Can I reduce long mash and boil times?

[Petrolhead]

I have a Craftybrews St Austell IPA to make but the recipe calls for a 90 minute mash and then a 90 min boil. I don’t have much time on weekends and such long times mean it is difficult to do the brew after work.

Can somebody point me in the direction of how to change the recipe to reduce these times down to 60 mins or shouldn’t I mess with the instructions?

Many thanks

 

[MrRook]

I switched to 45 minute mash and boil years ago with no drop in quality.

 

[lancon]

But you will have to alter hop quantities to achieve IBU & etc

 

[Smileyr8]

I boil mash for 60, I suspect I could drop this to 45 without any problems & boil for 30 without a noticeable drop in quality, the boil is good and vigorous though.
I suppose a lot depends on your setup.

 

[MyQul]

Yup you can mash/boil for just 30 mins. Plenty of people do it, including myself from time to time. I normally keep the later boil additions exactly the same and just alter the bittering addition to achive the target IBU

 

[BeerCat]

Have a look into raw beer. I don't always bother boiling if I am short of time.

 

[Sandimas]

I switched to 45 minute mash and boil years ago with no drop in quality.

+1 I'm doing a 45min boil at the moment, just up the bittering hop quantities a bit to keep the same IBU for a shorter boil time.

 

[Petrolhead]

I hadn't given much thought to the hops as I have seen charts showing that an additional 30 mins boil adds very little but I did wonder how to adjust the volume that I am boiling which I assume will be less as I boil for a shorter period.

The recipe is sparge to 26l then boil for 90 mins.

 

[Hoppyland]

I hadn't given much thought to the hops as I have seen charts showing that an additional 30 mins boil adds very little but I did wonder how to adjust the volume that I am boiling which I assume will be less as I boil for a shorter period.

I only ever boil with a small amount of very high-alpha hops, and 60 mins seems fine. Except (and there's another recent thread on this) I don't boil vigorously these days - I use an un-modified Buffalo boiler. Anyway, I reckon I get all these bitterness I need from a 60 min on/off boil.
As to the volume - well that isn't something I measure or care about. After mashing and sparging, I normally end up with a lot less volume than I want to ferment. So, I boil the runnings and then dilute to the desired volume when filling the primary FV.

 

[MrRook]

+1 I'm doing a 45min boil at the moment, just up the bittering hop quantities a bit to keep the same IBU for a shorter boil time.

I dropped from 60 to 45 so it didn't take that many more hops to get the same IBUs.

 

[MyQul]

I hadn't given much thought to the hops as I have seen charts showing that an additional 30 mins boil adds very little but I did wonder how to adjust the volume that I am boiling which I assume will be less as I boil for a shorter period.

The recipe is sparge to 26l then boil for 90 mins.

Boil off will of course be less for a 30 min boil. I pressume you know your boil off rate for whatever kit your're using? You would of couse halve it

 

[divrack]

plug it into brewers friend and play about with it

 

[Petrolhead]

OK so I know I am over thinking this and Divrac is right when he says play with brewers friend but I haven’t got that far yet.

Recipe says mash with x amount of water per kilo.

My Klarstein, as you will all know is basically a bucket in a bucket, who said I was over thinking this! So as above I should add water up to the bottom of the grain bucket plus x amount of litres into the grain bucket. However, as the grain bucket is slightly smaller than the Klarstein I should also add a bit of water to allow for this. Which hopefully will give me the right mash consistency.

The recipe then says sparge to 26 litres so regardless of the initial volume that’s what I do.

Simple yes?

I guess to reduce the boil time to 1 hour I then use an online calculator to work out how much wort to start with so after 1 hour I’m left with the target of 23 litres and then adjust the above 26 litres to whatever I’ve calculated.

So have I confused you all or just myself?

 

[Bigcol49]

Hi!
You need to get some idea of the boil-off rate for your kit.

 

[lhooq]

I don't find my calculations are so accurate (or rather, my process that consistent) to make detailed calcs helpful... so assuming your Klarstein is not so unlike mine I would:
start with enough water to make a reasonable mash, prob as you say a bit more than the recipe says; sparge to 25l (or 26, but my Klarstein is messy boiling that much); boil for 60mins (will surely lose at least 2l); chill and put in fermenter. Check OG and then add water to correct OG as necessary, or simply top up to 23l if volume is more important.
May not be the best process but it works.

 

[Poochops]

I'm doing a brew tomorrow I think it's AG14 or 15 so not that many under my belt. The grain bill is quite small and I need it over and done with early, so I'm doing a 30 min mash /30 min boil for the first time. I usually allow 3l an hour boil off in the grainfather so I'll adjust my sparge by 1.5l to account for 50% reduction in boil time.

Assuming your klarstein boils off a similar amount, and it's just an assumption, then you'd be looking at 4.5l boil off in 90 minutes, so 3l in an hour, therefore reduce your sparge by 1.5l to account for 30 mins less boil time.

In your case I'd disregard the reduction in mash time quite happily, any difference will be so subtle as not to notice in reality. Hop utilisation reducing from 90 to 60 mins should be minimal also, and not have a noticeable effect, unless your a professional tea taster or something, so I'd not worry over that either. It might affect colour slightly but I doubt that's a consideration for you.

What you should do though is measure your preboil volume and post boil volume accurately, so next time you'll know exactly what your boil off volume per hour is for future brews. Also you can always dilute your wort back a little if you boiled off more than expected and ended up with a higher than planned OG.

 

[Petrolhead]

Thank you all I now have a better understanding and probably have been over thinking.