Many homebrewers, like myself, are balancing a busy personal life while still trying to maintain our sanity by brewing! I have adopted a process that helps me manage my time and also, increase my brewing efficiency. Extended Mashing.
The first question I always get is: “won’t you get sour beer” if you have a properly insulated mash tun you will lose a minimal amount of heat. I always strive to get my mash tun as full as possible. If you enter your equipment appropriately in beersmith 2.0, you will be able to calculate precisely how much water you need and at what temp to fill your mash tun. I find 1.5 to 2.0 quarts per pound to be about right. It should also be noted that I have done multi rest and decoction style mashes with this method as well. The sacharification rest being the rest at which you extend overnight. So there you have it, the first key to maintaining a nice mash temp over an extended period of time. A full mash tun.
The second question is “won’t you get an extremely fermentable wort”?. You can use this method to get an extremely fermentable wort but you can also use this method to get a wort of whatever dextrin profile you are looking for. I find that it gives me more flexibility than a standard mash. For an extremely fermentable wort you can mash in at 150 and let the wort convert at 150 and slowly lose temp in the 140s over time. Awesome for IIPA’s , belgian tripels and other styles where fermentability is critical. For a more standard ale/lager you can mash in at 154-160 depending on how fermentable you want the wort. With the extended mash time you are giving the enzymes more time to work,so you will want to mash in 2-3 degrees warmer than usual to help denature and allow for some residual sugar to be maintained.
The gear: I use a well insulated coleman steelbelt cooler from the 1970’s and I cover it with some moving blankets I have in my garage. My mash has never fell below 140 degrees, even after 12+ hours. It's not rocket science.
I have two kids ages 2 and 4. Here is my typical brewing process. Get home from work at 3:30 pm, with kids. Measure out strike water and let it sit on the burner. Kids get ready for bed at 7:30pm. Light the burner and start heating water. I usually have both kids to bed by 8:15. Water is up to temp. Mash in about 8:30. Measure and prepare sparge water and set it on the burner. Go to bed. Wake up about 6:00 am. Light burner to heat sparge water. Drink coffee………collect first runnings, sparge and proceed. Time wasted is at a minimum and you get a very efficient mash. %80 or better virtually everytime.
Daddy is happy because he made another 10 gallons of kick ass beer, SWMBO is happy because family life has not been interupted with a marathon brew session.
