Mash today, boil tomorrow

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richm20

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Anyone know why this is not a good idea? FYI, im considering mashing Friday night and boiling Sat. night. I would cool the wort before storing for the night.....

Actually not something I want to do, but the idea of "what if" has crossed my mind.

Thanks
 
Well, it "could" be done. You would have to chill the wort and put it in the fridge until boil time. Otherwise, those nasty bugs/germs/bacteria start to grow.
 
gwapogorilla said:
Well, it "could" be done. You would have to chill the wort and put it in the fridge until boil time. Otherwise, those nasty bugs/germs/bacteria start to grow.
Click to expand...

Maybe run a wort chiller and cool it down quick. Store it in a cooler with ice (ice packs) floating.

Just a thought. Personally I enjoy making a day of brewing but I know others are pressed for time. May be nice to mash on Friday night and boil and pitch the next day.
 
I know people, myself included, split the brew day. It's called over night mashing. If you use a cooler to mash and wrap it, the temp doesn't drop much. I've never waited 24hrs though. 12-14 most. Can you just mash in the morning and boil at night? As far as chilling it and then boiling I'm not sure. I personally wouldn't risk it.
 
I tend to do this all the time and no problems so far. All I do is set the wort aside after mashing and cling film the boiler lid shut, leave it and boil it the next day. It's unlikely you'll get contamination.
In fact if I run out of brew time I also leave the boiled wort overnight to cool in a similar manner before fermentation, again no probs over 50 or so brews
 
I've done this numerous times ........... Contamination is a non issue. The exposure time is so brief that noticeable souring is virtually impossible....... I don't bother cooling or anything, and it works fine................

Remember "contamination" is a non-issue considering the fact that you are going to boil...... Your mash temp is high enough that it will kill most everything anyway..... anything that finds it's way in is not going to get any sort of a start in that time frame.......nor is it likely that any uglies will crawl into your mash if it's covered anyway.


H.W.
 
I'm interested in hearing your results. I think the temperature control is critical. From what I've heard and read just letting your mash sit for long periods of time is exactly how to create a sour mash.
 
Another thing to consider is that this is pretty much the way people perform a sour mash. If you're really careful and cool the wort quickly, you can get away with it. There are many that do. But if the wild bugs take hold, you could end up with a sour beer at best, or a keg of bile at worst.
 
Owly055 said:
Remember "contamination" is a non-issue considering the fact that you are going to boil...... Your mash temp is high enough that it will kill most everything anyway..... anything that finds it's way in is not going to get any sort of a start in that time frame.......nor is it likely that any uglies will crawl into your mash if it's covered anyway.
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As mentioned by others and the BYO link posted, there's plenty of lacto on your grain (among other bugs) and if your mash is sitting in a temperature range that's right for them to go to town, they will (and relatively quickly), and a boil is not going to undo the work they perform.
 
I doubt you'll have a problem. Couple suggestions to thwart lacto infection.

1. Mashout to 170
2. Heat runnings to 170 plus to pasteurize prior to the pause in your session.

Intentional souring often includes adding a small amount of fresh unmashed grain to the tun and allowing it to "work" for days. Far from what your proposing.

A 5 day extreme cooler could be a nice MT ?
 
blizz81 said:
As mentioned by others and the BYO link posted, there's plenty of lacto on your grain (among other bugs) and if your mash is sitting in a temperature range that's right for them to go to town, they will (and relatively quickly), and a boil is not going to undo the work they perform.
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This is wrong..... Lactobacillus is killed at 115F, so it will be well and truly dead at mash temps.... A mash that is covered while still hot (150 or so) is highly unlikely to sour at all , and definitely NOT from the lacto that was on the grain.......It's dead! Sour mashing is done by adding grain AFTER the mash has cooled to a temperature it will tolerate.

This is just another case of alarmism..... I've left mashes for as long as 16 hours with no ill effects at all...... Never tried 24 hours, but I wouldn't be afraid to if it is well covered.

....ATTENTION...... THE SKY IS NOT FALLIING......


H.W.
 
With kid #2 soon on the way I thought I may have to give up brewing for about 6 months. This may be a way to make it happen for a batch or two. I'd love to save some of that weekend daylight so this sounds like a super good idea to me.
 
