Hey brewers
I just thought I would share my experience today, maybe some will find it helpful, I expect some of you already do this in some form. I’m certainly going to be doing it more often, maybe even steeping speciality grains so as not to always being doing a smash.
Basically I never have enough time to brew, and drink my supplies far too quickly. So wanted to find a way to get more from my brew session.
The last few batches I’ve made I’ve maxed out the Grainfather and managed to get around 29L in the fermenter. For a 5/6 hour brew day. Or do double brew day which takes around 9hours.
I actually managed to get organised the night before, mill the grain, measure out and adjust the water, set a timer on the GF for 6am. This saves an hour, common knowledge but huge time saver.
I mashed 8kg of Maris otter into 24L and sparged with 17L to give me around 34L after 60 mins. Pretty happy as I hit 75% and got 1.058. I don’t think I could have got another grain in the mash!! The overflow pipe was almost under and almost to the top of the grain basket lifting holes.
I split this in 2 , put 17L in my old thermos mash tun. To keep warm
I added 7L of 80c water to each batch, to bring it to 24L at 1.041.
Boiled the first batch, 30/10/5 min hop additions dropped to 80C for whirlpool hops, (and have a dry hop)but rather than let it sit for 20mins I started to transfer to FV straight away. As it takes around 20 mins anyway, I’ve read this works pretty well.
Each batch I did a 30min boil, one was 100g cascade the other was 100g huell melon. (My poor taste Probably won’t be able to tell the difference).
Both batches finished 21L I’m the fermentor at 1.045, precisely what I was aiming for when I planned it. So very happy.
I overbuilt a yeast starter and put half in each brew.
All in all it took from 7am-12pm with everything cleaned and tidied. With 2 different beers fermenting. I will be definitely doing this more often, if not every time, providing the results are good. I realise the styles are going to be somewhat similar but think there should be enough scope to mix things up using diff hops/steeping specialty grains/yeast/etc etc without adding too much more time.
Anyway let me know if any of you do this and have some extra little tricks
Jake
I just thought I would share my experience today, maybe some will find it helpful, I expect some of you already do this in some form. I’m certainly going to be doing it more often, maybe even steeping speciality grains so as not to always being doing a smash.
Basically I never have enough time to brew, and drink my supplies far too quickly. So wanted to find a way to get more from my brew session.
The last few batches I’ve made I’ve maxed out the Grainfather and managed to get around 29L in the fermenter. For a 5/6 hour brew day. Or do double brew day which takes around 9hours.
I actually managed to get organised the night before, mill the grain, measure out and adjust the water, set a timer on the GF for 6am. This saves an hour, common knowledge but huge time saver.
I mashed 8kg of Maris otter into 24L and sparged with 17L to give me around 34L after 60 mins. Pretty happy as I hit 75% and got 1.058. I don’t think I could have got another grain in the mash!! The overflow pipe was almost under and almost to the top of the grain basket lifting holes.
I split this in 2 , put 17L in my old thermos mash tun. To keep warm
I added 7L of 80c water to each batch, to bring it to 24L at 1.041.
Boiled the first batch, 30/10/5 min hop additions dropped to 80C for whirlpool hops, (and have a dry hop)but rather than let it sit for 20mins I started to transfer to FV straight away. As it takes around 20 mins anyway, I’ve read this works pretty well.
Each batch I did a 30min boil, one was 100g cascade the other was 100g huell melon. (My poor taste Probably won’t be able to tell the difference).
Both batches finished 21L I’m the fermentor at 1.045, precisely what I was aiming for when I planned it. So very happy.
I overbuilt a yeast starter and put half in each brew.
All in all it took from 7am-12pm with everything cleaned and tidied. With 2 different beers fermenting. I will be definitely doing this more often, if not every time, providing the results are good. I realise the styles are going to be somewhat similar but think there should be enough scope to mix things up using diff hops/steeping specialty grains/yeast/etc etc without adding too much more time.
Anyway let me know if any of you do this and have some extra little tricks
Jake
, and yes if I get organised enough I put on the water with salts with a time to be up to strike temperature in the morning. Another option, which isn't suitable for step mashes, is to mash overnight which makes for a split brew day but it's ready for sparge and boil whenever you like in the morning. I'm envious of you being done by 12 midday for two brews, the clean up for me always seems to drag on a bit - I'd like a giant dishwasher I could stack, press a button and come back later.... yes I know that's basically what CIP is, but there's a whole lot of stuff that goes along with that!
