Over night mash

[Jban7]

So I have a direct question if you all don't mind. All the threads I have seen seem to go off topic to shorten a brew day. I am looking for specific experiences, positives and negatives on over night mashing. I have small kids and a stressed wife. So it's hard for me to get a full brew day in. I want to start over night mashing and pick it back up in the morning. What have you guys or girls experienced?

Cheers
Josh

 

[Jban7]

Just to add i use a orange 10 gallon water cooler that I plan on pre heating with hot water and putting it next to my wood stove to keep it as close to mash temp as possible.

 

[kmarkstevens]

A slightly different option is to brew at night, then leave it covered outside to cool. Rack it in the morning and pitch yeast. I have done that for hundreds of batches and no issue.

For timesavers, let me throw out some obvious ones in case you've overlooked them
1. mash for 30 -45 minutes only. You might have less efficiency but grain is cheap and time is precious
2. bittering hop no more than 30 minutes. It's pretty widely documented now that almost all the hop aroma has boiled off around 15 minutes. Twice the hops, half the time.

 

[Miraculix]

I tried it but wasn't able to hold the temperature high enough and the next day I had a kettle sour. Wasn't bad though....

I now do over night no chill and pitch the next morning.

Hop boiling reduced to 30 minutes max, as suggested, but I don't touch the mash length. I tried it and it worked but I have the feeling that shorter mash does extract the flavour part differently. I also like to do steps and that takes time.

 

[teesherv]

Direct answer - overnight mash worked well. Beers tended to attenuate more. Got nervous about infection, so added a step - once mash was done and had a few moments, lifted out bag from cooler to drain, poured wort in kettle, and got up to 190 degrees to kill off any baddies. Turn off gas, put on lid, went to bed.
I ended up BIAB in the 10 gallon cooler so I could get grains out quickly. Also, no spage to save time. I would mash in before dinner and pull the bag out right after kids went to bed (longer than 60 min mash). Drain, transfer to kettle, and up to 190 took less than 30 minutes once it got it down, so minimal time away from wife.

 

[gonefishin2]

I’m in a similar familial situation, but I still haven’t done an overnight mash. My current SOP is heating strike water in the mash tun, use an Inkbird sousvide (it has an app that lets you set the temp and time—right now i set it to turn on about 2am and its perfectly at strike temp at 5ish—on sale for $60 on Amazon). I wake up, mash in, grab some coffee and get ready to brew. I like this because i can control fermentability, and my mash is still up to temp so i can ranp to boiling quickly. Good luck w the balance!

 

[odie]

I mostly mash over night/over work...to reduce my brew day. I do BIAB with a basket. I have a tiny 12v recirc pump and a temp controller. So it just maintains 150' and recircs all night or day until I wake up or get home and ready to boil.

I actually have been mashing in at room temp. I turn the element on the same time I dump the grain in. being only 70-90 degrees (deep South) it takes no time at all to reach 150. I'll mash in and fire up, take a shower for work, and it's practically at 150' before I leave for work. Does it's thing recirc all day with an Inkbird controller. Get home and set controller to boil. pull basket at 170-180 and go from there. Basically the 2-3 hours it takes to reach strike temp and mash all happens while I'm gone. Once conversion is finished it does no harm to keep the wort at 150 for hours. It costs a couple dimes maybe of electricity but I get my 3 hours back.

 

[bobeer]

I used to sparge then pick it up the next morning with the boil and pitch. Now I do a complete brew day but leave it on the stove to chill overnight.

Weighing the grains and stuff out the day before helps too. Id do that and all the calculations for the recipe so when brew time came I was pretty much ready to go.