Accidental 12 hour mash

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Donasay

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So I sometimes mash overnight and brew early in the morning, it usually comes out well in that it makes some very light highly fermentable beers. When I mash overnight I usually do it for about 6 hours while I sleep and brew first thing, but some stuff came up and it wound up mashing for about 12 hours.

I set up my mash tun at about 2:30am with 14lbs of 2 row and 3lbs of flaked rice, I was planning on brewing at 9 or 10 but didn't get to brewing till about 2:00. I mashed in at 155 and by 1:00 the next day the mash was down to 140. I know this wort is going to be exceptionally fermentable and very light, so while boiling I added 8oz of maltodextrine to the 10 gallon batch to make up for what was lost.

I don't know if the beer is going to turn out to be any good, but I'm still letting it go for now. I have made some almost millerlite like beers overnight mashing before... this might turn out like a michalob ultra though...
 
Did it smell sour by any chance?

I did a 15 hour mash that soured (planned) but if your temps stayed hot the whole time and the mash tun closed it probably won't have soured.
 
It should be mentioned that you want to cool it if you wish to avoid Lacto action. The ideal range is around 120-130 F° iirc. Lactobacillus is ever present on malts (in varying amounts), all you need to de as a brewer is give it warmth (without overdoing it) and hold it warm for about 18 to 24 hours.

12 hours is not really enough time from what I have experienced to get a seriously sour beer. It's possibly you could have some minor reduction in pH, but most likely nothing severe. Like you said, You'll probably end up with a drier beer than you were planning. I have done an overnight mash before and it was certainly drinkeable. Dry, but drinkeable.
 
paulthenurse said:
Holy Sheet, Batman! You just stumbled upon the secret methods of BMC. Watch out, the Fermenator-Termenator's coming looking for you.


Bet your BMC drinking friends will love it.

What dose BMC mean?

Oh and I'm actually going to try and make a real light beer so my brother will like home brew. He only drinks Bud Light. So an all night mash seems interesting. Plus maybe ill throw a little amylase enzyme or beano in when I pitch the yeast.
 
Well, this beer is fermenting, it took off like a madman, and is still going strong. It smells like beer and hopefully won't have any sour notes from the overnight mash, but it is still to early in the fermentation process to tell. I made it Sunday, and 6 days of fermenting and it is still going farly well, there must be some good eats in that carboy...
 
Actually, if you had gotten infected and it soured enough to notice in the final product you'd notice it ahead of time. I am guessing that if you didn't smell the soured funk when you lautered that you'll be A-OK in that dept. :)
 
zoebisch01 said:
Actually, if you had gotten infected and it soured enough to notice in the final product you'd notice it ahead of time. I am guessing that if you didn't smell the soured funk when you lautered that you'll be A-OK in that dept. :)

Yeah, mine smelt (was afraid to taste it) like sweet and sour chinese food.

Kinda gross and good at the same time.
 
Through no fault of my own, I drank too much yesterday and wasn't competent complete the brew I was making, so it sat there, all night, at a constant 68C (154.4F) in my 50l Braumeister. The grain must have had about 16 hours soaking.

I finished the brew of this morning. Not surprisingly the wort was crystal clear and it developed a good foamy head when I dropped it into the fermenters. It also had a good 2 hour boil, on account of my general slowness. Efficiency was about normal. There were no 'off' smells.

I'll post again in a fewof weeks and advise if there are any unexpected flavours or other goings-on which may be of interest to members.

TT

The brew in question is a simple wheat/vienna Saison late hopped with Nelson Sauvin and Sticklebract.
 
I mashed in at 155 and by 1:00 the next day the mash was down to 140. I know this wort is going to be exceptionally fermentable and very light.

The wort will most likely not be as exceptionally fermentable as you suspect.
Starting at 155, you would have denatured all of the enzymes that act at lower temps.
This is the reason that when a step mash is performed, we start at lower temps and work up to higher temps.

Brew on friend, I just thought that I would add this info.
 
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