[Ale Farmer]

About 6 hours for me--but I mostly do it at night when the kids are in bed, and so when the night drags on into the wee hours, sometimes I move more slowly. Can't tell you how wonderful it is on rare occasions when I can brew during the day....

[Joe Sr.]

Took me around 7 hours today.  Two batches, 90 minute boil, pre-boiled the water.

Everything went smooth.  Much smoother than two weeks ago.

One batch, low OG low volume.  Other batch, low OG and 1.5 gallons extra...

Oh well.

[michaeltrego]

I brew 10 gallon batches on an electric HERMS and fly sparge. It heats about 1.5 degrees per minute. A typical brew day is about 6 hours. Last weekend I did a Helles double decoction and it was about 7 hours. What a great brewday!

[bierview]

Six hours on brew day with complete clean up and an additional prep hour the day before.

[bierview]

About 6 hours for me--but I mostly do it at night when the kids are in bed, and so when the night drags on into the wee hours, sometimes I move more slowly. Can't tell you how wonderful it is on rare occasions when I can brew during the day....

Ale,

I usually get up anywhere from 2:30 am to 4 am to start brewing.  Nice and quiet and no interruptions.  Finished and cleaned by the time everyone gets up.

[802Chris]

Overnight masher here as well, most of the time anyway.

If I no-sparge I can runoff, boil, chill and be cleaned up in under 3 hours the morning of brew day. That includes clean up.

My two BIGGEST time savers as of late have been the addition of a BREWBAG for my mash cooler which saves a 15 minute varlauf AND shaves about 15 minutes cleanup of the cooler. Combined with no sparge, which saves about 45 minutes to an hour morning of brew day, since I don't have to heat up strike water, than sparge, THAN get the whole mess up to a boil. I just runoff and start boiling.

Process:

Night before I typically boil up roughly two cups of dme into a little over a half gallon of water for my starter. While this cools, I crush my grain and weigh out salts and add to salts to strike water, while the starter is chilling in ice bath in the sink. Once the grain is in the cooler, I mash in @ 155ish and cover the cooler with a heavy coat. I then pitch yeast into starter after shaking the pi$$ out of my starter wort and go to bed.

In the morning I runoff into my kettle, typically with FWH sitting in the kettle. I have it set up so that my burner is within silicone hose distance to my MLT, so All I have to do is pull back on the brew bag and pinch it under the lid, and let loose on the ball valve. I am typically boiling within 30 minutes of this runoff. Boil for an hour and cool using an immersion chiller, which this time of year takes about 10 minutes from flameout since I live in New England and it's cold as heck. I lift my fermenter about 10 inches to get it into my garage ferm chamber and pitch half the starter from the night before. The other half goes back into a re-sanitized mason jar to finish out and get saved for another batch.


So long story short my ACTIVE brew time is about 4 hours. 1ish hours the night before and usually just under 3 hours the next morning. I am usually just finishing cleanup and making breakfast when the girls wake up around 830!

TLDR: Clean as you go, skip the sparge, and get EVERYTHING ready the night before. PLAN your brewday!!!

So just for grins I timed myself yesterday. I actually did not overnight mash due to scheduling conflicts... (see: Family).

I hit flame on for my strike water at 0530

I was COMPLETELY done, including cleanup at 0908

This was with a one hour mash, which I napped through ;-)

PS 87 percent efficiency, using a corona mill and no sparge. Thanks BREWBAG!

[edward]

Last Saturday it took us about 5 hours from heating water to finished cleaning.  That was for 18 gallons that is destined for a 15 gallon barrel. About 30 minutes of prep the day before.

I'm also an early morning brewer.  Typically start ~530.

 A "normal day" is about 4.5 hours for 12 gallons. 

[coolman26]

I wish I could do these batches as fast as everyone here. Guess my avatar should be a turtle. It takes me 8+ to do 20 gallons.


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[Ale Farmer]

Ale,

I usually get up anywhere from 2:30 am to 4 am to start brewing.  Nice and quiet and no interruptions.  Finished and cleaned by the time everyone gets up.


Thanks for the tip--I'm going to try that sometime--maybe in the summer.

[edward]

Another thing I do to shave off some time is get my water ready the night before.  I fill my cooler with all my mash in and sparge water.  It comes out of the tap at about 130F and drops to 120-125 over night.

[charles1968]

I'm wondering if I can cut the length of my brewday by boiling for only half an hour? I know some brewers have tried it with good results but wondering what the consensus is. Does it really take a whole hour to coagulate proteins, drive off dms, sanitize wort, isomerize hop acids, etc?

[MagicRat]

I do 5 gallons, batch sparge, 60 minute boil - brew day is a consistent six hours.  It would be less but my Florida groundwater only gets me down in the 90s with my IC and I use an ice bath to chill the rest of the way.


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[PharmBrewer]

5 Liters (BIAB/All grain) in 60 minutes (Prep, Mash, Boil, Cooling, Clean-Up) which produces 12 bottles ready to drink in about 14 days.  Typically, 20 minute mash and 20 minute boil.  If I am really grooving, bottle another batch during the same 60 minutes.

[brewinhard]

I'm wondering if I can cut the length of my brewday by boiling for only half an hour? I know some brewers have tried it with good results but wondering what the consensus is. Does it really take a whole hour to coagulate proteins, drive off dms, sanitize wort, isomerize hop acids, etc?

Have yet to try out a 30 minute boil, but I believe it would depend on the vigor of the boil as to whether or not those tasks will be accomplished.

[charles1968]

Have yet to try out a 30 minute boil, but I believe it would depend on the vigor of the boil as to whether or not those tasks will be accomplished.

I did 30 minute boils in my last two brews. No problems so far. The first one tastes normal, second one still in the FV. As far as I understand, the boil just needs to generate continual motion as the agitation speeds up chemical reactions. I'm not keen on very vigorous boils as i brew indoors - can get messy.

I brewed yesterday. I set up an overnight mash the previous evening. Full liquor volume & no sparge. No vorlauf needed as the grain bed had settled for 8 hours. Opened the tap to collect runnings 8:25 a.m., started boil at 9:00, flameout 9:30, finished chilling at 10:13. Painless and quick.

I'd need to see very strong evidence that beer is better brewed the long way as it would be painful reverting to 6 hour brew days - i just don't have enough free time for that at the moment.