Brewday efficiency

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?

I batch sparge... not entirely quicker but saves on messing with flow rates and I get first batch on heat while second is soaking.
Saves me a good while about an hour! Maybe a bit of experience helping too.

I batch sparge too, but didn't think I should start the first lot heating up before the second lot, least of all so I can get a decent measure of pre-boil gravity. It's a thought though, something I may opt for.

Cheers!

I just measure the og and fg never bother with a pre-boil but then I have never decided to recreate a recipe.... a bit rough and ready... I have recorded ingredients and repeated but used different yeast so can't draw comparison.

Having a 3 vessel system I can start the boiler before I finished sparging. I normally therefore hit boil about 10 mins after sparge done.

Putting hot water from your combi boiler into HLT saves a fair bit too.

Other than that you're not doing anything nobody else does but I think the thing holding you back is the lack of dedicated boiler.

K

I get the water in the boiler along with a campden tablet the night before. I also weigh out all the grains then too. Turn the heater on as soon as I get up so by the time I've had a shower and breakfast etc it's up to strike temperature. I save a lot of time by doing BIAB with a no-chill cube so there's no sparge and no cooling time. Obviously I have to leave the wort to cool but I don't have to attend to it. I pitch the yeast either that evening or the next day. Another way to save time is to do an overnight mash.

You can def do better here . I do a 2.5hr mash with a 90 min boil and i get it to around 6hrs now . I get the water and the grains all ready the night before so when i start the water is on from go . I clean in between mash and boil , i also start the boil asap then chuck the rest in when drained ( batch sparge) .

Why a 2.5hr mash Pittsy?

mash in and rest 10 mins , raise at 1c per min plus rest of 20 mins then more raising plus next rest 30 mins then raise again plus last rest of 50 mins then raise to mash out plus 10 mins is around 2.5hrs . If I do a decoction add 40 mins more .

OK, so it looks like people don't worry too much about taking a pre-boil gravity reading or volume check then? Interesting. I also thought that ALL the beer would need the entire boil time, but I guess not.

Plus yes, a separate boiler is definitely on the list for when I upgrade.

Thanks guys, these are all good tips.

Definitely always check pre-boil volume. Need to do that.

Don't always check pre-boil gravity though.

K