Speed brewing

[tubby_shaw]

Being forever short of time these days I am trying to speed up my brewing process.
So today I am brewing the recipe below,

4.5 kg Maris Otter pale ale malt
50g Fuggles 3.2% aa 60 min. boil
25g Styrian Goldings 2% aa 60 minutes
25g Styrian Goldings 2% aa 15 minutes
25g Styrian Goldings 2% aa 5 minutes
25g Styrian Goldings 2% aa at boiler switch off

Safale 04

Mashed at 66 C for 60 minutes (30 minutes less than usual for me)

Target og 1.039

So hopefully as I have done my first true batch sparge today which I think has knocked 30 minutes off of the brewday.
I have mashed for 30 minutes less and boiled for 30 minutes less. I am hoping for a much shorter brewday.
I started at 11.30 this morning heating the sparge liquor and I am 10 minutes into the boil now so I should be finished and everything cleaned and put away by 15.45 16.00.
Fingers crossed that the quality of the ale doesn't suffer

[tubby_shaw]

I bet you can't guess where that was from

Mmmm Drop & Grope

[bitter_dave]

I've started to mash and boil for 60 mins, or thereabouts, rather than 90 for my last few brews and I can't say I can detect any difference in the quality (although I tend to stick to 1040ish brews).

[ColinKeb]

would you not have to up the hops slightly with a reduced boil time ? or has it all been extracted in the first 60 mins?

[Scooby]

I bet you can't guess where that was from

WHAT I was castigated for making such insinuations and Patsy being such a lovely lady as well

[tubby_shaw]

would you not have to up the hops slightly with a reduced boil time ? or has it all been extracted in the first 60 mins?

A shorter boil does reduce the bitterness, but I'd already adjusted the hops to take into account the shorter boil
I'm hoping for 30 IBU

[tubby_shaw]

Done and dusted
I was a little concerned about my efficiency using batch sparging, so I upped the grain bill accordingly.
Shouldn't have bothered I was expecting an efficiency of 70% and got 85% so I now have 25 Litres at 1.048
I was aiming for a session beer at 1.039
I think batch sparging may be the way forward
Now I just need to sort out the cooling post boil

[steve_flack]

Batch Sparging is Fab.

[Wez]

Batch Sparging is Fab.

I've only ever used a spinny sparger, what's the process for batch sparging and apart from higher efficiency what are the other pro's or cons?

[delboy]

Batch Sparging is Fab.

I've only ever used a spinny sparger, what's the process for batch sparging and apart from higher efficiency what are the other pro's or cons?

For one you don't have to listen to the annoying squeak of the spinny .
IMO its easier to do (no fiddling about balancing the system), its quick, and there is supposed to be less chance of extracting nasties like tannins etc.
Im sure some of our more learned members will be able to post the full list of pros and cons.

[notassuch]

Nice going Tubby.

Batch sparging appears to be becoming 'the new black' from the posts I'm reading on here.
Kinda wanting a bit of the action.

BTW, 1.048 is a session beer isn't it? Any lower and it becomes breakfast.

Made a couple of needed additions to my own set up in order to cut the brewing time. (or the waiting time, more like)
But I filled in the time I saved with some quality cock-ups to make it a whole day's worth.
What the hell, my file-o-fax told me I didn't have any power lunches to attend that day.

[bandit]

Daab how long would you leave the second batch in the mash tun for before running it off?

[steve_flack]

Basically you stir it to get it all mixed then recirculate to get rid of lumps (like you would at the end of the mash).

[noby]

Some people leave it sit for ten minutes or so, but I'm not sure if there's anything to gain by doing this.

[oblivious]

Conversion has all ready occurred, no need to wait