Spilt Brew Days

[Smiddylad]

Hi All
What are peoples thoughts on split brew days. I was listening to an archived podcast of basic brewing whereby one of the guest splits his brew day over a night and a morning. The concept is to brew as normal, starting around 7pm and once you’ve sparged into the kettle, you cover the kettle with blankets or whatever to keep it warm and go to bed. The next morning you wake up and carry the brewing process on as normal. I have a young daughter and don’t have the time to devote a whole day to brewing. I’ve tried night time brewing finishing around midnight, which I don’t like as I get tired and rush and end up making mistakes. I think it is the way forward, I start Friday night and I’m completely finished and cleaned up by midday Saturday with the afternoon free to do family stuff.

Does anyone else take this approach, are there any pitfalls? I know first wort hopping is probably not a good idea, but other than that I can’t think of anything.

Neil

 

[joe1002]

A lot of people mash overnight so all you have to do the following day is sparge and boil. If you are using electric you can set your HLT on a timer so sparge water is ready for when you wake up.

Having said that, I don't see any problem with sparging the night before also.

 

[abeyptfc]

yeah I do this most of the time, I started off doing overnight mashes then started mashing and sparging on the same night, so I've got all my wort ready to boil then get up the next morning and stick the boiler on. the benefits are that you are brewing 2 days in a row! : and it saves you a bit of time the next day aswell.

 

[Smiddylad]

Couldn't agree more. There are some days where I want to do all my brewing in one day, especially if I have friends over. But I just love the fact that it doesn't take a big chunk out of my weekend. I was struggling to find the time to do a brew and tried a few extracts recipes, but they just didn't work for me :)