Top tips for speeding up a brew day

[andrewf1985]

Evening guys and girls. Excuse the spelling in the title but what's your top tips for speeding up a brew day? Brewing up on a "school" night and dont want it to take all night. I've done the obvious, water and ingredients measured but what else could help move things along?! Cheers

 

[kombat]

This topic comes up every couple of weeks, search around and you'll find lots of great tips.

Personally, as you mentioned, I measure out my ingredients a couple of nights before. On brew day, I start with hot water from my tap to save time heating up water. Also, I start heating up first runnings while sparging and collecting my second runnings (I batch sparge) rather than waiting until I have collected all of the wort to start heating. I clean my mash tun during the boil, so that's one less big thing to clean afterwards. My brew days typically take around 4-5 hours, depending on if it's a 90-minute boil or if I'm doing a hopstand.

 

[ricshayne]

here are lot of good ideas from a blog that if you don't already subscribe to, you should!

http://brulosophy.com/2014/12/22/18-ideas-to-help-simplify-your-brew-day/

 

[TexasWine]

As mentioned, this comes up quite often. Do some poking around and you'll find good ideas.

With that, using BIAB + no chill is an easy way to speed up your brew day. Did that this past weekend and clocked a 3 hour brew session. (EDIT: That's without any prior prep or setup, like measuring grains, water, etc) A not so obvious idea that I've used in the past is to heat my strike water overnight in the oven by setting it to "warm" and simply sliding my 10 gallon kettle with my strike water in. I would wake up in the morning ready to dough in. Or you can get a bucket heater and an analog timer to heat it overnight as well. This concept, combined with BIAB and no chill and measuring/weighing everything the day before, you could be done in 2.5 hours easy.

 

[ebstauffer]

You didnt mention a budget! The top three things that sped up my brew day:

1. Switch from gas to electric
2. No Sparge brewing
3. Ultrafine stainless filter from Utah Biodiesel + plate chiller
4. Preheat strike water
5. Ignore established mash times (when the starch test is negative I pump to BK). It's not uncommon that this is 30 mins.

OK that was five.

Im down to about 4 1/2 hours of active time.

 

[andrewf1985]

Cheers guys, got all prepared this morning so should start well after work. Never played with mash times, other then lengthen to suit. Read a few things on it though

@ricshayne here are lot of good ideas from a blog that if you don't already subscribe to, you should!

http://brulosophy.com/2014/12/22/18-...your-brew-day/

Good link

 

[hottpeper13]

I started to do overnite mashes. It takes me ~45 min before bed to get mashed in, I have a induction plate for HLT that has a built in 2 hr timer and it's well insulated. when I get up the sparge water is at 160* and it takes ~ 20 min to boil the mashout water. Next time I will add the mash out water to the HLT and preheat it as well,then transfer to boil kettle. If I start at 6:00 am I'm done by 10:00am, makes for a quick brew day.

 

[masskrug]

Two hour brew day (BIAB):
15 minutes to bring water to 155'. Mill grains and measure hops while this is happening.
40 minute mash.
15 minutes to achieve boil. Grain bag is draining during this time.
30 minute boil*. Clean grain bag during this time and dispose of spent grains.
15 minute chill. I chill to 100' and then put it in the freezer. Makes no sense to try and chill outside in Florida during the summer. Clean hop bag (if used) during this time.
5 minutes to clean kettle and other tools.

Your times may vary depending on location. I will add my yeast after the wort has chilled down in the freezer. Typically about 2 hours later.

*Decreased boil time. You will use extra hops. Is the added cost of hops worth the time saved?

 

[brettwasbtd]

I wrote about this for the homepage a little while back:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/speeding-up-brew-day.html

A huge time saver is having a dedicated space for everything. Going in and outside, or you and downstairs a bunch of times really slows things down

 

[bionut]

In the summer, a day before the brew, i put my water in plastic bottles and let them in the sun. The following day the water is pretty warm, around 50 dec Celsius.

 

[Psylocide]

BIAB, 30 min mash, no chill. Prepare stuff the day(s) before, mill grains, collect/treat water, etc.

