Delayed boil

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thejerk

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Any thoughts on the effects of an increase in time between the mash and the boil? I'll be transferring wort in a sealed bucket back to my own place and it could potentially be a few hours between mashout and the actual boil back home. Potentially lacto, etc, could start souring the wort before I get it boiling, I suppose. Or what should I do to maximize my chances in this less than ideal situation?
 
Any thoughts on the effects of an increase in time between the mash and the boil? I'll be transferring wort in a sealed bucket back to my own place and it could potentially be a few hours between mashout and the actual boil back home. Potentially lacto, etc, could start souring the wort before I get it boiling, I suppose. Or what should I do to maximize my chances in this less than ideal situation?

Before the boil? The boil should kill anything that'd spoil it. Just try not to move it around too much so you avoid any hot-side aeartion.
 
I think I know what you mean now. Sour beer? I would think two hours is far too little time for this to happen, but maybe someone who makes sours can chime in.
 
HSA is one of those "brewing bogeymen" that really doesn't esixt for the homebrewer. Besides the act of boiling is going to remove any oxygen that could have been produced by the sloshing.

Think these guys are worried about HSA??? :rolleyes:

 
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Why can't you keep the wort in the mash tun till boil time? No mashout or sparge? Some folks have done overnight mashes in coolers and if the temp is kept high enough you stay out of the souring range hopefully.
 
When I partigyle, I have to delay my boil on the second beer because I can only boil one beer at a time. And when I partigyle, the first beer is usually a big one, so there's a 90 minute boil between sparge & boil of the small beer. I've never had a problem with souring in that timeframe. Most lacto/souring problems are supposed to take place around 110F, so I suspect as long as your wort stays above this or is at this for only a short time, you should be fine.
 
The situation is this: a local brewer is letting me take a bucketful of second runnings off of an experimental impy stout (Hey, free high gravity, quality brew that I can tweak with adjuncts, hops, and yeast!). I'm afraid that by the time I collect these runnings and make it home, I won't have time to finish a boil, cool, transfer and pitch before I have to be in my o-chem lab, which typically runs about four hours.
Would I want to try to keep the wort above 110 F during that time? Or just not worry about it and do what I can do. I figure other than hops, which I'm just using leftovers from previous batches, and a vial of yeast, this beer is costing me nothing but carboy space anyway.
 
I bet it'll be just fine. Even if it started to sour, any souring that it does will be so little that I suspect you'd not notice, especially with a big, robust imperial stout.
 
Rather than a bucketful, can you get a cooler full instead? That way you will have some insulation to keep it warm.

Honestly I don't know what will happen. You more than likely will be perfectly fine if you get just a bucket, even if the temps drop below 110....stuff like this is all going to be conjecture. Very few people have done something like this, so there's no way to know the outcome....The one thing we do know is you are boiling after, which will kill off anything that might grow during the time between. We also know that no known pathogens can grow in beer, so no matter what happens no one will die...So there's a lot of leeway in there.

You have a great opportunity, so jump on it...If you can keep the wort somewhat warm such as in an insulated cooler that will be preferable. If not and all you can do is bring it home in a sealed bucket, that more than likely be fine as well....

All you can do is try, and to keep us posted. :mug:
 
Rather than a bucketful, can you get a cooler full instead? That way you will have some insulation to keep it warm.

AWESOME idea. I'll just take down my cooler MLT and fill that...I can get a little more wort for a slightly bigger batch this way too.
I know the boil will kill anything, just didn't want to chance introducing sourness if I didn't have to during that time span. And yes, I've tasted bad sourness in heavy RIS's before (well-regarded commercial examples, probably from beasties introduced during barrel aging, however).
 
Brewday update for anybody that is curious about this project:
so far this has gone very well. The 6 gallons of wort I brought home in my MLT clocked in at 1.061. This was wort that was just too low gravity for the brewer to keep in the RIS, but luckily I found a home for some of it. The wort was about 140 F when I collected it this morning at the brewery. Made a bit of a mess in the back of my car on the way home, but oh well. Five hours later I came home from my lab and the wort was still above 120 F. Nice job, MLT! Quickly got it on the flame and figured out a hop schedule using Galenas and EKG's/Fuggles. I added water at the end of the boil to bring the gravity back down to 1.063 because I really don't need a 7%+ stout (I've been stepping up some WLP007 for a couple of days now). I expect this to make a very dark, nice export style stout.
 
I guess I am OBE at this point, but I have waited 2 days between mashing and boiling without any ill effects. FWIW I had a bottle of that beer today and it's tasty!!
 
Glad it worked. Sounds like it''l be an awesome beer, and who can argue with free high quality wort!
 
Awesome that things seems to be going well. I hate to bring up something that might make you worried, but it would have been nice if you could have mashed out to 168* to deactivate enzymes. Since it's a stout, I'm guessing you'd like to have some leftover dextrins in the beer for sweetness and mouthfeel? Well without denaturing the enzymes, they'll keep working on those sugars in the wort until there's nothing but simple, single sugars in there. Yeast can easily consume these simple sugars, so you may be left with a lower FG than you expected. But I hope it all goes well!
 
Awesome that things seems to be going well. I hate to bring up something that might make you worried, but it would have been nice if you could have mashed out to 168* to deactivate enzymes.

Mash was conducted by the brewer, who to my knowledge always mashes out at 167. We've had discussions about mash-out and sparge water temperatures before.
 
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