Time is a tough thing to get these days.  Homebrewing as a hobby has a significant amount of down time built into it: Primary fermentation, Secondary fermentation, bottle conditioning, hangovers…. But it also requires a good block of “investment” time to get a batch going.  Getting your wort made can take upwards of 5-6 hours depending on your techniques and methods.

On this page, John and I will hope to outline several key changes to equipment or process that you can use to shave time off your brew session and still make good beer.  Our hope is to make this page a growing list of suggestions with links to detailed follow-up posts for each technique listed.

We encourage readers to leave comments here about things they’ve done to shorten their process, and we’ll try and include the best one’s in the growing list.  We look forward to developing this content and your suggestions as we add to the list.

What list?  Here it is:

1. Extract Brewing
2. Setting Up the Night Before
3. Cold Steeping Grains
4. Overnight Mashing
5. Superior Chilling Practices
6. Brew In A Bag
7. Late Extract and Hop Bursting
8. Shortening the Ramping Time to Boiling
9. Electric Brewing Tools (inspired by JW)

I finally got around to ordering two hop rhizomes tonight.

Magnum Hop Rhizome

Mt. Hood Hop Rhizome

I bought a Magnum rhizomes because I have had difficulty buying the variety at my local brew shop and I wanted to grow a good bittering hop.

Mt. Hood was bred to be a Hallertauer replacement, so I thought it would be interesting to compare it to the noble hop. Plus, I wanted to grow a good aroma hop.

Once I get them, I’ll snap some photos and get more information about planting them.

If you’re a regular reader you know that I recently added a second brew assistant to my brewhouse.  With two sons now at home it becomes more difficult to find time to brew.   I have been thinking of ways to get in brewing sessions that are short and quick to slake my thirst for brewing whenever I have time.

I have been pondering the occasional dabble in extract brewing again.  I don’t plan to abandon my all-grain brewing setup as I love the process and the control.  But extract brewing would be a quick way to bang out some easier beers, experiment with ingredients and just stay active in the hobby when a 6-7 hour brew session with all-grain won’t cut it.

So this post is a call to all our extract brewing readers. What styles of beers really lend themselves to extract brewing?  I was thinking of putting together a simple Amber recipe to get myself started in the 2010 brewing season. I figure maybe a good dry Irish Stout and maybe a couple good English Brown ales, milds or other session style brews.

What is on your extract agenda these days?

BREW ON!

‘Tis the season to buy hop rhizomes or at least that is what I have read.  Usually around this time of year, I will get inundated with emails from home brewing stores making sure I know it’s time to order rhizomes.  Usually they are only available in February and March, right in time for the growing season.

I think I need to revisit this post about growing hops.

My plan is to buy from Northern Brewer and get a couple of rhizomes.  I want to get a bittering variety and an aroma variety so my plan is to grow Magnum and Mt. Hood.    I think those two will make for some good American style ale brewing in the Fall.

My brother has a pretty good set up for his garden and he is on board for some hop growing this summer.  I have been jealous of other homebrewing blogger around harvest time.  Here’s to a favorable growing season and a good yield to show off on our blog.

Reader update: Mike has added another little brew dude to his family. His wife gave birth to a baby boy last Friday night. Everyone is doing well and they should be coming home soon.

I thought I would update everybody just to let you know that he’s been brewing up more than just Oatmeal Stouts lately.

CHEERS!

Ok.  I was reading How To Brew last night just to recheck how long I should lager the Maibock and I came across the passage about suggested lagering times.

In the book, it states that the time depends on temperature:

• 3 to 4 weeks at 45°F
• 5 to 6 weeks at 40°F
• 7 or 8 weeks at 35°F

After this passage, a question is posed. 

If the beer will condition faster at higher temperatures, why would anyone lager at the low temperature?

The first answer that is provided has something to do with icehouses and tradition…I guess icehouse got the beer’s temp to 35 degrees.

The second answer states that colder lagering temperatures work better in getting proteins and tannins to drop out of the beer.

My question is, why does lager-style conditioning work “faster” at warmer temperatures?

We had a reader write in to ask us about how to take a gravity reading during fermentation because he had never done it before. 

To tell you the truth, I haven’t done one either.  With ales, I would let them sit in the primary fermenter for 2 weeks and then bottle them up.  I would take a reading at bottling and whatever my hydrometer said, I would take.

With this lager, two weeks may not be enough time.  It may have to stay in primary fermentation for a month.  I won’t know until I check the gravity on Sunday.

Here’s a few thoughts about gravity readings during fermentation from my perspective:

1. You want to get a long, thin cylinder/tube of some sort that is easy to clean and sanitize.  I have seen homebrewers use (new) turkey basters.  I have seen homebrewers use glass wine thieves.  I have a nice plastic one that can be broken apart into 3 pieces for easy cleaning.  Whatever you use, you want to make sure it fits the opening of your fermenter and it has openings on both ends.
2. Like I alluded to earlier, clean your tube well and sanitize it before you use it to take your gravity reading
3. Open your fermenter in a non-drafty place.  You want to minimize wild yeast getting into your fermenter.
4. Put the tube into your fermenter to a level that fills the tube with a good sized sample…a half filled tube should be good.
5. Put your thumb on the end of the tube that is in your hand and slowly pull the tube out of your fermenter.
6. Use the sample for whatever tool you use to get gravity reading like a hydrometer or a refractometer.
7. Some brewers return the unused part of the sample back to the fermenter.  If you think it is clean, then go ahead.  If you feel like you have compromised it in a way that may bring infection or other bad things to your beer, just chuck it.

If you have hit your target final gravity, then go to your next stage of the beer’s life.  I plan to use the sample I take on Sunday for two purposes.  One is to check the gravity.  The other is to taste it for diacetyl and see if I need a diacetyl rest to have the yeast clean it up.