overnight mashing

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germanmade84

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Has anyone ever considered or better, tryed to do a mash overnight at room temp then went to boil? I think im gonna try it. How does that sound?
 
Gordon Strong's book talks about doing an overnight mash in an oven to maintain appropriate mashing temps...
 
Say for instance u take all your grain put it in your mash tun for 24 hr at 70 degrees, what would the beer turn out to be like?
 
Say for instance u take all your grain put it in your mash tun for 24 hr at 70 degrees, what would the beer turn out to be like?

Well... there won't be alcool. There's no starch conversion at this temp, even if you let it soak for a week.
 
Myself and a few others do this quite a bit, and there's a good bit of gathered info on doing just that.

Read through this link: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/overnight-mash-keeping-my-cool-295579/

I have made some wonderful brews using this technique, I suggest you give it a try!

Edit: I'm assuming that you start your mash at a conversion temp, then let the mash sit overnight. Or do you mean just literally dough in at room temp? If the latter is the case, I agree with the previous posters, you probably wont get any conversion.
 
I've seen a thread on here somewhere before discussing this. If I recall correctly, the poster stated that he mashed at the standard temp and just let it sit for a long time. The insulation kept it near the target temp for the duration.
 
germanmade84 said:
Say for instance u take all your grain put it in your mash tun for 24 hr at 70 degrees, what would the beer turn out to be like?

I understand what you are saying but I am not sure it would work. The enzymes needed for starch conversion are activated at minimum temperatures and deactivated at higher temperatures (at least this is the way I understand it). If this is the case, I would be concerned about not getting the temps high enough to activate the enzymes.

But we would know the answer to this question if you put it to the test. Mark
 
Who wants to bet it was 70 degrees celcius we can't all think he meant his dough in temp. I have done an overnight mash on my stout. 14 months ago. Still a good bottle. I started at top range of 157-158 and lost about 10 to 12 degrees. I do live where it gets very warm in the high desert so that helped that overnight temp outside was 80 degrees.
 
I think we're dealing with a simple misunderstanding of what an overnight mash is: not letting grains sit at room temperature but rather insulating them at normal mash temperatures overnight. It works. It's been done by myself and many other brewers. Temperature drops might result in dry beers. Expect a ~10 degree (fahrenheit) drop over eight hours.
 
But the conversion happens before the drop in temp, right? Basically keeping it warm after the conversion at the right temp for bacteria to grow? Also, there's a max potential, so once you extract it all (100% efficiency) nothing else happens.

But definitely not going to work doing it all at room temp.
 
This sounds like an interesting idea, but like others have said there wont be any sugars in the resulting wort. Im all for trying this method, for myself even, but not at room temp. Maybe experiment with a pale ale (something with a low grain volume just in case it fails you wont be out much $$). Also a pale might go good with a bit of dryness as a result of dropping mash temp who knows?
 
-Tim said:
This sounds like an interesting idea, but like others have said there wont be any sugars in the resulting wort. Im all for trying this method, for myself even, but not at room temp. Maybe experiment with a pale ale (something with a low grain volume just in case it fails you wont be out much $$). Also a pale might go good with a bit of dryness as a result of dropping mash temp who knows?

Those who commented about not getting starch conversion, myself included, were commenting on the room temperature part made by the OP. You will be able to achieve proper conversion by mashing overnight provided you start at the proper initial temperature. Either Gordon Strong or Randy Mosher mentioned that they mash overnight in a recent interview episode on Basic Brewing Radio. Mark.
 
Thanks to all posters, sorry for confusion of Farenheit temps. I totally agree overnight mash at 150 slowly desending would mean dry beer, and room temp would be.compost. But i do believe after 3 hours mashing u start to get bitter acrid stuff that tends to permiate.

Conclusion: i dont know if i will try it.
 
My last 6 or 7 brews were overnight mashes. It's an excellent way of shortening brewday. I dough in for a normal mash temp, say 68C, lag the vessel(I BIAB) and leave overnight. In the morning bring to mashout and pull bag, begin boil. I can lose up to 13/14degC over about 12 hours sometimes. No problems with off flavours, sourness, conversion. Can't see myself ever going back to mash and boil on same day. Do it!!
 
Larso said:
My last 6 or 7 brews were overnight mashes. It's an excellent way of shortening brewday. I dough in for a normal mash temp, say 68C, lag the vessel(I BIAB) and leave overnight. In the morning bring to mashout and pull bag, begin boil. I can lose up to 13/14degC over about 12 hours sometimes. No problems with off flavours, sourness, conversion. Can't see myself ever going back to mash and boil on same day. Do it!!

