Prepare mash water in advance

[nemis79]

Hello,

I'm trying to shorten my brew sessions time-wise and have a question regarding mash water.

Would it be okay to boil mash water the day before brew day, and keep it in an insulated steel kettle overnight where it will drop to about my mashout temp?

Or could this potentially impart off-flavors in my brew? I find that boiled and cooled water sometimes tastes meh.

 

[GrogNerd]

I find that boiled and cooled water sometimes tastes meh.

everything sounded good up until this

if you have a way to keep the temps from dropping below strike temp, the mash does not care when the water was heated.

that sounds AWESOME & yeah, shorten your brew day = good

it's that "tastes meh" that is the problem. can't really say for sure that "tastes meh" water would make anything other than "tastes meh" beer.

but then... I don't see any difference between heating water to 160°, strike and heating water to 212°, cool to 160°, strike

can't really ask, "well... how does it taste at 160°?"

guess it depends on where the "tastes meh" comes from... the heating? or the cooling?

 

[Varmintman]

I boil outside on a propane burner but I heat my water up on the stove inside. I found that if the first thing I do is start heating the water I have just enough time to pre warm my tun and get everything set up before the water is at temp.

 

[Yooper]

Why are you boiling mash water anyway? If it's to remove chlorine, you can just leave it sit out overnight. If you're racking off the precipitate, then it has to cool anyway.

Bring my mash water up to strike temp takes like 15 minutes, so I don't see the times savings by doing it the night before and then heating it up again.

 

[rayfound]

guess it depends on where the "tastes meh" comes from... the heating? or the cooling?

Heating and boiling lowers dissolved gas levels (oxygen) in water and this can change the taste perception of drinking water.

This is also why that glass of water by your bedside tastes different the next day - outgassing happens (slowly) at room temp also.

 

[GrogNerd]

Heating and boiling lowers dissolved gas levels (oxygen) in water and this can change the taste perception of drinking water.

This is also why that glass of water by your bedside tastes different the next day - outgassing happens (slowly) at room temp also.

because SCIENCE! :rockin:

 

[nemis79]

Why are you boiling mash water anyway? If it's to remove chlorine, you can just leave it sit out overnight. If you're racking off the precipitate, then it has to cool anyway.

Bring my mash water up to strike temp takes like 15 minutes, so I don't see the times savings by doing it the night before and then heating it up again.

I dont boil mash water usually, if I heat it on brew day. The idea here was to reach a high enough temperature so that the next day it would be close to sparge temp. I don't know the temp loss that would occur overnight though, so I could always heat it up to 180 or something instead of boiling it.

I brew indoors in my apartment using induction. and my fuses cant handle both heating mash water and sparge water at the same time on two heating sources. To complicate things further I am going to do a decoction mash tomorrow that will occupy some ampere'age and lengthen the brew day.

 

[GrogNerd]

I brew indoors in my apartment using induction. and my fuses cant handle both heating mash water and sparge water at the same time on two heating sources. To complicate things further I am going to do a decoction mash tomorrow that will occupy some ampere'age and lengthen the brew day.

guessing that it takes longer than an hour to heat whatever volume of sparge water while the mash is taking place

as long as you can hold temperature in the mash tun, nothing wrong with letting that sit for longer than an hour while waiting for the sparge water to heat