I was talking to a few of you at the meeting at sdixon's place on Saturday, and I though I must have made a mistake claiming to complete a brew in 2:45. Well, I just finished brewing a 5.5 gallon batch of IIPA with a 90 minute boil in 3.5 hours flat.
Now, I typically have my grain crushed and water measured ahead of time, so I don't count this time, but that wouldn't add much time to the day. It takes about 5 minutes to measure out all the water, and I can crush the grain while it's heating up, so it's negligible.
How long is your brew day?
My process (after water is measured and grain crushed):
1. Heat strike water on my 85000 BTU propane burner. This takes less than 15 minutes.
2. Dough in and stir for a couple of minutes until I get the desired temperature.
3. Kick on the pump and recirculate the wort for the last 15 minutes of the 60 minute mash.
4. Since I use rice hulls in my mash, I pump wide open into the kettle and start heating gently.
5. Sparge with half the remaining water, stir well, and recirculate for 5 minutes.
6. Pump into the kettle and kick up the heat to max.
7. Sparge with the remaining water, stir well, and recirculate for 5 minutes.
8. Pump into the kettle and wait for a boil. This usually doesn't take long at this point.
9. Add bittering hops
10. Dump spent grain and wash mash tun.
11. Prep some star san and sanitize a carboy.
12. 15 minutes out, I hook up the CFC and start recirculating boiling wort.
13. At flame out, I restrict the flow of the pump to give me wort at my pitching temperature.
14 While the kettle is draining, I clean up all the odds and ends.
15. Then it takes me about 10 - 15 minutes to clean up the remaining bits of brew day.