How long does making AG take?

[Drunken Horse]

I've done quite a few kits now and have started modding them.

I've dry hopped, seeped malts added differnet fermentables and flavourings (like cocoa powder)

now with my last brew I boiled up some LME with some seeped crushed chocolate malt, cocoa powder and lactose and it got me wondering .I've now got well past the simple Wash and sterilise my gear and throw a kit in so how much extra time would it take to make All grain? Time is the only barrier Ican see to me making the move to A.G.

My brewdays at the moment are like this

Select, clean and sterlise brewing equipment ( 30-40 minutes)
Boil up additional ingredients and LME (30-40 minutes)
add everything to FV (10 minutes)
clean up equipment (10 minutes)

So about 1 hour 20-30ish.

Obviously theres more equipment to clean and a few more steps with AG so How much longer does an A.G brew on average?

 

[rpt]

AG takes a lot longer than this. The mash is 60-90 minutes as is the boil. Plus there's the time it takes for your boiler to get to mash temperature and then to get to a rolling boil. That could easily be another couple of hours. If you do 3V rather than BIAB then there is also sparging. Finally, you need to cool the wort. With a chiller this might be 30 minutes. I use a no-chill cube so there is no time taken on brew day itself - it means I pitch the yeast the next day. You can spread the job out by doing an overnight mash. And, of course, there is more kit to clean up.

But, it is well worth it. Makes much better beer much cheaper.

 

[Good Ed]

6-7 hours for me, it's not something to be rushed, why would you?

 

[dennisking]

6-7 hours for me, it's not something to be rushed, why would you?

Yep, it's my time, in the garage with the radio for company. You can utilise the mash and boil time by doing other things, if you want to.

 

[fizz head1982]

6 hours, with some breaks, mainly the 90 mash... and I am a noob AG brewer!

Honestly, and I mean no offence, but i dont see wtf those "BIAB" and "extract" guys are doing... It seems to me they are like campbell condensed soup guys and we are from scratch soup guys... I dont get it at all, AG is cheaper and better...

Not trying to start a fight but its the way it seems to me. :

 

[Runwell-Steve]

About the same for me. Approx 6 hours from switching on the HLT, to being all finished and cleared up, and the yeast pitched in the fermenters. On a nice day I usually clean the car at the same time.

HLT fill and heat up, 30 minutes, (I start with hot water from the combi boiler)

Mash in 10 minutes

Mash 90 minutes

Sparge 30 minutes

Boiler getting up to boil 20 minutes

Boil 90 minutes.

Steep hops and settle 60 minutes

Transfer to fermenters via plate chiller 15 minutes

Wash and tidy up 15 - 30 minutes


BTW, BIAB is All Grain brewing, makes just as good beer but uses a different technique.

 

[dennisking]

!

Honestly, and I mean no offence, but i dont see wtf those "BIAB" and "extract" guys are doing... It seems to me they are like campbell condensed soup guys and we are from scratch soup guys... I dont get it at all, AG is cheaper and better...

It's each to thier own, I like the way I do it others wouldn't, that's life.

 

[fizz head1982]

Certainly is matey! :

 

[Drunken Horse]

6 hours, with some breaks, mainly the 90 mash... and I am a noob AG brewer!

Honestly, and I mean no offence, but i dont see wtf those "BIAB" and "extract" guys are doing... It seems to me they are like campbell condensed soup guys and we are from scratch soup guys... I dont get it at all, AG is cheaper and better...

Not trying to start a fight but its the way it seems to me. :

I'd say its more comparable to, baking a cake from flour eggs and sugar or baking an aunt bessie's cake mix set where you can add extra sprinkles or jam if you want. :)

I have no doubt that AG beer is better. But at the moment I dont have time (I wish i had 7 hours free!) I will say though with a bit of tweaking the kits are as good if not better than anything you buy in the supermarket.

 

[Strata]

I go for half grain, half extract as I don't have the kit at the moment for full grain ( planning on a house move so now would be a dumb idea to buy it ) - handling the volume is the issue. I don't think there's anything wrong with brewing from extract - it's more expensive and gives you less control but it's a step up from kits and gives new comers a useful island to stand on the journey between a Wilkco kit and full on mountains of grain.

Takes me about 4 -5 hours to do a brew with half and half - much smaller volumes of liquid to warm up.

Good kits can produce an ok beer but the number of terrible kits out there is staggering and I have no doubt they're responsible for the standard eye rolling reaction and jokes that come when you mention home brewing to the average person.
Tried one of the brew in a bag kits twenty years ago - could have put me off brewing for life, thankfully I'm very stubborn and refused to give in.