I've done a mash and boil one day, then a parti-gyle of the tun the next day just fine. Tun smelled just like it did the day before when I sealed it up and if there was any short lived souring it was so minute that I couldn't detect it. Beer turned out fine.

No reason the main mash would be any different. Go for it.
 
I agree with everyone who says its not an issue. You'll kill most nasties during the initial rest. As long as you keep it sealed up well you'll wort will be fine.

What you'll probably need to watch out for is creating a wort that's too ferementable. Due to the long nature of the mash, you're going to give those enzymes a very, very long time to break down those longer chain sugars.

An overnight mash is sometimes employed for people who want to make a bone dry saison.

You can try to offset this a number of ways: mash even higher, mash out, add more specialty malts, etc. You mileage will vary depending on your system.

I've never done an overnight mash, but I do have a "nap-time" technique that I use every now and then. When my son goes does for his post-lunch nap, I start a full boil volume mash. Then after dinner is cleaned up, I'll drain and start my boil. The mash will last between 3 and 5 hours depending and I can wrap up brew day pretty early in the evening.
 
Owly055 said:
This is wrong..... Lactobacillus is killed at 115F, so it will be well and truly dead at mash temps.... A mash that is covered while still hot (150 or so) is highly unlikely to sour at all , and definitely NOT from the lacto that was on the grain.......It's dead! Sour mashing is done by adding grain AFTER the mash has cooled to a temperature it will tolerate.

This is just another case of alarmism..... I've left mashes for as long as 16 hours with no ill effects at all...... Never tried 24 hours, but I wouldn't be afraid to if it is well covered.

....ATTENTION...... THE SKY IS NOT FALLIING......


H.W.
Click to expand...

Could you be any more patronizing? Seriously, way to blow a response out of proportion. No one's freaking out, but I know you love to stir up feigned "controversy" and stroke your ego by having an internet argument.

Your information would be much more helpful if it weren't clouded with so much rhetoric and instead included a source or a useful link.
 
A lot of these responses seem to assume that one would let the mash go overnight. I read the OP as they would collect their runnings the night of, and store the wort for boiling the next day. This in and of itself would avoid these issues of over fermentability and sour mash, etc. that we are discussing, correct?

(edit) not a lot, just a few. Ignore
 
Owly055 said:
This is wrong..... Lactobacillus is killed at 115F, so it will be well and truly dead at mash temps.... A mash that is covered while still hot (150 or so) is highly unlikely to sour at all , and definitely NOT from the lacto that was on the grain.......It's dead! Sour mashing is done by adding grain AFTER the mash has cooled to a temperature it will tolerate.

This is just another case of alarmism..... I've left mashes for as long as 16 hours with no ill effects at all...... Never tried 24 hours, but I wouldn't be afraid to if it is well covered.

....ATTENTION...... THE SKY IS NOT FALLIING......


H.W.
Click to expand...

According to the Handbook of Food Processing the Decimal reduction time for Lactobacillus is 0.5-1.0 minutes at 65C (149F). That is the time it takes to reduce the population by one log cycle (90%).

If I were to use this technique I would make sure that a good mash out is done at 160 or higher and that the complete grain bed is heated that high.
 
Owly055 said:
This is wrong..... Lactobacillus is killed at 115F, so it will be well and truly dead at mash temps.... A mash that is covered while still hot (150 or so) is highly unlikely to sour at all , and definitely NOT from the lacto that was on the grain.......It's dead! Sour mashing is done by adding grain AFTER the mash has cooled to a temperature it will tolerate.

This is just another case of alarmism..... I've left mashes for as long as 16 hours with no ill effects at all...... Never tried 24 hours, but I wouldn't be afraid to if it is well covered.

....ATTENTION...... THE SKY IS NOT FALLIING......
Click to expand...


I could be wrong and 100% of bugs could be killed by mash temps and any / all problems seen by people in no-chill or "storing wort", etc, situations of contamination could be from airborne bugs or other sources. But the fact that it happens suggests there's a level of risk. Overnight may be quick enough to keep that risk to a minimum. Getting and / or keeping it out of optimal bug temp ranges could help with that risk, and if it's relatively easy for the brewer based on their equipment and process, anything helping with a risk of "losing an entire batch of beer" is worth noting, I think.
 
