Post
by chazzb » Sun Aug 21, 2011 11:17 pm
I had the same problem until I started taking notes about wait time vs intervention time.
So what you need to do is to try and split those 7 and-a-bit hours into times when you're actually doing stuff, and times when you're waiting for something to happen.
For example, let's assume you need to bring 10 litres of mashing-in water up to 70+C(ish) from cold. That's going to be 20 minutes. Measure the water, switch it on, back to playing with the kids. Get yourself a cheap runner's stopwatch to time it. Measure out your sparge water and put it in the HLT.
Mash-in for 10 minutes then you're free for 40 more minutes before you need to switch on your sparge water. This is a 30 second job. So far, you're running at nearly 90 minutes with only 15(ish) minutes intervention. If your mash/sparge water goes over temperature, just switch off and give it 5 minutes to cool a bit. It won't harm your mash to wait a few minutes extra.
Then, you need to get yourself a spinny sparge arm. Once the mash time is up and your HLT is up to temp, open your mash tun, recirculate the first bits, then hook up your sparge. Spend five or so minutes calibrating the sparge flow and there you go - you've got another 20-30 minutes on your hands.
Next up, the boil. Once you've sparged, your boiler is going to need 20 mins approx to get a rolling boil going. Again, doesn't matter if you miss the actual point it hits the boil - you might be 5, 10 mins late but it won't harm anything. Use your runners watch again to time the boil and the hop additions.
Finally, hook up your cooler (or, like others suggest, cover and cool overnight). You're good to go.
Most of your 7+ hours will be waiting. Find out your wait times and use them to free you up to do other stuff (I sanded and painted a door while I did a brew). Time everything. Once you know what to expect you can knock out a brew with under an hour's intervention time - the rest of the time is yours.