9:00pm-9:45pm - prep+bring 8litres water to 65C. add water to grains in mashtun
7:00am-7:30am - bring 14L water to 95C and add at 7:30. start heating 8L sparge water too
7:45-7:55 - collect wort, add sparge water
7:55-8:20 - bringing wort to boil+collecting sparged wort
8:20-8:50 - boil 30mins
8:50-9:10 - 10 min cooldown with wort chiller, leave in kettle and cool in garage with tinfoil around edges
total time = 45min + 2hr1min
METHOD 2. 15MIN MASH
7:00am-7:45am- prep+bring 8litres water to 65C. add water to grains in mashtun
7:00am-8:00am - 14L water to 95C and add at 8:00. start heating 8L sparge water too
8:15am-8:25am - collect wort, add sparge water
8:25am-9:00am - bringing wort to boil+collecting sparged wort
9:00am-9:30am - boil 30mins
9:30am-9:50am - 10 min cooldown with wort chiller, leave in kettle and cool in garage with tinfoil around edges
total time = 2hr50min
What do you think of these two ideas i had to shorten my brew day to the bare bones?
I am a single dad with a lot on my plate, and while I love excellently crafted beers, which I definitely DO MAKE. What do you think are drawbacks, problems and positives with these two ideas I’m playing with?
My normal brew day is about 4 hours, definitely no less than that. 2hours and 10 minutes of active work in one day is tempting to make an all-grain presumably okay quality beer for just drinking.
You may get conversion in 15 minutes, but the wort will be less fermentable. The whole 15 min mash thing is kind of a canard. Homebrewers started doing it because they heard commercial brewers say it, but it also takes commercial brewers substantial time to mash in and lauter. All the time they’re in conversion range. They may only hold mash temp for 15 minutes, but they’re actually mashing much longer. The other thing to consider with a short mash is the grain. It will work better with some than others. If it was me, I’d do the overnight.
I can definitely understand trying to get out of the brewery during brewday. I also cannot disregard responsibility for hours on end.
Breaking it into modules using an overnight mash would be my choice.
To relieve me of constantly monitoring the brewing progress I employed technology. I heat water with an alarm that tells me when to come back to do something.
Then, as I mash the PID controls heat. I leave for an hour to an hour and a half. A timer tells me when to react.
The boil is controlled by an induction cooktop power input and a timer as well. I only go into the brewery when the alarm tells me to make additions.
noted, and i was mentally 90% in favour of the overnight anyway. i know studies/experiments indicate overnight sparges dont totally breakdown dextrins resulting in way overdry beer, but what do you think about that aspect of an overnight mash? i think the test beer is basically going to be a normal pale continental lager.
ok, so normally i do about 12 L of sparge water at 90C, but i had that calculated( err guesstimated in 3 seconds for a best hope) for the overnight mash and assumed a drop in temp and just an attempt to warm it up to something good enough to get the sugary wort flowing into the kettle. so slightly more sparge water, slightly hotter. i know 90C seems hot but thats what seems to work well for me to hit the sparge temp zone. it works for me and i dont get astringency or anything
i hear you, i am getting closer to doing a big upgrade on my whole setup. i can still easily lift a 6 gallon full carboy, but i can imagine 5 years from now or so it will just be nicer to not have to lol. i think i’ve seen your brew room in pics you posted here before. it looks good, and i am definitely using an induction hotplate.
As long as what you are mashing in can be properly cleaned then mashing overnight should work. If clostridium butyricum can hide somewhere, like in a crack, then it can take over an overnight mash.
Also I would mash at a higher temperature to reduce overdrying of the beer. I would heat the water so that a mash temp of 70-71C (158-160F) is achieved.