How long was your first time

[Fuggled Mind]

I've just done my first ever all-grain!

Not having any homebrew buddies I've been really nervous about the whole thing. Been reading instructions from Graham Wheeler and Charlie Papazian on the train to work for more than two months. Thought I knew what I was getting into.
Came to the big day, and I was all over the place. Forgot loads of basic things. Drained my burco of sparge water and ended up using every pot and pan in the house. Luckily I started last night by boiling 40 litres worth of water to rid it of limescale so I had plenty of that.

This afternoon around 2. There was a hell of a lot of jiggery pokery trying to get the temp right in the mash cum lauter tun for the grain but was delighted to have it at 67°C. Wrapped the tun up good and proper and took a break for 2 hours. Again, good results with the starch end test and then began the sparing.

How long do you spend on sparging? I'm not exactly sure I did it right. I stopped when it tasted of water but I had almost 25l for a 19l brew. Mind you, the boil on my burco seemed to reduce it in no time.

It's now 10 pm and I just added the steep hops at 80°C. I'm fairly sure that without a wort chiller, I'll be adding the yeast tomorrow.

So, how long was your first all-grain brew session? And for those of you who are experienced, how long is your average brew day now?

Cheers

Jason

[Dennis King]

Switched on the HLT just after 10 o'clock this morning, washed the kitchen floor just after 3.30 this afternoon, keeps the wife happy. Was a relaxed brewday which included picking the wife up from Tescos and dropping her at her Dads while the mash was on so had a near on 2 hour mash.

[Lime Corridor]

Congratulations Jason, you have made beer. Feels good doesn't it!

Get planning for the next one.

LC

[moose]

First time out took me 6 or 7 hours all told, started about 11am and put the FV to bed by 6. I had all sorts of minor issues, like my hop filter clogging badly, and my brew length being a bit off due to sloppy batch sparge measuring. I assume you fly sparged? It's allowable to stop when you have enough wort, otherwise I understand you should stop when the runoff gravity is around 1010 to avoid extracting tannins. Some form of chiller is a godsend, mine's just 10m of 10mm copper microbore, some hose, fittings and a couple of jubilee clips.

[Eric]

All day and it was a total shambles. No internet in those days, I was on my own but bit by bit things got better, still are.
Well done, wait until you taste the result.

[Spud395]

I took 7 hours 1st attempt and was wrecked after it, can now knock out a brew in 5 with ease and get other stuff done as well, a little pre planning helps.

[boingy]

I think my first time took way longer than yours. The mash was a right old shambles and took bleedin' hours.

These days I heat the water on a timer overnight, mash in at about 7am and the cooled wort hits the fermenter somewhere between noon and 1pm. It's not a competition but things do get faster as you get more used to your processes and get more organised. The thing that always catches out newbies is the time it takes to sparge and the time it takes to get up to the boil. The other tip I'd give you is to tidy/clean up as you go. There is nothing worse than getting the wort into the FV and then noticing that epic pile of stuff to be dealt with before you can relax!

Gratz on your first brew. Here's to many more...

[DaRabman]

Started my third ever AG session today at 5pm, FV put to bed at 1am. No major disasters, but the big time sinks were sparging and in combination, getting up to boil and down to pitching.
What ended up being the big hassle was finding a HLT for my fly sparge. I only remembered this morning that I had been borrowing one from a friend who had since taken it back, so I ended up using a bucket, a fruit bowl and the largest saucepan in the flat!
(Yes, I hear you asking why I didn't batch sparge!)

[Capped]

My first ever attempt at AG was after a ten-pint sesh,out with the lads on a Saturday night. I'd got all the stuff and planned to brew on Sunday but the beer I'd had and the impatience of youth (yes it was that long ago) got the better of me,so it was about midnight and I was bouncing off the walls when I started. The whole episode was a disaster (ya don't say??) and I was lucky not to kill myself. The sun was up,and I'd got a shocking hangover kicking in when I'd done. I had this piss-coloured brew of about OG1020 and the place was like a bomb-site. It turned out awful and to this day I've never brewed again whilst under the influence .

[PureGuiness]

My brew days have always taken about 7 hours from start to finish, including any late hop additions and rest before putting in FV and pitching yeast then clearing everything up.

During that 7 hours though there will be plenty of time where I'll be off doing other things so it doesn't need to take all of your time and attention if you plan ahead.

Well done on your first brew day.

[subfaction]

Well done, it gets much easier with practise, I wrapped up my 4th AG yesterday, it's little things that you figure out that make it go more smoothly and faster. I find that taking notes throughout on brewday, then the next day read over them and make a list of stuff to do next time to improve matters, you'll soon get quicker and more confident.
I BIAB and find a brewday takes at least 6 hours, inc. cleanup - but not sparging as you would in a 3 tier cuts out time. That normally includes a lengthy mash due to dad duties that allways crop up 1/2 way through. As said above, pre-heating water really helps that hour or so waiting to get it up to temp to mash-in.

[fego]

My first time took about twelve hours compared to the six or seven now. Plus I can do other bits and bobs at the same time now whereas back then I couldn't do anything.

Like you, I remember panicking thinking that I had only a few seconds to measure stuff expecting everything to have to be perfect and believing it would all go wrong if I spent a second more mashing or boiling or didn't get the temperatures spot on. I've since learned (as im sure you will), that you don't need to panic and close is good enough. You still end up with beer. In fact, some of my best beers have been born courtesy of mistakes or or by accident. One of the best improvements i made was when my thermometer broke forcing me to get another one which was far more accurate. I had spent ages trying to get the temps perfect with the old one Only to find out it wasnt accurate anyway. i now regularly test my thermometers to make sure theyre accurate still.

I've done about 50 AG's now and I'm still finding things to improve on but I don't panic anymore. Oh, and when Mrs. F asks when I'll be finished, I always add an hour just in case.

[Fuggled Mind]

Thanks guys

Really enjoyed reading your responses.

I finally pitched my yeast this morning. Pitched at 28°C and put it away in a cupboard where the temp is 20°C. The smell was of real beer. Something I've never had with extract. Also I brewed a summer ale as you can never get that golden colour with extract - one of my reasons for wanting to do AG (not that I'm knocking extract).

Boingy - I used your recipe for White Wych as a basis for mine but used rye instead of wheat and Argentinian cascade instead of Goldings. Also used US-05 to emphasise the hop profile.

having time to reflect, I may have made a few mistakes. I forgot to load the hops into my hop bag and now the tap on my burco seems to be a tad blocked.

I don't know how but I boiled roughly 25L down to 16L. This might have been due to the fact that I forgot to set the timer for the boil or record when I started. I was not sure how long the boil went on for but probably around 2 hours. The rolling boil on the burco is nothing short of ferrocious. As I had so much spare boiled and cooled water. I topped back up to 19 which is what I planned for. Was that a bad thing to do?

Overall though, this is definitely something I will do again.

Cheers

Jason

[Horatio]

My first Ag was in the mid eighties and took about 10 or 11 hours all told! I used a brewheat bucket as a mash tun and it was a real pain to maintain a constant temp. Then there was the faffing about sparging as I didn't have another method of heating water! I really didn't have a clue what I was doing and just refereed to my Dave LIne book all day! It didn't put me off and things got steadily better over the years and I still made beer but is wasn't great, but it got better and better, then worse then stayed the same then got better again! Now it take about 4½ hours from start to finish.

[DerbyshireNick]

10am to 7pm

Different story nowadays. I improve something with every brew. Tend to mash the night before now though which I have found an added benefit of that warrants its own thread soon.