 

[fizz head1982]

[quote="fizz head1982":1k868w7o]6 hours, with some breaks, mainly the 90 mash... and I am a noob AG brewer!

Honestly, and I mean no offence, but i dont see wtf those "BIAB" and "extract" guys are doing... It seems to me they are like campbell condensed soup guys and we are from scratch soup guys... I dont get it at all, AG is cheaper and better...

Not trying to start a fight but its the way it seems to me. :

I'd say its more comparable to, baking a cake from flour eggs and sugar or baking an aunt bessie's cake mix set where you can add extra sprinkles or jam if you want. :)

I have no doubt that AG beer is better. But at the moment I dont have time (I wish i had 7 hours free!) I will say though with a bit of tweaking the kits are as good if not better than anything you buy in the supermarket.[/quote:1k868w7o]

Yes thats a better analogy... When I said it's cheaper, in some countries I know Canada is one, AG is more expensive and hence they do allot of kits. I don't know but BIAB might be cheaper in Australia as it seems quite popular there.

 

[Sandimas]

Honestly, and I mean no offence, but i dont see wtf those "BIAB" and "extract" guys are doing... It seems to me they are like campbell condensed soup guys and we are from scratch soup guys... I dont get it at all, AG is cheaper and better...

I'm pretty satisfied with Extract, most of the beers are equal or better quality than pub beer, and all who have tasted it agree, so I don't think the "campbell condensed soup" comparison holds And yes they are more expensive, but dividing the cost between 40 pints and you're talking 10-15p a pint more, still around 70p a pint which is still cheap for a quality product.

The big winner for me with Extract is time: I can generally do them in under 2 hours. I'd love to do AG, but trying to find 6 hours free to do anything (including sleeping) with a busy working and family life is just a pipe dream at the moment. :shock:

 

[morethanworts]

I've only done two AGs so far, and if I discount the fact that I mashed for 2.5hrs rather than the usual 90 max, then it was still a good 8-9hrs from very start to all cleaned-up. I have yet to fit a tap to my pots, so I was siphoning the cooled wort into the FV, which added considerable time, what with the hops clogging etc. It's amazing where the time goes, but as Steve says above, the mash (and even parts of the boil) will become usable free time - although in these first two, I was using some of it to check my calcs, equipment, and to go over the next bit in my head.

So, as above, I reckon I will be taking 6-7 hrs once I've got a couple of things sorted.

 

[calumscott]

My 40l BIAB brewdays are something like...

night before - pot filled
07:00 - burners on, expect rise time of 80secs/Centigrade.
08:15 - bag in, dough in, takes about 15 mins
08:30 - mash
10:00 - burners on to reach mashout temp.
10:15 - mash out temp reached.
10:25 - mash out complete, pull the bag
10:35 - burners on for the boil
11:15 - boil start
12:45 - flame out
13:00 - start running off
13:40 - running complete

Then all a couple of hours for cleaning, fettling (got to do some fettling), writing up notes, clearing away and telling everyone about your brew in the chatroom...

 

[Dave1970]

Honestly, and I mean no offence, but i dont see wtf those "BIAB" and "extract" guys are doing... It seems to me they are like campbell condensed soup guys and we are from scratch soup guys... I dont get it at all, AG is cheaper and better...

BIAB isn't an alternative to AG - it is a different way of doing AG using a single vessel for mashing and boiling by containing the grains in a bag. There might be a discussion (and has been) on the merits of BIAB vs 3V brewing but not BIAB vs AG. If cheaper is important then BIAB has a strong case as there's lower equipment costs. A mate who BIAB's and I made the same Old Speckled Hen recipe and there was very little difference in the end product.

I 3V myself

HLT on a timer so it's ready for me in the morning set this up the night before - 30mins
Mash in get temp right and leave for - 90 mins
Sparge - varies but about 60 mins
Boiler heats back up - 30 mins (I could save time here if I really used 3 vessels - I sparge into 2 FV's and then lift back up to the boiler - this allows the wort to cool quite a lot at this stage and wastes a bit of time coming back to the boil)
Boil - 90 mins
Cooling - 45mins - maybe a bit longer if there's some steeping time for a 0 min hop addition
transfer to FV - 15 mins
Clean up 45 mins

30+90+60+30+90+45+15+45=6 3/4 hrs give or take - you can be doing other stuff while the mash and boil are going on though so it's not 6+ hours focussed just on brewing

 

[calumscott]

Honestly, and I mean no offence, but i dont see wtf those "BIAB" and "extract" guys are doing... It seems to me they are like campbell condensed soup guys and we are from scratch soup guys... I dont get it at all, AG is cheaper and better...

Not trying to start a fight but its the way it seems to me. :

If you're not trying to start a fight, start with the facts.

