2 day brew, mash one night, boil the other?

[JeffLacoy]

So I don't get much time to brew. Have 2 younger and one older boy and a wife that works evenings. Weekends are usually a crap shoot between activities for 5 different people, making brewing a challenge

Contemplating doing my mash one night collecting my wort, bringing it up to a boil and immediately killing the heat and covering it. Wouldn't get boiled for nearly 24 hours to finish. I've done several kettle sours, so know my sanitary process is good, but just envisioning having the wort sitting hot and all the outside air it's going to suck back in as it slowly chills in the kettle. I brew indoors on electric.

Doable? Would be super convenient, just don't want to introduce anything funky that a 60 minute boil isn't going to take care of. I've seen people mention overnight mashes, but would love to get that crap cleaned up tonight, and boil to kill off any lacto. I am not intending to be doing an extended mash, too much chance for it to be 'played with' at least in the kettle I can get all my mash stuff cleaned up, and tuck the kettle away in my fermentation chamber, safely out of curious fingers.

From a process standpoint, I don't see anything about this that wouldn't work, but just curious if there is anything chemically happening by holding over the wort hot, with no hops or yeast for this period of time.

 

[myndflyte]

I think as long as things stay covered, a slight boil (actually, 180F would probably be sufficient) will kill off anything that might start to grow in 24 hours. Plus you are going to boil after that so if anything did start to grow, it would be killed off before it could really take hold. I see no issues with this process.

 

[JeffLacoy]

I'll have 5 lbs of pils in the recipe, I'm imagining trapping the sms in there, but figure it will be converted during the boil and boiled off anyway.

 

[RM-MN]

Contemplating doing my mash one night collecting my wort, bringing it up to a boil and immediately killing the heat and covering it. Wouldn't get boiled for nearly 24 hours to finish. I've done several kettle sours, so know my sanitary process is good, but just envisioning having the wort sitting hot and all the outside air it's going to suck back in as it slowly chills in the kettle. I brew indoors on electric.

Doable? Would be super convenient, just don't want to introduce anything funky that a 60 minute boil isn't going to take care of. I've seen people mention overnight mashes, but would love to get that crap cleaned up tonight, and boil to kill off any lacto. I am not intending to be doing an extended mash, too much chance for it to be 'played with' at least in the kettle I can get all my mash stuff cleaned up, and tuck the kettle away in my fermentation chamber, safely out of curious fingers.

From a process standpoint, I don't see anything about this that wouldn't work, but just curious if there is anything chemically happening by holding over the wort hot, with no hops or yeast for this period of time.

I'm not convinced that any bacteria can survive the hour long mash period so you may not need to boil your wort. In any case, heating the wort will kill off anything that might survive the mash temperature. Setting the kettle outside to cool overnight is not a bad thing. The air inside your house contains more bacteria than outdoor air. As mentioned, putting a lid on it keeps out the majority of it and the few bacteria that can get in will be killed of in the boil before they have time to establish big colonies. You may have to put something on top of the kettle to keep curious animals or children out.

 

[JeffLacoy]

I'm not convinced that any bacteria can survive the hour long mash period so you may not need to boil your wort. In any case, heating the wort will kill off anything that might survive the mash temperature. Setting the kettle outside to cool overnight is not a bad thing. The air inside your house contains more bacteria than outdoor air. As mentioned, putting a lid on it keeps out the majority of it and the few bacteria that can get in will be killed of in the boil before they have time to establish big colonies. You may have to put something on top of the kettle to keep curious animals or children out.

I could always just hide it in my bulkhead stairs which is right next to my brew stand anyways. May just give it a go. After all, its only beer

 

[TechFanMD]

I have similar issues. What I do now is have a bucket heater on a timer that will start heating water while I sleep. I get up in the morning to strike-temp water and start the mash. During the mash I can get my daughter breakfast and do some 'morning stuff' then go back to brewing. It shaves off a lot of time having the water ready and getting the mash rolling right away. The other benefit to this over what you plan, is that you'll be bringing the wort to a boil from ambient time, so you'll lose that bit of time spent with extra heating. We all have to make changes and come up with a process it make it fit. I chose this once because I didn't want the process to take longer than it otherwise would.

 

[lump42]

I'm not convinced that any bacteria can survive the hour long mash period so you may not need to boil your wort.

If you forget to clean out your mash tun at the end of the brew session, you'll be convinced that they survive. The smell was horrendous.

 

[Leapsandbounds]

Maybe bring it up to a boil and then store it in an air tight plastic container like the no chill brewers?

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/no-chill-containers.345726/

 

[JeffLacoy]

Maybe bring it up to a boil and then store it in an air tight plastic container like the no chill brewers?

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/no-chill-containers.345726/

I had considered something like that, but do not have anything large enough to store it all in, maybe a few 5 gallon pails.

Id seal it up real good in my kettle, but fear the cooling wort and resulting vacuum could possibly cave in the side of the kettle. I can't imagine they stand up to much negative pressure. Haha.

 

[AzOr]

Go for it. I do that exact process all the time. I brew outside. Living in the NW, it’s easy this time of year. Next morning the wort is usually in the high 40’s.

I have little ones as well and it allows me to spend time with them and after their bedtime I brew. I usually do my boil the next night. However, I have waited a couple of days to boil while the wort sat outside. I’ve only done this during the winter though.