I don’t like making wort. There, I said it!
I love fermenting. I don’t mind kegging and bottling. But the mashing process, along with milling, doing the math to come up with the water volumes and temperatures? Yuck! Hate it. This is why I have made nothing but mead and cider the last couple years.
I need a pep talk here. Please convince me I should like this!
But also, tell me if you feel the same way.
Start with streamlining the process, perhaps. Use a timer on an electric heat stick or other element adapted to preheating water, so it can be ready to brew when you want to brew. Consider Brew in a bag to minimize vessels to clean, also smaller batches to make the process quicker, shorter mash and boil times to shorten it further, dry yeast to simplify the yeast pitch without a starter.
In the end, find a way to enjoy the time spent in the process - I listen to my favorite podcasts Denny and Drew for two! and good music! For me it allows me a time away from my work, but with a productive result to justify the time spent. My wife likes the beers and says that it is a lot cheaper hobby for me than golfing is for my neighbors, so she supports me in this, even when I buy the next needed thing…that hopefully makes the hobby easier, faster, or more enjoyable.
Cheers and good luck!
Thanks for the reply. One thing that I am lucky about is that my wife supports my brewing and in fact encourages me to do more. And given the price of the craft beer we like, it’s not an expensive hobby.
Not really having a separate brewing area has been a big challenge.
Same here. This is one thing that has always made the wort making process not very fun for me.
My new house has an area in the basement that won’t interfere with the space when we finish it and I believe that is going to be my brewhouse eventually.
I know what you mean. I hated reinventing the wheel every time I brew …so, I decided to standardize everything I can so I can chillax. I simplified my processes to the point that each brewday is very intuitive. …and most importantly very relaxed.
To do this I started by standardizing my processes but quickly realized I could take this a step further to standardize recipes. Most of my beers use a similar grist base weight and I sub in/out similar weight specialty malts to hit colors/flavors. This allows the same volume of water and water additions.
For example, let’s say a typical English Bitter will be 95% Maris Otter and 5% English Med Crystal for 12 lb 10 oz grain. I substitute American standard 2-row for the MO (or combination of 2-row and Munich or other base malts to = 95%) and sub in 5% C60 for the Med Crystal to get an APA. Sub in 95% 2-row + 5% C20 for a Blonde Ale. Sub in 95% German Pilsner and 5% carahell for a Pils. …and so on…
Same grist weight to mash so I don’t reinvent the process but produce completely different beers. Add appropriate hops for each in the boil, possibly other sugars, maybe dry hops after fermentation, to further define the style.
Of course, I riff off those standards but I am usually within a pound one way or the other so I rarely change my standard 5 gals strike + 3.5 gal sparge water volume to get my ~7 gal wort in the BK. Boil down to 6-6.5 gal or so, loose a half gal or so to trüb for 5.5 gal in the FV. Loose a half gal in the FV to trüb for 5 gal in a keg. Works the same every time.
I also used to weigh and add strike and sparge water mineral additions separately. I now weigh out and add all the minerals to the full volume, then drain the sparge liquor from the BK into a HLT, then pump strike liquor from the BK to underlet the mash in the MLT. Much easier.
No more step mashes either – one single infusion temp, set the pump flow valve with digital calipers to a known flow rate, turn on the RIMS controller to maintain my desired mash temp and see ya later. Next thing ya know: Beautiful wort in the BK.
This process standardization has liberated me to lift my head and focus on end results vs focus heads down in the process every brewday. I now look forward to the next brewday. …and I especially look forward to the reward.
It reminds me of my golf game. I used to concentrate on hitting the ball so much that I focused down. Then I learned to swing the club and quit worrying about hitting the ball. I was now focused on a distant target. Where to hit it not how to hit it. The game began to be much more fun. (and profitable [emoji6])
That’s a great system Brewbama.
Like Big Monk I have an eye on a spot in my basement. My step son has a lot of tools stored in our basement because he didn’t have storage when he moved from one place to another last year. He is building on our land this year so by this fall I can claim a space for a brewery. That will make a huge difference.
The idea of getting to a spot where my measurements are close to standard is very appealing. I will be brewing English ales, apa/ipa, and lagers mostly so your system would translate nicely. Easy to adjust for the occasion stout and porter or brown ale.
