AG mashing in the oven?

Somebody gave me a stack of 10 years of BYO magazine. I found a piece in one where somebody did their mash by putting the pot in the oven set at 150 and letting is "mash" all night. He got up in the morning and sparged. Has anyone tried this?

Dont know why you would want to run an oven all night,or a mash for that matter 1 hour should be plenty of time for conversion.Just my 2 cents

well it would be a gradual step conversion...it would be nice to get up in the morning and have the mash ready to lauter...that would cut down on the brew day

If you decide to try it, be sure to use an oven thermometer set in the middle of the oven. Built in oven regulation is terribly inaccurate. It could well be around 20F different from the true temp.

I know people successfully PM using the oven to MAINTAIN the temp. Using it to heat the mash just wouldn't be worth it IMO.

The "wizard" on BYO said it could actually work pretty well if its done right...

It will work (assuming your oven can hold 150F, mine only goes down to 170F), if your goal is a highly fermentable wort. Enzyme action is a function of temperature and time.

I've done PM's using a smaller amount of grain in the oven and it worked out very well with a small pot. The oven was spot on with keeping with my desired temp. Maybe try this with a pot of water to just check the oven maintains and doesn't lower or raise your temps too much. Alot can happen overnight while your sleeping.....

seanybubbles said:

Alot can happen overnight while your sleeping.....

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Woke up in a wet patch, huh?

My best friend does his mash in the over, it seems to work pretty well for him.

As other have alluded to, mashing in the oven works just fine. Although some do mash overnight, I personally wouldn't want to let it go that long because you lose control of wort fermentability (i.e. it will be extremely fermentable/light bodied).

You could compensate by adding maltodextrin if you wanted a fuller bodied beer, I guess, but if you want your wort waiting for you in the morning, I'd suggest mashing and sparging at night. Just make sure to raise temps to 170-180F or so to kill off any lacto and cover the wort and it can sit overnight. Ready to boil in the morning.

Lots of folks, including myself, have done this successfully.

Maybe it's just me, but i couldn't imagine trying to sleep when i am brewing.

you're not drinking enough before you go to bed!

I mean, it should work.

As far as this overnight business, if you know that your wort is converted after 1 hour then further mashing won't get anything more out of it. Yes, the enzymes are still active but they act on starch not sugar. It seems the point of overnight is the obvious one -- it shortens your brew day tomorrow as you start with the sparge step.

I'm going to check to see how long it takes to heat up 5 gallons of cold water to 155 degrees...that might take a couple of hours. I could see waking up at 4, putting my stuff in the oven, going back to sleep and waking up ready to brew.

joex444 said:

I mean, it should work.

As far as this overnight business, if you know that your wort is converted after 1 hour then further mashing won't get anything more out of it. Yes, the enzymes are still active but they act on starch not sugar. It seems the point of overnight is the obvious one -- it shortens your brew day tomorrow as you start with the sparge step.

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you're partly correct, but the point is that the only type of wort you can possibly end up with using this approach is a very fermentable one. there will be few oligosaccharides (dextrins) left in the wort. further breakdown of oligosaccharides (which are sugars, not starch) does indeed continue past an hour mash.

as long as the likely outcome is anticipated and acceptable, you can mash overnight and lots of people have successfully done so. again, depending on the targeted style, malto-dextrin could be added back during the boil to increase the body of what will likely be a dry/light-bodied beer.

Laughing_Gnome_Invisible said:

Woke up in a wet patch, huh?

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the gnome got me good!

What about heating up the grain in the over to desired single infusion temp, and the strike water too. Then mix and know for sure it'll be at the target temp...assuming you preheat your tun!