen, and gotten my brewday to around 5 hours (5.5 this weekend with a 90 minute boil worked in). I could shave off a bunch of time in both set up and tear down by putting together a more formal brew stand - right now I use a hodgepodge of portable tables, turkey fryers, and various components to boost the heights of certain vessels, that results in a lot of extra trips from the garage or basement out to the driveway to set up... I'm currently in planning stages for just such an upgrade.
 
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Gavin C said:
this type of statement is just nonsense IMO.
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Such harsh words!

BIAB has the best efficiency (often near 100%) I think because the grain is held closer together in the bag leading to greater enzyme concentrations. Also the grain doesn't lose much in the way of heat over the duration of the mash. Wort viability is the worts ability to ferment into good beer! Case closed, thank you!
 
MandingaBIAB said:
Such harsh words!

BIAB has the best efficiency (often near 100%) I think because the grain is held closer together in the bag leading to greater enzyme concentrations. Also the grain doesn't lose much in the way of heat over the duration of the mash. Wort viability is the worts ability to ferment into good beer! Case closed, thank you!
Click to expand...

Citations be damned!

Gavin C, maybe you should try BIAB sometime.
 
MandingaBIAB said:
Such harsh words!

BIAB has the best efficiency (often near 100%) I think because the grain is held closer together in the bag leading to greater enzyme concentrations. Also the grain doesn't lose much in the way of heat over the duration of the mash. Wort viability is the worts ability to ferment into good beer! Case closed, thank you!
Click to expand...

BIAB efficiency is determined by a combination of crush size, pH, length of mash and ability to squeeze/dunk sparge. Just like every other brewing method. The efficiency is absolutely not 100% unless you've got the holy grail of methods that nobody knows about. 80% sure, I'll even buy 90% but that's it, and you can certainly reach those efficiencies with traditional mash/sparge methods.

Wort viability is a nonsense term. All wort is viable if that means "it has fermentable sugars in it." and good beer was made long before BIAB was conceived so "ability to ferment into good beer" is again a nonsensical statement. Sorry if this got a bit off topic, but inaccurate statements bug me just a teensy bit.
 
I think mine takes about 5-6 hours, but I brew 2 batches (5 gallon) back to back. I mash in the second batch while the first one is on its way to boiling temperatures - I do 90 min mashes.
I am looking to shorten the procedure in the near future using:
1. more powerful burner (reduce time waiting for water to boil - I waste a lot of time)
2. Doing 60-min mashes and reducing first runnings time (used to do it slowly on purpose, but apparently many people just drain it as fast as they can with good results).
3. Simplifying/streamlining the batching procedure.
4. Preparing water, grains, hops - measured out, etc. the night before. Pre-set fermentation chamber temperature.
 
JonW said:
I do 15 gallon batches and almost always brew two batches in one day. I made this little chart once to estimate my time and forecast my overlap between the two batches.

Brewing_Timeline.JPG
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Nice chart. How often do you come close to this ideal timeline?

Also cooling the grain bed before dumping. Is that just to make cleanup easier or do you do something with the collected cool water run off?
 
eric19312 said:
Nice chart. How often do you come close to this ideal timeline?

Also cooling the grain bed before dumping. Is that just to make cleanup easier or do you do something with the collected cool water run off?
Click to expand...

very nice chart. My times/process are somewhat similar. I think I save some time on filling water the night before, and on batch sparging. I start boiling the first runnings and then add batched water, empty the mashtun and start mash-in while the first batch is being brought to boil. My cleanup is shorter than 45 min, at least I'd like to think it is.
 
Yooper said:
I used to be faster, when I had my old cooler and simple pot system. Now, it's more like 4.5 hours, or 5 hours if I don't batch sparge.

I take a bit longer to chill than I used to, since I do 10 gallon batches and have a CFC, and it takes longer to clean up with my single tier. I love having pumps, so it's worth it, but I used to be finished when the wort was cool and now I'm cleaning the pot and running clean water through the pump and chiller afterwards.
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I hear that. I have added more and more gadgets, which make the brewday more enjoyable for me, but if anything it has made my brewday longer. Although to be fair, my stove top brewing baseline never included measuring and crushing my own grain, 90 minute boils and hop stands.
 
eric19312 said:
Nice chart. How often do you come close to this ideal timeline?

Also cooling the grain bed before dumping. Is that just to make cleanup easier or do you do something with the collected cool water run off?
Click to expand...

I'm usually pretty close to this. That's one of the biggest things that using a BCS does for me on brew day - it keeps me on task when something needs to be done.

Since I do overlapping batches (#1 one in the BK, #2 mashing), I need to cool the grain bed so I can dump it in a lawn/leaf bag. It's way too hot right at the end of the mash. I add several gallons of tap water into the mash tun and then run it to the drain. The grain is then cool enough to dump into a plastic bag.
 
I’ve been keeping track of how long things take and I’m pretty consistently between 5.5-6 hours from lighting the burner to turning the lights off in the garage. I do 5 gal batches.

