Okay to delay between mash and brewing?

[Hardin66]

Did an AG Stout yesterday, with 21# of grain, which is a lot for me; got my mash gravity where I wanted it, but just for kicks did a third and fourth sparging of my spent grains and now I have 6 gal of 1.050 second runnings. Here's the question; I can't brew for a few days, it'll be sitting in my kettle in the garage. It looks like it's already foaming a little after 24 hours. Think it'll be okay? Should I drop a campden tab? Heat it to kill it and let it sit? I'm thinking about a porter or a black IPA for the batch. Thanks!

 

[Dionysus68]

You may wind up with a lambic or trappist style beer from the wild yeast. Could be interesting.

 

[LLBeanJ]

It'll definitely be funky. Whether good funky or bad funky remains to be seen. Most likely bad funky, though.

 

[Braufessor]

Yeah - that is going to have some major problems. At best, you "might" be able to get some sort of berlinner style funk/sour beer...... but even that is probably a big maybe.

 

[LLBrewer]

I think the OP is asking if the 1.050 wort will be ok to boil in a few days.

 

[Braufessor]

I think the OP is asking if the 1.050 wort will be ok to boil in a few days.

It won't be ok to boil in a few days - it will sour. A mash (unboiled) will start to sour in hours. Several days...... My bet is it is going to be nasty.

 

[fsr_racer]

What if he refridgerated it instead of leaving it out in the tun?

 

[Braufessor]

If it went straight to the fridge, you would definitely be better off.... as the cold would slow down the bacteria in the wort. It might be something interesting to try, I guess. I still think it has a higher likelihood of turning out bad. "Several days" is a long time to let wort (that is full of bacteria) sit around - in any conditions. It is far from the best way to go about doing things, but, I guess you don't know if you don't try.

My suggestion in the future, for doing something like this is to use (borrow) a second burner and pot. Get the boil going on the first runnings, collect second runnings and get a second boil going (about 30 minutes behind the first one). You will be able to tend to each at the same time. Chill the first and put in fermenter and, about the time you are done with that, you will be ready to chill the second and transfer. Getting a strategy something like this will allow you to do both beers in a time frame that is not much longer than the one beer.

 

[rekoob]

Any way to "split" the brew day, say mash and bump the temp up on the wort to "pasturize" it, cool it down and then store in your fermenter unitl you can boil the next day?

 

[Cyclman]

If you could boil it for 15 minutes, with hops and then chill and store it in a sanitized carboy, I think you'd increase your chances. But this isn't much of a time saver.

 

[Braufessor]

As mentioned - you could bring it up to a boil for 15 minutes....... but at that point, I am not sure what the exact point would be in trying to save time by taking twice as long the next day to finish your beer.

If you are trying to save some time, I would play around with 30-40 minute mashes (I bet if you threw an extra pound of grain in and stirred the mash a couple times you could get good conversion in that time). Do quick batch sparges. And you could try 45 minute hard/vigorous boils. Make sure everything is set up and ready to go the day before you brew - that is a big time saver for me.

If I am being honest, if time was that tight, I would simply brew extract beers before I would ever try to mash 1 day and brew a day(s) later with that same wort. In my opinion, there are places to save time and places where things need to be done a certain way. I think this is one of them.

 

[Hardin66]

Thanks for all the thoughtful replies. So, I brought it up to a boil, put the sanitized lid on it and let it cool and sit overnight, boiled it up the next day after work w/ 2 oz leftover Warrior at 60 and 1 oz leftover Kent Golding at flameout and pitched it with slurry from the IPA I just bottled. It's a bastard of a Frankenstein beer. I'll let you guys know how it comes out!

 

[GuldTuborg]

Overnight mash might be the closest you could come to what you want. I've experimented with this technique with good results. There are several threads devoted to it, as well. Just make sure your mash tun is well insulated.

 

[atimmerman88]

I've done what your speaking about twice...both were partigyles from an RIS and DIPA respectively. Time and equipment limited me to 1 boil per day. I tossed the 2nd runnings in a carboy, chucked it in the fridge, and boil the next day.

I didn't have any issues with souring. Maybe I was just lucky but both made good beers boiling the wort the next day


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[Poobah58]

You might be OK. Look up how to do a Kentucky Common ale. It's how things used to be done back in the day...
https://byo.com/all-grain-brewing/item/1691-sour-mashing-techniques
http://www.***************.com/board/showthread.php?t=13190

 

[RedstoneBrewing]

I did something similar recently. I needed to get 10 gallons brewed in a pinch. My MLT can accommodate 10 gallon batches, but my kettle is two small, so I did two split boils.

Overnight mash, collected wort about 7 hours after mash-in. Boiled, cooled and racked the first 5 gallon batch immediately after sparging, but didn't boil the second half of the wort (sitting in sealed buckets outdoors) until about 24 hours post-mash.

I just kegged both batches and aside from high attenuation (due to the long mash?), I haven't noticed any overt off-flavours. However, YMMV! I will report back after they carb up.