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Crazy brew day

WinnipegFats

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Got up 6 am to get water heated, working 2 batches today gotta get er done. Gotta time everything out...brewing, laundry picking kids up from school and doing dinner and stuff. Been alittle under the weather as well. Here in Canada it -30 outside so front porching my boils today..to the garage I tell myself. No time to shovel the knobby giant dog stomped path. Hold off on that Cascadian Dark until you got that first boil underway and you got the boy from am kindergarten. So I work with a lil' 20 liter tun, my buddy just changed the manifold. Exciting stuff. Pour boiling water into the tun to get er toasty warm, make wife and kids lunches and wake the munchkins and get them to wake momma after cereal. Get the wife's credit card gotta get brewsmith reactivated so I can figure a decoction, cause it worked so well on my oktoberfest so well a few weeks ago. Well screwed up the credit card, single infusion it is.
    Shew family out the door. Dump out warming water and get to work. Dang I forgot to defrost raspberries for the "raspberry-chocolate oatmeal-milk Porter I've been dreaming about. Easy peasy I be a chef I got time I load up my stove with one more pot. Did I mention that the stove is down one element and it is the large one that is gonzo. Get grains all nice and cozy mashing time for laundry folding....oh my my main beer work room is my laundry room...it's big. Dump off dirtiest bring upstairs cleans and fold. Big pile of dirty clothes on the floor in "the room". No worries I gots the time. Facebook my adventure wrestle the dog and just about sparge time. I just discovered batch sparging and I love it. Like every good chef I  taste and when I taste absolutely nothing in a spent grain then it is spent. Love the batch sparge, looking forward to it.
  So I make my grain bed, check the water temps on my various pots so I can get thattemp perfect. Drain my grains and add water stir it up, make my grain bed, check the time, doing good. Start to drain second run........why is this not draining the way my ego feels it should be draining. Man I am going to loose my temperature, and my temper. Stop the drain, top up with water, restore and feel grain bed. Drain and Damn it,  Damn it Damn it, I got 35 min before I got to leave to get the boy. My first stuck sparge. Aaaaaaahhhh!!! Stupid new manifold. Aaaaaaahhhh!!!!!!! Stupid small partials like OATS!!!!. Dump my hotter sparge pot into the cooler sparge pot graphics another small handled pot dunk it into the hot water. You be sanitized now small pot. Next Level grain scooping action, a whirling dervish of steam, sweat, fever and gains. What are you looking at dog? 20 min before I have to leave.  Alternating with sparge water and grains and whatever I redeveloped a grain bed and get er backtogether......10 min before I have to leave. Drain. Refill, stir, grain bed,  drain. Put boil pot on stove between 2 small elements, put other pot for drain, refill, stir, grain bed, get dressed, where are my gloves...to hell I can loose my finger. Negative 2 min to leave. Drain. Out the door. Sprint.
  Get home get the turkey fryer in the garage going, open a cracks don't need to die from monoxide. Run back in the house. Haul the big bastard pot out, get er going....blah blah blah. For. The next hour I must have ran inside and out 40 time because I forgot something everyone and I had to do all the cleaning I would have done if that Damn stuck sparge never happened. 3 pm and I get a roast in and get to my second batch. No stuck sparge but juggling dinner I get the lid on my pail at 830 pm, with 5 beers in me. And I am going to bed
 
I've tried doing two batches in a day and it was unfun.  Won't do it again.  I like my brew day to be relaxing, not frantic.
 
I've done a few doubles.  It was okay.  It makes for a longish day.

Its not bad if you have the right equipment.  I would NEVER try it on the stove.  Uggh. 

I have a second burner and a second pot.  So, the process went like this:

1.  Heat strike water for mash number 1 in kettle 1.
2.  Mash in on mash number 1.
3.  Heat sparge water in kettle #1 and transfer to HLT.
4.  Heat strike water for mash #2 in kettle #2.
5.  Drain mash #1 from MLT into kettle #1. begin boiling wort #1 in kettle #1.
6.  Fill MLT for Sparging mash #1 from HLT.
7.  Refill HLT with strike water for mash #2 from kettle #2.
8.  Drain MLT into kettle #1.  Bring wort #1 to boil in kettle #1.  Boil #1 proceeds with hop additions, etc from here.
9.  Empty MLT of grain.
10.  Mash-in on mash #2. 
11.  Heat sparge water for mash #2 in kettle #2.
12.  Fill HLT with sparge water.
13.  Drain MLT for mash #2 into kettle #2.  Begin boiling wort #2 in kettle #2.
14.  Refill MLT with sparge water from HLT.
15.  Drain MLT for mash #2 into kettle #2.  Finish bringing wort #2 to a boil.  Boil #2 proceeds with hop additions, etc from here.

At this point, boil #1 is about finished, and boil #2 is just getting started.  All told, it added about 90-120 minutes to the entire brewday length.  I was done in just under 6 hours. 

The thing about it is that you are ALWAYS doing something.  There isn't much time to sit and relax and just enjoy the spring weather.  During the normal lulls for the first batch (where you would normally smell the roses), you are doing something for the second batch.  Transferring liquid between vessels, starting a heating cycle, measuring hop additions, taking gravity readings, calculating boil-off, etc.  It just keeps going right up through transferring into the fermenter for the second batch. 
 
Hmmmm, that was a serious answer. I was just trying to tell an amusing story. I am a chef so frantic is fun. I usually have a few buddies over for brewday but I Mondays are Mondays. And I have a really busy rest of the week. Cheers.
 
WinnipegFats said:
Hmmmm, that was a serious answer. I was just trying to tell an amusing story. I am a chef so frantic is fun. I usually have a few buddies over for brewday but I Mondays are Mondays. And I have a really busy rest of the week. Cheers.

Weeeellll....sorta.  I'm an engineer, so....serious can be an occupational hazard. 

Besides, it was really more in response to ME Homebrewer's comment. 
 
I have a second burner and a second pot.

Thinking back, that was my bottleneck.

I started my first mash, then heated water for the sparge. While the fly sparge did its thing I started the second mash. I can't remember if the next step was to heat sparge water for the second batch or boil the first.  Either way it ended up being a big pain in the arse. Especially when I'm chilling a batch in the brew pot while another is ready to boil.  It sucked all around. Not doing it again.

I am a chef so frantic is fun.

Sometimes I miss the decade and a half I spent in restaurants.  I started off as a line cook before going over to the dark side.  After being on both, I'm not sure which side of the house is more frantic.  I do know which side pays better.  ;)
 
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