Mash day one, boil day two

I'm doing an experiment and wonder if anyone has any thoughts:

All-grain brewing takes some time, so I am currently working on a batch over two days:

Day One: Mash and collect the wort into an sanitized carboy. I cooled the collect wort down to 70 degrees with a wort chiller before collecting into the carboy. Capped and airlock.

Day two: Hop boil, cool, collect into primary and pitch yeast.

Does anyone see any downside to this? I find that I don't often have all the time I want to brew and this way I can really focus and not feel rushed.

I've read several posts about the same thing. The biggest issue is that beer grains have tons of wild yeast and bacteria, and since they won't get killed in the mash, you run the risk of having a sour mash on day 2.

rocketman768 said:

I've read several posts about the same thing. The biggest issue is that beer grains have tons of wild yeast and bacteria, and since they won't get killed in the mash, you run the risk of having a sour mash on day 2.

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You might be able to mitigate this by adding a mash out step at 170ºF for 30min before you sparge, but you will have to be hyper sensitive with your sanitary practices. Wild yeast are everywhere, and get in when you least expect it.

One thing to consider though, if you like sour beer's, is to try a full 24hr sour mash. I'm planing on doing a mid week brew soon (maybe this week), and will mash in the evening, and bring the mash down to 120ºF and then pitch a vial of lactobacillus bulgaricus and let it sour 20-24hr. Sparging and boiling the next day. I hope I can master this technique so I can do some workweek brewing.

A full 24hr sour mash.
I have what might be a silly question, I use a plastic cooler as my mash tun.
How easy is it to get rid of the stank? Would a little soup, oxyclean, and warm water work?
Then just do around 3 hot water rinses.

Apart from the sour beer suggestion -which sounds interesting- the only way I think you'd get away with this is to raise the temperature of the collected wort above Pasteurization temperatures for the recommended time, then leave it until the next day. Since I just collect wort right into my boil kettle, if I were going to attempt this I'd just fire up the burner, make sure I hit my temperatures, and then put the sanitized lid on and leave it overnight. Even if there's no seal, there shouldn't be enough get in there to enable enough growth in 24 hours to worry about.

My suggestion would to be to put more time and effort into streamlining your AG brew day.

You are collecting and chilling the wort before you store it? You are adding more steps and copious amounts of time to yur brew day(s) this way... while giving the naturally occurring bacteria in the grain, time and conditions to thrive.

If you add a mash out step to mitigate this, again, you are adding EVEN MORE time. You are getting further from your desired goal each time you try to make a 2-day brew day work. You will be spending 8 hours over two days, instead of say 6 hours on ONE day.

If you nail down your processes, and cut out extra steps as well as utilize your time to the max (prep and clean during the mash and clean during the boil) you can get finished in between 4-6 hours... closer to 6 if you dont have a dedicated system.

Good luck, maybe post your process here and someone could help you to make it more efficient. By making it a 2 day event, you are actually spending MORE time overall which is a net loss.

rico567 said:

Apart from the sour beer suggestion -which sounds interesting- the only way I think you'd get away with this is to raise the temperature of the collected wort above Pasteurization temperatures for the recommended time, then leave it until the next day. Since I just collect wort right into my boil kettle, if I were going to attempt this I'd just fire up the burner, make sure I hit my temperatures, and then put the sanitized lid on and leave it overnight. Even if there's no seal, there shouldn't be enough get in there to enable enough growth in 24 hours to worry about.

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Yeah, but if he's going to go to this extra effort of pasteurizing the wort in a brew kettle on the burner, why not just go ahead and do the regular boil and be done with it? I agree with the other posters. Seems silly to save one hour on day one only to spend three more hours on day 2.

I'd agree with the Pol. Shortening your brew day would be the ideal solution. What is your plan of attack on brew day and specifically, where do you feel rushed and what do you feel is taking up most of your time?

Another option is to stretch your brew day so you can multi-task. Yesterday what is usually about a 3 hour process for me was stretched to 4 1/2 hours but stretching it that way gave me the time I needed to get a few things done around the house while brewing and left the evening open for playing with the kids.

I Think the streamlining Idea is a good one, but I think it's a possible for you to split the brew day.

One other thought, If you can get a wort cooled down below 40ºF it should keep in a refrigerator for a day or two.

as for the sour mash, I would think it will clean up just fine(I have not done this yet only researched how to do it) and I am using a plastic mash tun too.You don't need to be too concerned about your sanitary conditions for steps up-stream from the boil, and the sour component from the sour mash is water soluble so it will wash right out.

I can streamline. It's just that we usually try to brew on a weeknight and leave the weekend days open for kids and other projects or travel. Brewing on a weeknight means getting everything sanitized that morning so we can rush home and start the mash, make dinner during the rest, sparge and onto the hop boil, cool down and cleanup. We're up till 11:30 or midnight. We could do some cleanup during the boil.

I now have a much better understanding of the mashing process, so I'll be able to streamline that. The two day idea is basically so I can have more time to experiment with mashing. For example, I'd like to do a decoction mash next which will add some time to the mash.

I thought about cooling down the wort too. Wort chiller and into carboy adds an extra step, but its really not that much more time. What about sparging into the carboy and then just stick it in a fridge?

I bet if you sparged it into your kettle with the burner on and heated it up to 175-180, then stopped and put the kettle in the fridge, it would be okay. You might have a problem with condensation though in the fridge.

do you have a dedicated fermentation chamber? like a fridge or freezer chest with a temp controller? what might work too, is to sparge in the kettle , and heat it up to 175-180, put the lid on and seal around the edges with some foil. and put it in the fermentation chamber over night at room temp, then in the morning turn the cabinet down to 40º. it should be fine then.