As much as I enjoy this hobby, I really wish I could get the process down to a point where it’s easy to squeeze in a brew on a weeknight. So far, 2 of the 4 brews I’ve done have been on weeknights, but it has meant not getting to sleep until 1am or so. The alarm clock laughs at me with bitter contempt.

I’ve got a Blichmann burner for good heating power and an IC process capable of chilling in 20-25 minutes, so I’m keeping some of the time-waster steps in check. I look at the steps and think there has to be a way of getting down to 4-4.5 hours, but the time just zooms by and it’s hard to account for where all of it goes.
 
If I clean as I go and stay focused, I can do a typical 5.5 gallon batch in about 5-5.5 hours, from initial set up to finishing cleanup. If I'm doing long mash/boils it goes up from there. My limiting factor is my gas stove, which takes a while to fully heat strike water, and to fully heat to boiling. And then how much I feel like babysitting my immersion chiller. If I stir the whole time and promptly switch from tap to pump/ice water at 100F, I can go boiling to pitching temp in 10 mins, but I usually don't babysit so it's more like 30 mins. If I deal with collecting water and weighing/milling grains beforehand, I can shave a little off to about 4-4.5 hours. But usually I block off about 6 hours and take it easy. Or I'll do two brews at once and mash one while the other boils, making two separate beers in about 7-8 hours if I'm on the ball. Or do a 10 gallon batch which adds about an hour of extra milling/heating/chilling time. And lately I've been on a partigyle kick, which results in the same timeframe as a 10 gallon batch, plus a little more for dealing with runnings blends.
 
Gavin C said:
Best mash efficiency? You got anything to support that?

Wort viability. What is that?


BTW. I am a proponent of the method (BIAB), but this type of statement is just nonsense IMO.
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Agreed, I biab and doubt if I move on, but efficiency sucks unless u have your own grain mill, which I do not.
 
jaydlaw said:
Agreed, I biab and doubt if I move on, but efficiency sucks unless u have your own grain mill, which I do not.
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Not necessarily true, if you have a good LHBS with an adjustable mill. I can set my own mill gap currently, and get about 72-76% depending on grain bill.
 
All grain. I've never tried extract. I just dove straight into all grain. A Lot to learn.
 
Mine have been fairly consistently ~8-10 hours but my timer starts from when I start clearing space in the garage for the gear I have to drag out until the time I've put most of the stuff back. Even then I still have some more detailed cleaning to do and wind up not having everything stowed back away until sometime the next morning. And this timing is for 10G-15G all grain batches using an IC and a chugger pump as well as 2 Blichmann floor burners.

That was in the house that I just moved from. Now, I have an outbuilding with plenty of space and my gear will just be there waiting for me to start brewing. I expect I'll shave ~2 hours from my prior timings. Next brew day is mid September; hopefully I'll be unpacked by then... :S
 
We should start a new thread on things you can do to make brew day more efficient. I don't mean trying to make it a race or take the fun out of it if you like to chill out and grill while brewing. There are lots of things that can make brew day more enjoyable and less hectic.

My brew times have been all over the map, but tended on the long side of 6-8 hours doing 10g all grain. I've been working on streamlining by doing several things the day before. Grinding grains, having my strike water in the kettle and water chemistry done, have vessels cleaned, double check recipe and ingredients, take starter from fridge to get to temp, etc etc. This also helps when I find out I am missing something, like being low on propane or water chems.
 
Komodo said:
We should start a new thread on things you can do to make brew day more efficient. I don't mean trying to make it a race or take the fun out of it if you like to chill out and grill while brewing. There are lots of things that can make brew day more enjoyable and less hectic.

My brew times have been all over the map, but tended on the long side of 6-8 hours doing 10g all grain. I've been working on streamlining by doing several things the day before. Grinding grains, having my strike water in the kettle and water chemistry done, have vessels cleaned, double check recipe and ingredients, take starter from fridge to get to temp, etc etc. This also helps when I find out I am missing something, like being low on propane or water chems.
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I believe there are many threads and articles on efficiency however I'm sure homebrew talk wouldn't mind another article on the topic. You might detail a brew day with start times of everything you're doing and pictures of your setup along the way. Do it once the "old" way so we see what the longest brew day is then do what you're talking about. Increase your efficiency during downtime.

Pull start out of the fridge, heat strike water while crushing grains, clean and or sanatize brew gear/fermentation equipment during the boil, heat your first runnings while sparging. and other little things help speed up the brew day just because you're not sitting there waiting to the end to spend 45 minutes doing something you could have already done. 10 gallon batches shouldn't take that much longer than 5 gallon batches.
 
I think I'm in the 4-5 hour range, usually closer to 4 hours.
 
Komodo said:
We should start a new thread on things you can do to make brew day more efficient. I don't mean trying to make it a race or take the fun out of it if you like to chill out and grill while brewing. There are lots of things that can make brew day more enjoyable and less hectic.