Someone earlier in the thread mentioned kids. I find the "extended mash" schedule works well as I tend to brew at night after the kids are asleep. So, I can mash in and get temp and pH settled, then leave it for an hour or two while I put the kids to bed.

It's not 24 hours, but I have ended up leaving it overnight and no issues.

As others mentioned, you'll need to pay attention to gravity and pH because this may get you enough sugars that you won't need much extraction from your sparge.
 
helibrewer said:
According to the Handbook of Food Processing the Decimal reduction time for Lactobacillus is 0.5-1.0 minutes at 65C (149F). That is the time it takes to reduce the population by one log cycle (90%).

If I were to use this technique I would make sure that a good mash out is done at 160 or higher and that the complete grain bed is heated that high.
Click to expand...

I've found much lower temps quoted...It's probably safer to assume the higher temps...... In any case mashing at 152 and insulating in a tightly covered container is going to leave the temp high enough for long enough that the risk of contamination is virtually nil..... Any surviving bacteria will be pretty heavily impacted. If we were talking about setting wort aside for weeks or months, or even several days, it would be a different matter. We would even want to consider botulism which requires a much higher temp. None of that really applies in the overnight or 24 hour process. Provided things are sealed up pretty tightly while quite hot.

H.W.
 
In the summer time, I do the overnight mash without much of a temp drop. It's really nice to be able to wake up and go right to boiling and then clean up and have most of your day still ahead of you. Towards the end of summer, I actually had a "brew weekend" while SWMBO was out of town and brewered 5 beers and made 6 meads over the course of three days and did that on two different beers.
 
I've actually been thinking of doing this on my next batch.

BIAB, mash the night before, remove grains, collect wort, cover, boil in the morning.

I'm a bit conflicted on whether I should actually do it, but if it works, I could brew so much more often. This would be perfect for people with kids that can only dedicate a few hours a day.
 
Psylocide, It works!
If you want to be conservative, bring the runnings up to 170-180 degrees before retiring for the night, this will denature the enzymes and fix the mash profile.

More of a time saver to mash in, go to bed and leave it be for the night. Someone did a few o'night mashes and compared the results. If I recall, mashing around 4 degrees higher and letting it go overnight resulted in comparable FG.
 
wilserbrewer said:
Psylocide, It works!
If you want to be conservative, bring the runnings up to 170-180 degrees before retiring for the night, this will denature the enzymes and fix the mash profile.

More of a time saver to mash in, go to bed and leave it be for the night. Someone did a few o'night mashes and compared the results. If I recall, mashing around 4 degrees higher and letting it go overnight resulted in comparable FG.
Click to expand...

Wait a second.

Are you saying, if I'm BIABing, I could actually mash in at correct temp (say I want to mash at 154°, so bring it to 158°) insulate and let it sit overnight with the grain bag in there and just come back in the morning and start my boil?

Or am I way off base?
 
Psylocide said:
Wait a second.



Are you saying, if I'm BIABing, I could actually mash in at correct temp (say I want to mash at 154°, so bring it to 158°) insulate and let it sit overnight with the grain bag in there and just come back in the morning and start my boil?



Or am I way off base?
Click to expand...


Not off base at all
Yes, That's exactly what I have read. I have done overnight mashes but have not correlated it to FG. Others with more experience at this claim that it can lead to a more fermentable wort, hence the reasoning to bump up the mash temp a bit.

There are some threads with more detail....

Of course YMMV,

As a side benefit, you may also gain an efficiency point or two with a longer mash.
 
wilserbrewer said:
Not off base at all
Yes, That's exactly what I have read. I have done overnight mashes but have not correlated it to FG. Others with more experience at this claim that it can lead to a more fermentable wort, hence the reasoning to bump up the mash temp a bit.

There are some threads with more detail....

Of course YMMV,

As a side benefit, you may also gain an efficiency point or two with a longer mash.
Click to expand...

Wow... well, looks like I'll be doing an experiment very soon.

Can't wait, but going to be tricky... ~15 lbs of grains + 4.7 gal water in a 7.5 gal kettle. Rackers says it'll work, 5.89 gal of space.
 
wilserbrewer said:
Small batch I assume, or will you be sparging to get 5 gallon batch?
Click to expand...

