Can I brew on a work-night?
10 August 2018
Want to squeeze in a brew after work on a week night? The key- have a plan!
 |
My weekends fill up quickly, so I have started squeezing brewing sessions in the evening. Depending on your schedule, commute, brewing set up and ability to stay up late- its totally possible… but you do need to be organized. You also should be familiar with the brewing process, an evening brew would not be a great idea for a first time brewer!
Set yourself up for success before hand:
- Have all your ingredients in one place, measured and ready to go
- If doing water chemistry, have that calculated
- Round up equipment
- Have a clean enough kitchen to start
Pick a simple recipe:
- High amounts of pilsner malts require longer boils… maybe save that for the weekend
- Consider extract brewing/ a kit to simplify the process and have everything in one place
Summary Timeline
| Time(min) | Activity | Preparing |
|---|---|---|
| 20 | Heating strike water | Weight grains, get water chemistry |
| 60 | Mashing | Heat sparge water, weigh hops |
| 40 | Sparging & Heating | |
| 60 | Boil | Make Star-san, clean grain bag, prepare cooling stuff |
| 40 | Cooling | Clean what you can |
| 15 | Transfer & add Yeast | Maybe finishing cleaning? |
4 hours |
Brew night complete |
When you get home, dump in your water chemistry additions and heat the strike water. It helps to know a timeframe and set a timer. For example, on my stove, I know that I need about 12 minutes on high (with lid on) to heat the 1.5 gallons I use for mashing. I turn it on, and then run and change out of work clothing, and bring everything I had previously gathered into the kitchen. A plus side of small batch brewing is that this heating process takes less time than a big 5 gallon batch.
Since I use the Brew-in-a-bag (BIAG) method of mashing, I throw my pre-milled (and measured) grains in once I reach strike temperature. I set 15 minute timers to remind me to stir and check the temperature. I generally putter around the kitchen measuring hops, shoveling leftovers (or pizza) into my face, and doing a final kitchen tidy. When I have 15 minutes of mash left, I heat my sparge water to 170.
Once my mash timer is up, I do a quick sparge. This takes me about 20 minutes. While many people recommend taking longer to sparge, I sacrifice that for time. Before I start sparging I heat water to a boil in an electric kettle to speed up the next step.
When the sparge water in running clear, I throw the grain bag in the sink and crank my stove up, adding the boiling water from the electric kettle to help speed the process. Bringing the kettle to a boil takes another 15 minutes or so.
Once at a boil I reduce the temperature to a low boil (between a 5 and 6 on my stove). I then make up my bucket of star san, make sure I have my yeast, and sanitize all future equipment. I dump the spent grain and wash the grain bag so they are out of the sink (which I use for cooling). This is generally the point at which I start having a beer.
 |
After my boil is done I put the kettle in a sink with cold water. A chiller can speed up the process, but for these smaller 2.5 gallon batches, I still don’t think a chiller is worth the space (my husband however very much disagrees). Given the massive heat differential, I generally don’t bother with ice for the two sinkfulls of water. I stir the wort with a (sanitized) spoon, and stir the water bath to facilitate heat transfer. When I get bored with stirring, I do a quick wipe up of the stove for the inevitable sticky messes, and clean what I can (hop bags, measuring bowls etc) Starting with the 3rd sink of water, I start dumping ice into the sink to speed things up. Done this way, the cooling process generally takes 40 minutes. Again, smaller batch means quicker cooling time.
Transferring to the fermenter, pitching the yeast in, setting up the bung and airlock, and getting the fermenter into the closet is another 15 minutes or so.
 |
If you have been cleaning as you went along, it should be a relatively quick clean up of the kettle, siphon and other small things. Or if you have tolerant housemates, leave the cleaning until tomorrow. Or is something went horribly off plan and it’s now the wee-hours of the next day, just leave it to deal with tomorrow.
I like evening brewing, it feels like I’m sneaking a whole extra-chunk of time into my day. A plus side to this smaller scale kitchen brew is that this is possible without having to haul out a ton of equipment, and the smaller batch size means the heating/cooling time is shorter.
Summary Timeline
| Time(min) | Activity | Preparing |
|---|---|---|
| 20 | Heating strike water | Weight grains, get water chemistry |
| 60 | Mashing | Heat sparge water, weigh hops |
| 40 | Sparging & Heating | |
| 60 | Boil | Make Star-san, clean grain bag, prepare cooling stuff |
| 40 | Cooling | Clean what you can |
| 15 | Transfer & add Yeast | Maybe finishing cleaning? |
4 hours |
Brew night complete |