Anyone mash one day and brew the next?

[Calder]

Long brew days are stopping me from brewing as much as I would like. A couple of hours mash/sparge, then heat to boiling, and hour+ boil, then hop steep, cool, and transfer, all adds up to about 5+ hours.

If I could mash in the evening, and then in the morning heat the wort up while getting coffee and breakfast, everything could be done in a few hours, and be done before mid-day.

Has anyone done this? Any advice? I assume you need to heat the wort up after mash and sparge to about 180 F to kill any souring bacteria and any enzymes. Just place the lid on the pot and leave alone overnight.

How long do you think the wort could be left between mash and boil? If you couldn't get to it the next day, would it last 36 hours?

 

[CanAm]

I’ve done this a few times. Like you said, mash in the evening, raise to >180F and put a lid on it. Continue the next morning with the boil etc. No issues.

Can’t speak to leaving sweet wert longer than that.

 

[RM-MN]

Long brew days are stopping me from brewing as much as I would like. A couple of hours mash/sparge, then heat to boiling, and hour+ boil, then hop steep, cool, and transfer, all adds up to about 5+ hours.

If I could mash in the evening, and then in the morning heat the wort up while getting coffee and breakfast, everything could be done in a few hours, and be done before mid-day.

Has anyone done this? Any advice? I assume you need to heat the wort up after mash and sparge to about 180 F to kill any souring bacteria and any enzymes. Just place the lid on the pot and leave alone overnight.

How long do you think the wort could be left between mash and boil? If you couldn't get to it the next day, would it last 36 hours?

Simply putting a lid on the wort will keep out most of the biologicals. Your mash temp is within the pasteurization temp but heating it a bit more to stop all the enzyme action wouldn't be a bad idea.

Now for a different idea. Switch to BIAB and get your grain milled fine, very fine. That can reduce the mash time considerably. I often mash for 30 minutes and get good results from that. By having the grain milled finer you get better mash efficiency so you can simply skip the sparge step if your boil pot is big enough to handle the full volume of water plus the grains. Right there I saved you an hour and a half.

Boiling the wort is done for 2 reasons, to reduce the liquid quantity but removing excess water and to provide bittering from the hops. I've read that 90% of the bittering happens in the first 30 minutes so I adjust my hops or my expectations of bitterness and only boil for 30 minutes. There, I saved you another half hour. If you have late addition hops for flavor, add them when appropriate. With your brew time cut by the 2 hours noted, you can do it all in one evening. If your chilling is taking too long, chill the wort below 170 to stop the isomerizing of the hops, then put a lid on the pot and go to bed. The wort will cool considerably overnight and won't take much to get it to pitching temperature.