The idea was to sparge to get to boil volume for a 5 gal batch... I think I may have to sparge that night, instead of leaving the grain in there.
 
Psylocide said:
The idea was to sparge to get to boil volume for a 5 gal batch... I think I may have to sparge that night, instead of leaving the grain in there.
Click to expand...

Why bother, you can sparge the following morning. You can even sparge with room temperature water with good results. If you gather the wort the night before, there really is no "time savings", just a paused brew session.

The "overnight mash" is the time savings because in theory you can be sleeping and mashing at the same time :)

I would overnight mash FWIW, and sparge in the morning, hot sparge or cold sparge, only difference is that with a cold sparge it will take a bit longer to reach boil.
 
wilserbrewer said:
Why bother, you can sparge the following morning. You can even sparge with room temperature water with good results. If you gather the wort the night before, there really is no "time savings", just a paused brew session.

The "overnight mash" is the time savings because in theory you can be sleeping and mashing at the same time :)

I would overnight mash FWIW, and sparge in the morning, hot sparge or cold sparge, only difference is that with a cold sparge it will take a bit longer to reach boil.
Click to expand...

Ok... got it.

Agreed though, while it's not a "time-saver" and will actually be longer than my extract brew days in total, it will allow me to brew all grain and break up the process.

Kid goes to bed at 7:30 - 8 pm, mash in, go to bed, wake up before kid, sparge, start boil, help get kid ready, feed breakfast in between hop additions, etc., cool and pitch.

This will get me to all grain batches with minimal impact on my other roles and keep SWMBO happy.

I'll probably document it here somewhere as well. Wish me luck.
 
Psylocide said:
Ok... got it.

Agreed though, while it's not a "time-saver" and will actually be longer than my extract brew days in total, it will allow me to brew all grain and break up the process.

Kid goes to bed at 7:30 - 8 pm, mash in, go to bed, wake up before kid, sparge, start boil, help get kid ready, feed breakfast in between hop additions, etc., cool and pitch.

This will get me to all grain batches with minimal impact on my other roles and keep SWMBO happy.

I'll probably document it here somewhere as well. Wish me luck.
Click to expand...


I'd be interested to hear your results!
 
I am going to give this a try tomarrow night. I just picked up 55 lbs. of Avangard pilsner malt and my goal is to make a nice dry and clean finishing pils.
Using a 10 gallon rubbermaid water cooler, I will do a double size batch, I have found that the more grain and water is in the cooler, the better it holds temps.
Any suggestions on starting mash temps. Thinking 155 should be pretty close, maybe as low as 152?
 
fastengine said:
I am going to give this a try tomarrow night. I just picked up 55 lbs. of Avangard pilsner malt and my goal is to make a nice dry and clean finishing pils.
Using a 10 gallon rubbermaid water cooler, I will do a double size batch, I have found that the more grain and water is in the cooler, the better it holds temps.
Any suggestions on starting mash temps. Thinking 155 should be pretty close, maybe as low as 152?
Click to expand...

Looking forward to hearing how it turns out, i'm also interested in doing some pilsners with this method. The reading I did on the other forum I linked previously (you should check that out, some great tips in there) suggested mashing in at 3-4 degrees above what you would target for a standard length mash so it doesn't dry out too much.
 
Owly055 said:
Remember "contamination" is a non-issue considering the fact that you are going to boil.
Click to expand...

Right, but the bacteria that are thoroughly covering the grain can "sour" the mash, and that sourness will persist through the boil. Once "soured," the damage is done. You'll kill the bacteria that caused it, but the resulting wort will still taste sour, unless I'm misunderstanding something.
 
I do it all the time. You'll only run into problems if you forget about it for a few days. Overnight isn't going to give anything a decent foothold.
I will say that some things do survive the mash. When I take the top off the cooler the next morning (I've usually dropped to about 70* by then) it stinks like a horse blanket. Give it a stir and it smells like sweet wort again. Then of course you boil it and you're in the clear. Cheers.
 
I've done it many times, no worries. Any contaminants that might happen to get in are killed with the boil. However, the wort stays hot overnight so no need to worry.
 

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