Now that the weather is getting nice, the nights are staying light longer, and I am getting more proficient at my brewing method, I am going to try and do a brew in the middle of the week. One night I am going to get home from work and fire up the kettle. The plan is to prep everything and have it ready to go. Everything that can go outside the night before will go out side. Everything that can’t will be staged by the back door the night before. I will start with hot tap water and heat from there for my mash. If I can get the whole thing done in 3 hours or so that will bring me into the 8:30 to 9:00 range. Then I can wait till the following night to do the cleanup. This would be awesome if I can pull it off. That would give me the ability to pull off a brew at any time during the summer months.
I would avoid using hot tap water. The water will contain minerals that have been deposited in the water heater. I would also spend the extra 20-30 mins and clean up. The next day the stuff will have had time to dry making much much harder to clean, as well as spoil.
I have an on demand hot water system. There is no storage of the water and no tank so its identical to putting the water in the pot and heating it. The cold water enters a coil that is blasted by a gas flame and heats the water up very quickly. As far as clean up the next day, what I usually do is clean as I go for what I can. So after my brew day, the only thing left to clean is the pot and spoon, and maybe a few other things. I usually fill the pot with water and just let it sit till the next day anyway. I am usually not in a mood to do any more cleaning after I am done with the boil.
Oh that is a game changer. Brew on then!
One thing that will save you little time is ice bath while you chill your wort down to pitching temp. With ice bath can I chill down to pitching temps in about 5 minutes.
Not to sound like a Debbie Downer (especially after your other thread!), but brewing within a time constraint always makes the brew day more stressful and less enjoyable. I hope it works out for you, but make sure you have some extra time available, just in case things don’t go according to plan!
Take a personal day and enjoy yourself. Kids will be at school wife at work just you and your hobby, priceless
I have only done a mid week brew day once. It was my first or second all grain and I think I got to bed at midnight, haven’t tried another one since. I could prob do a little better now . Good luck keep us posted on how it goes.
me as of sunday five days off gonna brew tuessday a death ringer ale. did yesterday some pre cleaning of brewing pot.wife not there on brewing day nice haha. brewing music cold beer gonna be perfect day off but now getting ready to make a yeast starter
Also good to do a simpler brew with time constraints. Things like 90 minute boils, decoctions, whirlpooling/hopstands, additional mash rests, all add up to a long brew session. Water chemistry additions can be done the night before and are probably better absorbed that way anyway.
Well, I think this is something I have to do at least once. I have to go for it, just to see how it all works out.
I’ve done a couple after work brews and thought it went pretty good. Had water ready, grains crushed the night before. Started about 6 and was cleaned up by 10:30. I thought it was kinda relaxing to break up the work week with it.
Something you might consider to speed up you brew day is over night mash or mash before work. I have done both with no ill results. My mash ton only lost few degrees 152 down to 150 in 9 hours that I was at work. So far the only draw back was about 5% better efficiency. I mashed 1lb malt to 1.5 qt water.
Hmmmm, that’s an interesting idea. I was going to move to BIAB but for an all day mash I could just use the cooler tun.
Just pulled off a 2-hour all-grain brew day. Raw ale, didn’t boil. Also a 3-gallon batch. So it’s possible!
The first I ever heard of “raw ale”. Made me do some reading again. I’m interested in how this comes out. Perhaps we even need a new thread about it PC.
They work great, I do all my gose and Berliner Weisse as no-boil all grain. Makes for a nice quick brew day! Only issue is you have to hit your gravity as pre-boil, since you don’t have evaporation. So efficiency is slightly lower.
Unless I take the day off…my weekday brews get me in bed around1130…kinda fun once in awhile though.
I’ll confess: I’m a speed brewer, and I absolutely love it. I work from home and once every week or two I have a gap in my day where I have a couple of hours free, and from the moment I decide to brew until I’m putting away the last, clean piece of equipment is less than 2-1/2 hours. I’ve brewed about forty batches this way.
I still brew conventionally, because certain styles don’t lend themselves to speed brewing–I did a triple decoction Pilsner a couple of weeks ago and that was a full day.
Keys to making this work are a hot burner, iodine test for starch, a wort chiller, and an organized mind. Whereas you can wander around and enjoy a beer during a full day, speed brewing is like cooking in a restaurant, where you do all of your prep, lay out all of your equipment and ingredients, hit the go button and then work for a couple of hours to make everything come out at the right time without waiting around for the next thing to happen.
I’d rather not brew than switch back to extract (not that there aren’t excellent extract beers to be made, I’m not a snob) but for me it’s the fun of controlling my grains and my recipe completely. With speed brewing I can brew after work, or in a really short window of time.
Every couple of months when my keezer is dangerously empty I organize myself for a multiple brew day and knock out five batches in a single (long!) day. Because I’ve got kettles of different sizes I can even do 10 or 15 gallon batches and not run out of beer just because I’m short on time.
For me it’s the thing that keeps me happily brewing and enjoying my own beer despite being really busy.
