Busy and Stressed during brewing

Probably part of your stress comes from not having a well established routine. As for me, my brew days are rather long (~7 hours from grinding the grain to getting everything cleaned up), but they are no longer stressful because I am very familiar with my now well practiced routine. Because of this I do not really expend very much mental energy during the brew day, just lot of physical energy schlepping the equipment up out of the basement and back down.

 

Yeah, you're just not quite down with the routine yet...it will come with more brewing. My brew days take about 6.5-7 hrs including clean-up. However, my first all-grain day was 9 hrs. So you can see how repetition and routine can really have a considerable impact. I still get stressed on occasion, but that's more to do with unforeseen complications (this usually involves my wife or son...I might add).

 

Agreed on the routine part. Once you get your process down and know the basics like the back of your hand, you don't worry about any of that stuff anymore. I also recommend doing as much prep work in advance of the actual brew day as you can.

 

Home-beering is an exercise in project management where you create and refine a timeline.

Brew day -2: finalize recipe and water calculations
Brew day -1: make grist, pre-stage equipment
Brew day: execute the plan, take notes, learn from mistakes, refrain from RDWHAB until the home stretch

 

I still do it. I don't have my workflow down yet. Your always forgetting something. getting everything together prior brewday seems to be the way to go. Most of us don't have a specific area for homebrewing and we store our stuff somewhere other than where we brew which I believe causes issues with running around. Yeah, running around. I am with you. It's gotten easier but it still happens.

 

As mentioned it is about getting the routine down. If you need to, write up a check list so you have everything where it needs to be, when it needs to be there. If extract brewing have everything ready before you start. If all grain you have time after mashing in to weigh hops, etc. If multiple hop additions measure them out into different dishes and label with masking tape and pen. A check list prevents running after shit that you should already have at hand.

 

lists help

 

Agree with everything mentioned.

Repetition and routine solves a lot of this.

Keep going. Sounds like you're on the right path.

 

Type up a to-do list of what needs to be done and when. Then there's no stress, just do what the list says at the time it says. Works for me!

 

My brew days are usually pretty laid back. My last brewday got a little hectic since I needed to run to get ice while my mashing and then had to go to another store since the first store didn't have any ice, which forced me to sanitize during my boil instead of during my mash. I usually try to sanitize during and clean my mash tun during boiling. I normally don't have a hop schedule that requires a lot of attention, at least until the end of the boil. Things only get a little crazy if I need to do some extra adjustments to my chilling apparatus right at the end of my boil.

 

If it gets too routine...you never get to experience boilovers, missing equipment, or sudden urges to take a shit.

 

move to CO and enjoy the recreational pot.

I dont smoke it but i do still have a stressless brew day. i have other people there and chat and joke. i set timers so i dont have to look at the clock all the time

 

I've posted this before, but it may be helpful in your situation. I mash overnight. I set it up right before I go to bed. Most of the time I go ahead and put my sparge water in my pot and I set my alarm to wake me up earlier than I would usually get up (like 5 am) and I heat up the sparge water and get my sparge going and go back to bed. Then I wake up around 10, start my boil and make some breakfast.

Obviously this only works for single infusion mashing, and not everyone is comfortable letting these processes take place in an un-monitored environment, but it's made brewing more enjoyable for me so that's what I do 90% of the time now.

 

It really sucks when all three are happening and once and the missing equipment is toilet paper.

 

I tend to do 3-4 batches per a brew day so I always feel occupied. Do as much prep as you can beforehand, as it really makes brew days go much smoother.

Also, don't drink on brewday and kick out any free loaders that aren't helping you brew.

 

this is risky. you will be less stressed but will probably forget to do things. i do not recommend

 

Other than routine, I felt much more stressed when I first started than I do now. In the beginning, if things did not go exactly as planned I thought that my beer was going to come out a disaster. Even when I started brewing all grain I was a little frantic if I missed my mash temps by 2 degrees. Now I just brew how I planned and realize if something unexpected happens there isn't always a way to change it so my beer may not come out as I planned, it will still most likely taste good.