BIAB = AG.

 

[fizz head1982]

Knowing now, what I didnt know before, I can see wtf BIAB and Extract guys are doing... They are brewing within severe time constraints rather than not brewing at all. This makes allot of sense now. :

 

[boozy_shoes]

As others have said 5-7 hours is about right but there is a lot of downtime to make the next stage easier or quicker or to do other thigns at the same time, I usually brew on a sunday and make a roast dinner at the same time and it usually goes something like:

*Rinse mash tun then add water from the hot tap and leave to get upto temp (half hour ish)
*Weigh out grain (recipe will have been designed weekday evenings) and mix in spare FV. (15min)
*Pitch grain and stir well before insulating with sleeping bags and cushions for 90 minutes (20 min (+90))

*Put meat in roasting tin (and marinade with whatever it needs on it) (downtime 15 min)
*Peel veg and potatoes and put in pans of water (downtime 20 minutes)
*Fill HLT with 20 odd litres of sparging water again from the hot tap and leave to get upto temp (downtime 5 minutes)
*Rehydrate stuffing (downtime 10 min)
*Make a quick bit of breakfast/lunch/brunch (downtime 20 min + 15 min eating)

*Begin run off and sparge upto 5 gallons (45 min - 1 hour)
*Empty leftover sparge water out of HLT and turn it into boiler, add wort and put on to get upto boil (45 min)

*Clean mash tun and sides and put oven on (downtime 20 minutes)
*Weigh out hop additions (downtime 20 minutes)

*Start of boil, add first addition then put the meat in the oven (i use the same time so i only have to remember one time to base everything on)
*Carry on boiling and watching time for the additions but you can also use this time to sterilise your FV and the other stuff you need for pitching
*finish boiling (60 min total for last three steps)
*Wait 20 minutes for trub to settle (20 minutes)
*Run carefully off into 2 FV's being careful not to splash the hot wort then put in bath of cold water to cool (15 minutes)
*Do the rest of the roast as per normal (downtime as long as the wort takes to cool, this time can also be use to wash the boiler and the rest of your equipemtn and do the floor etc)
*EAT ROAST (by now you will be starving)
*Keep an eye on temperature and when it gets down to temperature take gravity reading, add yeast nutrient, aerate wort and pitch yeast. (20 min)

This way also puts you in the good books of SWMBO as she gets a big roast and you get undisturbed in the kitchen all day...

 

[fizz head1982]

This way also puts you in the good books of SWMBO as she gets a big roast and you get undisturbed in the kitchen all day...

Genius! :clap:

 

[calumscott]

BIAB isn't about time constraints.

It takes the same time as three vessel AG brewing with the exception of the sparge. In fact, three vessel AG brewers can possibly brew faster than BIAB as the rise times between mash steps in BIAB are horrific.

BIAB is about simplicity not time saving. I have a single big pot, that is my brewery.

Extract has a number of advantages over any form of grain brewing, the simplicity and smaller size of equipment and the time saving of only having a boil to contend with are very appealing.

Both methods have disadvantages too, cost with extract, the ability to produce very high gravity worts (and some *very* subtle other downstream effects which we debate at length with Aleman) in BIAB.

Both methods will easily produce beer in the quality spectrum of 3 vessel AG brewing and both methods can and do produce beer right at the top end of that spectrum.

At the moment, I can't see me ever moving completely over (even though I have most of the parts to build a 3 vessel shiny brewery) to 3 vessel. BIAB is just so simple and there is NO appreciable reduction in quality of output for standard (in my book that's up to 7%) beers that are brewed for general consumption (so not beers for laying down for any period).

So while I'm on my high horse:

The creation of alcohol by fermenting stuff yourself is what this hobby is all about. Whether you start from a beer kit, supermarket apple juice or malt your own barley it is still better than buying whatever the supermarkets push you.

I have produced beer from kits that is easily as good as most bottled ales and easily as good as most stuff served in pubs.

But that's not the issue, the reality of brewing your own beer/wine/cider is that it connects you with beer/wine/cider, real drink. And when you connect with and understand what you drink (this applies to eating too) you treat it with far more respect. Some may stop there, many come here with their first brews and are never seen again - I guess some people just don't connect. But many, many people do and come back and learn more and make better beer and try other ways of making beer, Extract, BIAB, 3 vessel, HERMS' even.

And that is why, whenever anyone on here with nonsense like:

It seems to me they are like campbell condensed soup guys and we are from scratch soup guys...

and

I dont get it at all, AG is cheaper and better...

...it really gets my back up. And it gets my back up more when that nonsense is based on a lack of knowledge.

Feel free to criticise anything on THBF, but only if you actually understand the topic.