Exactly the response i was hoping to hear. My thing is getting 2 batches in a weekend so i thought mashing friday night would be a good idea if it worked.
 
Are you talking about Celcius? If so, then that would be fine. A little high, but it would convert and make beer. You need to maintain temperature though.

If you're talking Farenheit, then thats a bad bad idea and you would end up with barley tea, possibly sour.
 
Are you talking about Celcius? If so, then that would be fine. A little high, but it would convert and make beer. You need to maintain temperature though.

If you're talking Farenheit, then thats a bad bad idea and you would end up with barely tea, possibly sour.


68 celcius is not high at all! Mash out is over 75 (77 most of the time).

That said, I would like to add...

The temperature drop, but the beer should not be drier because of the low temps, because after an hour or two, the enzymes are denaturated and just dont convert sugars anymore (aka overnight mash doesn't change a thing)
 
70C calculates out to 158 for a mash temp. Which is high. Not extremely high, but higher than a typical mash temp. I didn't say too high, just a little high.
 
:off:
My apologies for the late responses and double posting, my work computer doesn't seem to like this website much and lags a lot. My first post didn't seem to register until well into the third page, but I posted it during the first.
 
70C calculates out to 158 for a mash temp. Which is high. Not extremely high, but higher than a typical mash temp. I didn't say too high, just a little high.

Ok. I work in Celcius, and I've done a few big with single infusion at 68 and 69 and it was really balanced. At 65-66 you'll get the dryness of a fine lager. At 70 and over, you got something like a sweet stout.
 
I have done the long soak at a little lower temp than 70. My brewing process is different, as I dough in with cold water. My water is 45 - 55, depending on the season. I use a gas fired mashtun and tri-decoction everything I brew. Anyway, the first time I did the long soak was last Sept.. It happened due to circumstance. I got back to the mash about 9 hours after I doughed in. No, the mash wasn't sour. Lacto is activated around 85 and killed off at about 130. If the mash rested at 70 for a few days, it might get funky. What I did notice. While boiling the mash in the decoction kettle, the mash darkened as usual, but then lightened up, close to the color of the main mash. That has never occured before. The mash pH was right in the park before boiling. Then, after mash out. I dumped the mash into the lautertun, to fly sparge. Here is where I had a problem. The run off slowed to almost a stuck mash, and I had to underlet the grain bed and run off much slower than normally. It was a royal pain. I pump out of the lautertun. This time, I ended up using gravity and pumped out of a kettle. The grind was fine, the same as I always use. Another thing that I noticed, was that the wort was lighter in color after cooling, at the same gravity as a mash that wasn't soaked. Also, I noticed that the yeast (Budvar) chugged along for 5 weeks. When I did a sugar test to determine if it was time for a diacetyl rest. The fermentables were at .6%. The yeast seemed to do a good job. The last thing I noticed, was during filtering through the plates. Using a rough filter, the pressure in the plates was very low. I took out the 20's and went down to a .5 and the pressure was lower, than what occurs with the standard tri decoction mashing procedure. The filters were much cleaner. I tried two more batches with a long soak and the same things happened in those batches. I'm not a chemist. So, I have no idea what took place. For two of the three batches I used 23 pounds of Weyermans Boh. Pils floor malt and two pounds of their sauer malz. For the last batch, I used Mouterij. Even after soaking for hours, I still had to do an acid rest to get the pH down. So, what I did with the last two batches, was check the fermentable sugar percentage at 2 weeks and sparged slower. I need to do a few more batches before determining if what I have experienced, just isn't a freak. The filtered beer isn't going to change too much with age. I am happy with the color and flavor of the two batches. The last batch is in the fermenter. I brewed it 30 Dec.. It's at 42% fermentable sugar. The pH is 5.14, not quite in the Pils park, I know it will drop. What has me wondering? Are all the things written about mashing really true? Or, are the Chefs not giving out the real info? If the Chef tells his secrets. Then everyone can be a Chef. After all, at one time, most people thought the world was flat. It was written in books.
 
Most people have known the Earth was round since ancient Greece. It's an old wives tale about everyone thinking the Earth was flat until Columbus or Magellan.

Anyway... sorry for being off-topic.
 
