My brew day is about 8 hours, no matter what I try to do to shave some time. The wife would rather I spent the day with her and the kids (though she never complains when the beer is ready!), so I do a lot of graveyard shift brew sessions and finish up in the early morning.
This weekend I cheated and mashed in on Friday night, then went to bed and got up at 5 am to mashout and finish out the session. So, only about 5 hours of work on Saturday.
One of the things that lengthens my brew day is that I almost always do a big parti-gyle mash and sparge equally or unequally into two separate boilers (depending in what I'm brewing), add different specialty grains or the wort from a separate mini-mash, ande then boil two brews simultaneously. Since I only have one chiller, I have to run one batch through to a fermentor and then the other, so it adds maybe another hour to the day.
Both the English old ale and the Cali common sound good - are those in the recipe archive?
Cheers,
Gravity Thrills
All Grainer Question: Your Cycle Times ?
Moderator: slothrob
-
Azorean Brewer
- Strong Ale
- Posts: 326
- Joined: Sun Dec 16, 2001 1:31 pm
- Location: Greenville SC
- Contact:
Recipes
Hey Gravity,
Thanks for the feedback, I guess I am not too off the mark then, that makes me feel better
As for the recipes, these are in the archive, at the recipe front page search for recipes containing text Azorean, this will bring up my recipes. All of these are proven good brews, my two favorites are the Cal. Common "full head of steam", and the Munich Helles "Haufbrau Helles". Old Ale is "Old Man Theakston", tasted good before I pitched yeast yesterday, should be a good one. Let me know if you try any of these OK, good luck,
Paul.
Thanks for the feedback, I guess I am not too off the mark then, that makes me feel better
As for the recipes, these are in the archive, at the recipe front page search for recipes containing text Azorean, this will bring up my recipes. All of these are proven good brews, my two favorites are the Cal. Common "full head of steam", and the Munich Helles "Haufbrau Helles". Old Ale is "Old Man Theakston", tasted good before I pitched yeast yesterday, should be a good one. Let me know if you try any of these OK, good luck,
Paul.
-
Azorean Brewer
- Strong Ale
- Posts: 326
- Joined: Sun Dec 16, 2001 1:31 pm
- Location: Greenville SC
- Contact:
All Grainer Question: Your Cycle Times ?
Greetings all,
I am sitting here well pooped after a day of brewing. The recipe was a little more complicated than normal, (I brewed my all grain English Old Ale recipe
I am sitting here well pooped after a day of brewing. The recipe was a little more complicated than normal, (I brewed my all grain English Old Ale recipe
Speed Brewing
I've gotten it down to about 6 hrs actual active brewing time by;
1) Milling grains the night before (also helps prevent infection).
2) Filling my my two five gallon pots with water the night before, then getting up at 5AM to turn the heat on, then I wake up @ 6:00 AM, mash in, then go back to sleep. By 8:00 AM, I'm ready to mash out.
3) KEEP MOVING; When I'm waiting for the boil to begin, I'm cleaning my fermentor. Once the boil is up and being timed, I'm cleaning my wort chiller. While the wort is being chilled, I'm cleaning by O2 stone, etc.
I usually finish around noon or 1PM, dependant on what time I actually got started. I've also just proved to myself that I can keep up this pace while babysitting my new 3 month old daughter. By drinking beers for so many years, I've developed the ability to work with a handicap (only one hand available to do work, the other is always wrapped around a beer). By switching beer for baby, and of course having the right arsenal of accessories (baby swing, bouncing seat, etc) I have been able to brew two batches with child.
Prosit,
Andy
1) Milling grains the night before (also helps prevent infection).
2) Filling my my two five gallon pots with water the night before, then getting up at 5AM to turn the heat on, then I wake up @ 6:00 AM, mash in, then go back to sleep. By 8:00 AM, I'm ready to mash out.
3) KEEP MOVING; When I'm waiting for the boil to begin, I'm cleaning my fermentor. Once the boil is up and being timed, I'm cleaning my wort chiller. While the wort is being chilled, I'm cleaning by O2 stone, etc.
I usually finish around noon or 1PM, dependant on what time I actually got started. I've also just proved to myself that I can keep up this pace while babysitting my new 3 month old daughter. By drinking beers for so many years, I've developed the ability to work with a handicap (only one hand available to do work, the other is always wrapped around a beer). By switching beer for baby, and of course having the right arsenal of accessories (baby swing, bouncing seat, etc) I have been able to brew two batches with child.
Prosit,
Andy