Golf never took for me. I kept getting worse the more I played and I eventually just stopped and don’t miss it.
If you don’t like the mash process, there is another alternative - extract or extract with grains. While you may give up some of the control of the start from scratch recipe development and calculations, you can still make excellent beer. Like many things, it’s a matter of trade-offs
+1. A key enabler to all this is a carved out brewing space. I used to lug everything out of the basement upstairs out onto the deck to brew. It took 3-4 trips just to set up. PITA. Now, I have permanent location setup inside. I’ve removed everything that is not used on brewday out of that space so I’m not digging around looking for something. Everything has a convenient place. It’s small but efficient.
+1
This is my set-up and Mashing is the most relaxing part of brewday. Grains go in, kitchen smells great, grains get lifted out. Done.
I love the finished product, but if I didn’t love the process as well I would quit the hobby. Thankfully, I love the process. Unlike golf. ;D
Sounds like a good opportunity to find a brewing partner who wants to split brewdays and batches with you.
I do what BrewBama does. Establish a standard and don’t deviate to much. No re-inventing needed.
I used to do smaller stove top batches biab. My stove couldn’t handle a 5 gallon batch though and it still involved moving equipment from storage. Clean up was easier though.
My goal is to make an electric set upon a dedicated spot.
I use two heatsticks to heat water in the basement. And then, use them to bring the wort to a boil. My only difficulty was that one at 120 volts was not quite enough and two leads to a vigorous boil. Came up with a system to monitor the boil.
I believe that one along with the stove should be plenty. Easy to manage and not be too difficult.
I enjoy the hands-on and figuring out details of the process, making mash included, but have looked for places to shorten my brew day so it feels a little less time-intensive and more enjoyable: After my first couple years I began to always batch sparge; I do a shorter boil - 40-45 minutes -and get fine results (maybe making exception for pils malt based batches); I don’t necessarily mash for 60 minutes - I think this can be overkill. I have a cabinet in the garage, which is where I brew, dedicated to my brew equipment - a place for everything and keep everything in it’s place in or right near this cabinet. When more crunched for time or wanting the beer but not the hassle my friends and I agree that a batch from extract is a fine thing.
Man pete b, I wish we were neighbors. Brew day is my favorite. I enjoy getting out the equipment and putting the recipe together. I still hand crank my mill because I like to “feel” the grain being crushed. I brew in my garage which is attached, and love how the how house (especially the basement) smells like fresh wort. I always take my time with brew day and am more inclined to stretch it out as opposed to shorten it.
In that imaginary world, in the morning I would do the prep and the mash. While the boil was going we could kick back with a glass of homebrew. And once the batch was in the fermenter, you could take it from there. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any problems with racking, kegging, etc. But if I could jump from brew day to having that beer being ready on tap, I would. 
A lot of the reason I’ve been on hiatus with brewing the past few years is that my wife is out of work, and she’s not a fan of the smell or me taking over the kitchen for the day. I can empathize with you on the lack of a dedicated brewing space. I recently sprung for an Anvil Foundry system to help minimize my brewing footprint, and potentially brew outside if the weather cooperates. I’m hoping that this will help me brew more often.
Personally, though, if I could warp from whirlpool to tap and bypass fermentation and packaging (and cleaning!), then I’d take it. My favorite parts of the brewing process start with planning right up until the last hop addition.
I love brew day. It’s the bottling that I find not so fun. In the pre-digital age I used to have a cassette tape of some very primitive blue grass music I would put on. My old cat Spike would sit there with his ears all twisting around. I imagine the fiddle strings probably were cat gut.
Now I just put on my Sirius XM and listen to Outlaw Country.
Just finished Brewday. I like all of Brewday ( much better since I went electric ), right up to when I pitch my yeast and put the fermenter to bed… then the next 2hours of cleaning and putting everything away really beats me down. If I could be done after pitching, I would brew so much more.
I clean as I go. Once the boil is underway the RIMS and MLT are cleaned. The only thing left at the end of brewday is the BK, mop the floor, and clean the slop sink. I clean the pump the next day or two. No rush there.
^^^^This. I clean as I go as well. The last things cleaned on the brew day are the kettle and the plate chiller (including the pump and the inline hop screen.