Double Brew Day
April 4, 2010
If you’ve been keeping up with my homebrewing posts, you saw that I was running behind, and had to change my schedule a little bit.
I scheduled 2 brews for yesterday, figuring it would take less time than doing it individually. Boy was I right!
Not only did it save time, but having all the equipment already out made the second brew just fly by. I was even considering trying to do three in a row. 
I did all of the mashing in the kitchen, heating that water on the stove in a couple of pots, with my mash tun on the kitchen table. Then I would carry the wort out into the garage with a bucket where my brew kettle was sitting on the propane burner.
After finishing Sparging, I didn’t have to sit around waiting for my kettle to come to a boil, I was busy in the kitchen getting ready for the next batch. I did have a hour and a half delay in between batches though, I had to roast some malt and I didn’t realize it was going to take as long as it did.
While the first batch finished boiling and was cooling, I was getting the second batch ready. While it was coming to a boil, I was racking the first batch.
All in all, it went really well. The delay worked in my favor, because there wasn’t a point where I could have used a second burner. I did however just pick up another burner, and as soon as I get a high pressure regulator for it, I’ll be good to go.
I’ll also be taking part in a group buy in Denver later on in the month, and I’ll have 100 lbs of malt on hand, I may have to throw even more extra brews in the schedule. We’ll see.
Also on Port 16:
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April 7th, 2010 at 11:44 am
Wow - two in the same day! I have only attempted 2 in the same weekend. Don’t think I would want to do 2 in the same day - unless I had another burner, brewpot and MLT. otherwise I would have to do them in succession - which really would save me any time. Kudos to you to finding a way to pull it off.
I am curious on the malt roasting…
April 7th, 2010 at 11:48 am
Thanks for stopping by Jeff! I’ve got 2 kettles, but that’s about it. I plan on doing it again, but I think a second burner would be best. If I had a wort chiller, that would be nice too
As for the malt, it was just 2-row. I roasted it for a Octoberfest. I think it was 60 minutes at 275 on a cookie tray, and then 30 minutes at 350. The Recipe was from “The Homebrewer’s Recipe Guide”. I’ve done it once before for a Irish Ale that was magnificent.
June 1st, 2010 at 7:49 pm
Mike,
I have found something similar. I’m not an all grain brewer just yet, but during brew days when my brew is boiling on the stove, I can get another batch bottled at the same time. It prevents me from having to take things out twice and I can use sanitizer more thoroughly instead of wasting some of it for just a few things in my brewing batch.
One day a group of us brewed 5 batches, but we had 3 burners so I suppose it wasn’t that big a deal, but it was fun to do as many as we could in an afternoon.
Anyway, great blog!
Mike
Mike’s Brew Review
June 2nd, 2010 at 7:46 am
Thanks Mike!
It absolutely saves time on the setup and cleanup, and doing all grain batches, you can mash while boiling a batch. It worked out really nicely for me.
I’ve actually been in the habit lately of saving my sanitizer for a little while, and using it over and over. I keep it in a ferm bucket with a lid when I’m not using it. If nothing else, I can at least use a batch of sanitizer to clean what I’m brewing with, then to clean for transfer to secondary (I rarely secondary) and then for the bottles. Your mileage may vary.
Thanks for stopping by!