Adjustable regulator

[Paul Fraser]

I get a rolling boil but it is only just and takes a wee while. I'm looking to shorten my brew day by getting an adjustable regulator. I have the cast iron 3 ring burner that you get from Mitre 10. Is this compatable with any regulator or do I have to seek a specific type. Or should I just take it to a gas specialist shop?

[Paul Fraser]

Wow- impressive times there Liam. I had today off and brewed a pale ale using my smoothcone hops. I tried FWH for the first time and also like you said Liam, i ran the sparge water into the pot as it was on the burner. I saved heaps of time and it must be because of the hops in there but i had a hard out boil going for the entire time. And that was without my wind shield on. Might have to FWH all of my beers. :-)

[Liam Callaghan]

Nice mate!  You have to watch out if you are boiling the hops from the start as they are time related - too long and your going to get a different result from expected.  I usually wait until all the sparge is complete before I add the hops and start the boil timer.  The lag from sparge end to boil start is less than 5 minutes though and you can reduce your boil times as the initial high sugar wort has already been boiling for 30 minutes or more from the start of your sparge.

Happy to go through my brewing regime with you if you want, it makes more savings if you run beers back to back but a good time saving for a single beer and shouldn't cut any corners.  Certainly not rocket science, just testing as you go and improving logistics.  It can make for a busy three hours though or six if your running beers back to back.  You can obviously relax and take your time as well if you want but at least you have the choice and can brew within your time frame.

Shouldn't require any changes to your equipment but you might want to start making two beers per day... or four...  For me it means I am going to add a third kettle so I can run 65 litre batches back to back and recycle the hot water from cooling the worts.  Toying with four kettles so I can make two beers at once, time will tell if that works, I like a challenge!  That can wait until the winter, something to keep me out of mischief...