My brew times have been all over the map, but tended on the long side of 6-8 hours doing 10g all grain. I've been working on streamlining by doing several things the day before. Grinding grains, having my strike water in the kettle and water chemistry done, have vessels cleaned, double check recipe and ingredients, take starter from fridge to get to temp, etc etc. This also helps when I find out I am missing something, like being low on propane or water chems.
Click to expand...

In putting together my own timeline similar to JonW's I realized that there are a couple things I can do to make my brewday go faster.
- assemble mash tun night before
- get a second pump so I can overlap brew 1 and brew 2
- be careful to avoid taking too much wort into boil kettle. I often end up with extra 0.5 - 1.0 gallon trying to get those last 3-4 gravity points. This leads to longer than needed boil. Need to be more disciplined on how much to collect.
- chill the grain bed with tap water after collecting wort to hurry mash tun clean up for batch 2

I use hot tap water in my brewing so I don't think there is advantage to filling mash tun with water night before. But I could start measuring and grinding the grain as sometimes (always when I am in a hurry) my mill starts to stick and crushing takes longer than planned.
 
Fly sparged last night. From printing out the recipe to PBW soak was 5 hours. At 1:30 AM I was too tired to finish cleaning, so it'll sit in PBW until I can get it tonight.
 
eric19312 said:
I use hot tap water in my brewing so I don't think there is advantage to filling mash tun with water night before.
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:off: You might want to stop using hot water to brew/cook with. It increases the chance of leaching lead and other heavy metals from plumbing fixtures, solder, etc. Both the EPA and CDC recommend against it.

:mug:
 
I think it can't be shorter than 3 hours, unless you do a no sparge no chill method

Mine is 4 hours but that's including a 45 min hop stand

mash 60 min
mashout 15 min
sparge 15 min
getting to the boil 15 min
boil 60 min
hop stand 45 min
chill 15 min
filter aerate and pitch 15 min
cleanup 15 min

But most of the time there's not much to do or even anything
 
jmpreiks said:
:off: You might want to stop using hot water to brew/cook with. It increases the chance of leaching lead and other heavy metals from plumbing fixtures, solder, etc. Both the EPA and CDC recommend against it.

:mug:
Click to expand...

Thanks this is interesting. I am pretty sure I looked at this a couple years ago and got the answer that if your household plumbing is newer it is not something to worry about. A few minutes today seems everyone has now gotten on the same page. I do have a pretty short line from my HWH to the faucet I get my water from and always flush it to get past the lukewarm water that has been sitting in the line. Also I am not feeding my beer to babies or young children who are most susceptible to lead. But still I may have to go ahead and make the change. I guess filling day before is doable, then Il will just kick on the HLT burner in the morning while I am drinking coffee and reviewing my recipe.
 
3.5 to 5 hours depending on what I'm brewing.

7am - collect water, add salts, begin heating, weigh/mill grains
7:30am - dough in, clean/sanitize fermenter
8:30am - lift basket of grain out, crank heat, weigh hops
8:50-9am - Boil begins
10am - chill wort, transfer to fermenter, aerate, pitch yeast, clean up
10:30am - done

Add an hour to that for big IPAs with 90 min mash and hop stands.
 
Usually 4-5 hours for me. When I have family obligations on the wife's side it seems like it takes me 8-9 hours......'DAMN THIS STUCK MASH, gonna take me awhile babe!' Thank god she doesn't understand that I BIAB.
 
yesterday was my first all grain. 4 hours with cleaning up everything. could get it down to 3.5 made a mistake that cost some time. strike water cooled too much after doughing
 
It used to take me 8 hours when I first started, then I got that down to about 5.5-6 by being more systematic and adding a larger chiller. I recently added pumps and upgraded my burners and my latest brewday was about 4.5 to 5. I save about an hour being able to heat the mash water faster and being able to heat the wort for the boil while fly sparging. By the time the sparge was done the wort was just about boiling.
 
I may be an outlier but of late I've been planning and doing more complicated mashes, steps, infusions and decoctions. Considerably more time and effort in the planning and doing stages but for me it equates to more time spent doing what I thoroughly enjoy. No problem if I can get a pass from the SWMBO in looking after our two small ones.

Don't get me wrong I'm all for streamlining and dismissing time wasting processes. If time is limited a 30-45 minute single infusion and an hour boil will give me results I am delighted with. But it is fun nonetheless to tackle more challenging processes.

If I could devote an entire day (6-7 hours) to a brew I would love do something like a triple decoction mash with some partially modified malt. If for no other reason than to do it. A pilsner or a Munich Dunkel would be my choices.

i'm somewhat reined in on time owing to the limited power of my stove. I think it's about 18,000BTU. Gets the job done. A rolling boil on 7.5 gallons is no problem. I reckon with an electric setup I could get my brew day down from ~4.5 hours to ~3.5 hours.

I want an electric setup. One day I will have it. :D. No suitable wiring at the mo. Garage brewing is not for me in the Texas heat. I like brewing in a climate controlled area so I'll settle for my stove for now.
 
5 hours at home includes cleaning, sanitizing and equipment setup and takedown.

Takes us around 9 hours at our brewery we have to double batch and blend to get our 7bbl mark.
 

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