Leaving wort out overnight

I'm planning a brewday this weekend. Due to time/family contraints I'm thinking of mashing and collecting my wort Sat night and boil and pitch on Sun. Am I playing with fire? Can anyone see any potential for disaster with this?

 

If you read around on the forum a bit more, you'll find many people who do exactly that on a regular basis, pre-boil or post-boil, and sometimes even go a few weeks before pitching the yeast.
If your sanitization is good enough, you can do almost anything reasonable with it. I'd certainly think that overnight is fine as long as you do your damndest to keep things clean.
Besides, if you boil the next day it'll kill anything that might have gotten in.

Plus it'll give you time to set up a starter if you wish, using a little of your wort thinned out with more (sanitized) water. Shake the crap out of it, let sit overnight, and pitch the whole thing the next day. You won't need to worry so much about aeration, and you'll get a head start on the yeast growth.

 

Since lacto is present in all grain, you stand a good chance of having sour wort the next morning unless you at least bring the wort to a boil before leaving it.

 

Make sure to bring the temp of the wort up to boiling before putting it to bed for the night. If you don't you're essentially sour mashing the wort... it'll probably pick up a lactic twinge.

 

I didn't think about the lacto angle. Do you think the boil the next day would be enough to kill it off? Or is that damage already done?

 

mmmm.....

 

I would recommend boiling at least. I boiled and chilled the wort, then pitched the yeast when it was ready three days later with no issues.

Z

 

Once the wort is sour w/ lacto, it is sour. Boiling won't change anything.
I have mashed, sparged, brought it up to boil, then killed flame and went to bed.
I boiled the next day. No problems.

 

Didn't consider the lacto in my previous response. I bow to the superior knowledge shared here.

 

yeah, I read ~180 (?) degrees will kill lacto (don't recall precise temp). I just brought it up to boil & covered. good luck!

 

if you bring to mash out temps or hit boiling you can try to insulate or put it in a warm oven and it should keep it from dropping into danger zone

i believe Gordon Strong discussed this method in his book

 

If you take the time to boil it and cool it on the first day you might as well just insert 1 hour boil time in there and be done.

 

you wouldn't take the time to cool it - if you can insulate and keep the temps up it wil stay above the danger zone