The Goatreich
Landlord.
I'm a little out of practice with my brewing, but after starting at 6:30am, and not finishing the clean up until gone 3 last Saturday, and that's with a 75 minute mash and 60 minute boil, I'm looking for ways to make my brewday more efficient.
Here's my usual brew day in order:
Get equipment from shed, give everything a quick wash and start filling the HLT/boiler, treating the water with CRS and camden tablet as I go.
While the water is heating up I then weigh out my grains and add more water treatments to the grist.
Mash in, wrap up the mash tun and then weigh out my hops and remaining water treatments.
Sparge, this process alone takes a long time.
Return wort to HLT/boiler and turn it on as soon as the element is covered.
While wort is boiling I take the mash tun outside to cool off before adding to the compost.
Wash up any equipment no longer needed, and sterilise anything that needs to be.
Starting immersion chiller, occasionally stirring the wort to get even chilling - filling washing up bowl with output water, and wash up anything that needs it.
Once down to around 30C, I remove the chiller, and wash it up whilst giving the wort time for the break to settle down.
Rehydrate yeast
Drain slowly to the FV and pitch yeast when at temperature
Clean up mash tun and boiler
Put everything away
Have a beer.
Things that I can see I could do to speed this up so far are:
Get equipment, and wash up the night before (although this just moves the time from one day to the previous)
Get a timer on the HLT and start the heating up automatically so it is up to temperature ready to mash in earlier. (Would like a PID to make sure strike temp is accurate first)
Get a boiler with more than one element for faster boiling (on the cards when I upgrade to shiny)
Empty spent grains into a bucket to cool down, meaning I can wash the mash tun straight after use.
Buy a plate chiller to chill wort in 5 minutes ish.
Is there anything else that anyone does to make their day more efficient?
Here's my usual brew day in order:
Get equipment from shed, give everything a quick wash and start filling the HLT/boiler, treating the water with CRS and camden tablet as I go.
While the water is heating up I then weigh out my grains and add more water treatments to the grist.
Mash in, wrap up the mash tun and then weigh out my hops and remaining water treatments.
Sparge, this process alone takes a long time.
Return wort to HLT/boiler and turn it on as soon as the element is covered.
While wort is boiling I take the mash tun outside to cool off before adding to the compost.
Wash up any equipment no longer needed, and sterilise anything that needs to be.
Starting immersion chiller, occasionally stirring the wort to get even chilling - filling washing up bowl with output water, and wash up anything that needs it.
Once down to around 30C, I remove the chiller, and wash it up whilst giving the wort time for the break to settle down.
Rehydrate yeast
Drain slowly to the FV and pitch yeast when at temperature
Clean up mash tun and boiler
Put everything away
Have a beer.
Things that I can see I could do to speed this up so far are:
Get equipment, and wash up the night before (although this just moves the time from one day to the previous)
Get a timer on the HLT and start the heating up automatically so it is up to temperature ready to mash in earlier. (Would like a PID to make sure strike temp is accurate first)
Get a boiler with more than one element for faster boiling (on the cards when I upgrade to shiny)
Empty spent grains into a bucket to cool down, meaning I can wash the mash tun straight after use.
Buy a plate chiller to chill wort in 5 minutes ish.
Is there anything else that anyone does to make their day more efficient?
