Breaking up the brew day - mash the day before

Due to family constraints, long work week and long commute, I don't have much free time to myself, let alone 5-6 hours in a row. Anything I can do to break up the brew day makes life much easier. For instance I measure and crush the gain the night before, and get my mlt and BK ready to go the night before as well.

I was just wondering if it would be a bad thing to mash the night before I brew. I figure mashing takes me 2 hours or so, plus cleaning. I'd leave the wort in the BK, covered for 24 hours. The next night I'd do the boil and pitch the yeast.

Is there anything really wrong about this that i don't know about?

Crushing on Tuesday, mashing on Wednesday and boiling on Thursday would let me do my brew thing without killing me.

Any thoughts?

If the temp of your wort falls in the range were bacteria and wild yeast can survive, 138F I think, you risk converting some of you sugars before the boil.

I think this will end up being more trouble than it's worth.

C'mon man, that's not what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear "yeah, sure, I do that all the time. No sweat."

I would think that the grain would contribute some lacto and you could get some souring unless you heated up the wort to boiling first.

I would search sour mash and Berliner Weisse.

Lots of people do it, but the results that they want and the results you want may be two very different things....

There are a few threads here about mashing in at night, then waking up in the morning to continue with the brew day. You would have to mash at a high enough temperature that it wouldn't cool off enough to let bacteria get a hold. I bet you'll even see related threads at the bottom of this page.

I have a buddy that does overnight mash. Seems to work alright for him

I was hoping to mash at night, then boil the next night. Doesn't seem like the greatest idea I've had. it's just frustrating sometimes when you have small children. I have virtually zero time to myself, and the little time I do have, I'm exhausted and just want to turn my brain off.

Oh well, thanks for the input. I'll just have to suck it up.

On a positive note, last night my wife was drinking one of my stouts, and when she got to the end she was shocked to find that I had made it! The whole time she thought it was a commercially made craft brew.

i would worry about bacteria too. I mean you would probally be ok because your going to boil it. you could always go back to cans!!! lol!!

Not a direct answer, but I brew all grain when I have the time. I use Malt extract when I don't have the time.

Extract batches can be very good. (and 2 hours faster & more expensive).

Here's what you want - I do this, it works great and the beer tastes lovely - really I do!
Since my little'un was born time has become more and more scarce, so I prep day one, mash and sparge into bk day two, sealing with a lid and leaving somewhere cool, day 3 I boil, chill overnight (the Aussie way) and pitch the next.
Just a word of caution, jobs will take longer than if they were completed on the same day, boiling wort from the mash tun at 65degrees will be a lot quicker than getting it up from 10 degrees.
As for bacteria 65degrees is enough to cook chicken properly, do I can't see why your wort would b any different, get a lid on and all is good. People worry too much!!!