Ptolemy thought the world was flat. He was Greek/Roman. Columbus & Magellan used a Ptolomaic T & O map. Read the book, Over the Edge of the World. It's about Magellans voyage and the maps he used. Written from the observations of Antonio Pigafetta. Magellans scribe. The people that were around since ancient Greece, that you say, knew the world wasn't flat. Were dead and must have kept the secret to themselves. They must not have let Ptolemy in on their secret. The world was considered flat until Primus Circumventi. After that, the maps drawn by the Greek, Ptolemey, were considered useless. The maps of Prestor John and John Mandeville, showed the world as flat. They too, were skuttled. The Roman Catholic world, assumed the world was flat. From, 1st century Ptolemy, all the way down till Magellan, 1500 years. Magellan never circled the earth, Drake did. Magellan was killed on the way. Yup. It surely, had to be an old wives tail, about everyone thinking the world was flat. I wonder why, the Spaniards and Portuguese, weren't part of the group that knew?

Anyway. Sorry, I got off topic.
 
Ptolemy thought the world was flat. He was Greek/Roman. Columbus & Magellan used a Ptolomaic T & O map. Read the book, Over the Edge of the World. It's about Magellans voyage and the maps he used. Written from the observations of Antonio Pigafetta. Magellans scribe. The people that were around since ancient Greece, that you say, knew the world wasn't flat. Were dead and must have kept the secret to themselves. They must not have let Ptolemy in on their secret. The world was considered flat until Primus Circumventi. After that, the maps drawn by the Greek, Ptolemey, were considered useless. The maps of Prestor John and John Mandeville, showed the world as flat. They too, were skuttled. The Roman Catholic world, assumed the world was flat. From, 1st century Ptolemy, all the way down till Magellan, 1500 years. Magellan never circled the earth, Drake did. Magellan was killed on the way. Yup. It surely, had to be an old wives tail, about everyone thinking the world was flat. I wonder why, the Spaniards and Portuguese, weren't part of the group that knew?

Anyway. Sorry, I got off topic.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth

The paradigm of a*spherical Earth*was developed inGreek astronomy, beginning with*Pythagoras*(6th century BC), although most*Pre-Socratics*retained the flat Earth model.*Aristotle*accepted the spherical shape of the Earth on empirical grounds around 330 BC, and knowledge of the spherical Earth gradually began to spread beyond the*Hellenistic world*from then on.[5][6][7][8]*The misconception that educated Europeans at the time of*Columbus*believed in a flat Earth, and that his voyages refuted that belief, has been referred to as the*Myth of the Flat Earth.[9]*In 1945, it was listed by the*Historical Association*(ofBritain) as the second of 20 in a pamphlet on common errors in history.
 
:off:

The historical debate is much more entertaining then the economical one :) I agree Phelanka7 that most people thought the world was round. After all many people watched ships sail over the horizon and then return so obviously they didn't fall over the edge of the world.

So If I mash in at appropriate temps and insulate the mash tun I can cut time out of my brew day by doing an overnight mash?
 
Ptolemy is known for believing that the sun orbited the earth, not that the earth was flat. His maps explicitly acknowledge a spherical earth.

Anyway, who are these Chefs that keep the art and science of mashing secret?
 
noblebrew said:
So If I mash in at appropriate temps and insulate the mash tun I can cut time out of my brew day by doing an overnight mash?
Yes, with no I'll effects at all!
 
I tried this last night/today for the first time. Mashed in at 155F around 12:30AM and woke up at 6:30AM this morning and the mash had only dropped to about 140F. Extract tasted sweet and delicious. Nothing amiss that I could detect. Achieved about 78% brewhouse efficiency which is pretty darn good for me. The best I've ever gotten was 80% and I average 65-70%. This was also the first time I've milled my own grains so that could account for the better efficiency as well.

Thanks OP (and wickman for the link)
 
I tried this last night/today for the first time. Mashed in at 155F around 12:30AM and woke up at 6:30AM this morning and the mash had only dropped to about 140F. Extract tasted sweet and delicious. Nothing amiss that I could detect. Achieved about 78% brewhouse efficiency which is pretty darn good for me. The best I've ever gotten was 80% and I average 65-70%. This was also the first time I've milled my own grains so that could account for the better efficiency as well.

Thanks OP (and wickman for the link)

Glad it worked out for you! It's nice to wake up and go to boil, really splits up the day which is handy for folks that find a hard time nailing down half a day to brew. It really opens up a lot more opportunities for me to brew.
 
Has anyone ever considered or better, tryed to do a mash overnight at room temp then went to boil? I think im gonna try it. How does that sound?

here's the thread where mentioned earlier in this topic line:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/brew-bag-overnight-mash-high-efficiency-383919/

also if you google overnite mash there are tons of excerpts from all the other homebrew forums on the net.
i diidn't read them, just the homebrewtalk.com threads, but this method does seem to be popular and i for one will research it some more.....

GD:mug:
 
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