Cedar Rapids Brewing Society

How often do you brew after work?

If you do, if you start heating up your water to strike temperature, at around 5:30 PM.....when would you finish the boil?

How many of you allow your wort to cool overnight (i.e. you do not cool it with some time of cooling coil or manifold) and then pitch the next morning?

Would like to brew during the week, but I do not want stay up late doing it.

I have done this a few times. Starting at 5.30pm i would be done and cleaned up with yeast pitched between 1030 and 1130. Depending if it's a 5 or 10 gallon batch. Not super late but late-ish, long day if you already worked 8 hours before it.

Also worth noting, that it only takes 10-12 minutes to chill wort to pitching temps(for me) so i have always just done it, so i can check to see activity the next morning/ day.

Because I do not have a brewery, I have to haul water, which really isn't too bad. But to cool the wort, I have to use hoses to run water from the house hydrant to the garage, and then a waste hose from the garage to the adjacent lawn.

It's a real pain in the winter, I have to move fast to drain water from the hose before it freezes...but even when it is not freezing out....it's probably 10-15 minutes to setup...and then 15 minutes or so to tear down if I stow the hoses.

Anyway, just looking to see what efficiencies I can leverage to finish a little faster....and really, I think it will come down to practice and refining what I do and how I do it.

And I think good PREP helps.....if my controller has a timer...I can setup the strike water the evening before and set the heater to begin an hour before I get home and begin the mash as soon as I get home.

Thinking and preparing ahead, is where I think I will make the more gains in terms of brew day efficiencies.

I have the simple solution to your problem, Daryl - it's called RETIREMENT!

tony b wrote:I have the simple solution to your problem, Daryl - it's called RETIREMENT!

Too funny Tony!

With a 5500W electric eBIAB, I finished a 11 gallon batch in under 5 hours today -- that's the time from starting the heat, till cleanup was done (45min mash, 60min boil, 15min hopstand, and chilling to 57F pitch temp).
There was some extra time wasted during the cleanup phase on kids/house stuff, so the time could easily be dropped well under 5 hours.

Decreasing size to a 5 gallon batch could probably shave off an additional 30 minutes of heat/cool time also.

I sooo do not regret going electric-single-vessel.