 

[TexasWine]

*Decreased boil time. You will use extra hops. Is the added cost of hops worth the time saved?

I've contemplated doing this myself. Any ill effects, like DMS?

 

[andrewf1985]

Cheers guys, good advice. Need to get my head around batch sparging. I fly at the monent and my HLT is a few litres short of completing the sparge. Anyway, mash-in to pitching, 4 and a half hours. Not bad for me. Smells and looks how i was expecting. Will post the recipe if its any good

Never thought about decrease in boil, 60 min is programmed in. Will have to do some calculations to see what the increase in hops is. Thanks again

 

[CraigKing]

3. Ultrafine stainless filter from Utah Biodiesel + plate chiller

Can you elaborate on this setup please?

Possible pics?

 

[ebstauffer]

Initially I used a immersion chiller in my BK. I later picked up a plate chiller from dudadiesel and on the first use clogged it up (got lazy and didnt use any type of hop sack) -- clearly not a time saver. I then picked up this:

https://utahbiodieselsupply.com/brewingfilters.php#brewfilter10.5x16

a 300 micron filter which eliminates all risk of clogging the chiller. Now I can chill from boil to pitching temp in less than ten minutes. Apologies for the confusion.

 

[andrewf1985]

Ive been looking into plate chillers and didnt even think about hops clogging them up. Will have to see if i can find something similar in the UK. 10 minutes is bloody good. Im happy with 25 minutes in the middle of winter, you've now giving me a challenge!!

 

[kombat]

Im happy with 25 minutes in the middle of winter, you've now giving me a challenge!!

In the winter, my DudaDiesel plate chiller gets 5 gallons of boiling wort down to 65° F in about 3 and a half minutes. Probably the only benefit of living in Canada in the winter.

 

[beernutz]

I brew with natural gas but built a 1500W heat stick that I use for speed heating my mash and sparge water. Using both the gas burner and the heat stick simultaneously heats the water so fast I have to watch carefully that I don't over shoot my target temps. The heat stick also greatly reduces the time it takes to get a roiling boil going in my gas fired keggle. I think the various uses of my heat stick cut at least 30 minutes off a normal brew day and perhaps more.

I can even do step mashes in my picnic cooler mash tun using the heat stick, but that is the opposite of a time saver as by itself the heat stick is an inefficient way to raise the mash temp more that just a few degrees.

 

[Spartangreen]

Two things have greatly reduced my day.
1-1500 watt heat stick (bucket heater). I heat all my mash and sparge water up in a large cooler the night before. When I wake up all my hot water is available on demand.
2- Plate chiller. Cools 212 degree wort to pitching tempertaures in minutes depending on your ground water temperature. Mine is about 8-10 minutes in the summer quicker in the cooler months.

 

[bionut]

Are the heat sticks that you two use made with ULWD elements os HWD?

 

[TexasWine]

Are the heat sticks that you two use made with ULWD elements os HWD?

I'm sure Spartan will chime in, but it doesn't matter what density they are for that application because they're just used to heat water.

 

[bdb7098]

Kind of on topic. Has anyone split their brew day? Mashed one day and boiled the next?

 

[bionut]

I'm sure Spartan will chime in, but it doesn't matter what density they are for that application because they're just used to heat water.

The heat stick also greatly reduces the time it takes to get a roiling boil going in my gas fired keggle. I think the various uses of my heat stick cut at least 30 minutes off a normal brew day and perhaps more.
I can even do step mashes in my picnic cooler mash tun using the heat stick, but that is the opposite of a time saver as by itself the heat stick is an inefficient way to raise the mash temp more that just a few degrees.

From what i understand it seems that he is using it in the wort too.

 

[TexasWine]

From what i understand it seems that he is using it in the wort too.

My bad. I saw your comment immediately followed Spartan's and assumed you were addressing him, not the post that was by Beer....

 

[philjohnwilliams]

I light the fire under the BK While I am sparging. When I get to half my starting boil volume, I light my burner and by the time I am done sparging I am 2 minutes away from a boil. Saves me a good 20 minutes.