overnight mashing

[germanmade84]

Has anyone ever considered or better, tryed to do a mash overnight at room temp then went to boil? I think im gonna try it. How does that sound?

 

[captainkirk83]

Please describe.

 

[usfmikeb]

Gordon Strong's book talks about doing an overnight mash in an oven to maintain appropriate mashing temps...

 

[germanmade84]

Say for instance u take all your grain put it in your mash tun for 24 hr at 70 degrees, what would the beer turn out to be like?

 

[usfmikeb]

It would be sour...

 

[germanmade84]

So like no sugars would become available?

 

[Tiroux]

Say for instance u take all your grain put it in your mash tun for 24 hr at 70 degrees, what would the beer turn out to be like?

Well... there won't be alcool. There's no starch conversion at this temp, even if you let it soak for a week.

 

[MalFet]

You'll get some conversion, but the grains will go fetid first. Barley malt is sick with lacto.

 

[wickman6]

Myself and a few others do this quite a bit, and there's a good bit of gathered info on doing just that.

Read through this link: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/overnight-mash-keeping-my-cool-295579/

I have made some wonderful brews using this technique, I suggest you give it a try!

Edit: I'm assuming that you start your mash at a conversion temp, then let the mash sit overnight. Or do you mean just literally dough in at room temp? If the latter is the case, I agree with the previous posters, you probably wont get any conversion.

 

[captainkirk83]

Good info. Sounds like a good way to break up brew day. Does it add any flavor change to the beer?

 

[mpride1911]

I've seen a thread on here somewhere before discussing this. If I recall correctly, the poster stated that he mashed at the standard temp and just let it sit for a long time. The insulation kept it near the target temp for the duration.

 

[LuiInIdaho]

Say for instance u take all your grain put it in your mash tun for 24 hr at 70 degrees, what would the beer turn out to be like?

I understand what you are saying but I am not sure it would work. The enzymes needed for starch conversion are activated at minimum temperatures and deactivated at higher temperatures (at least this is the way I understand it). If this is the case, I would be concerned about not getting the temps high enough to activate the enzymes.

But we would know the answer to this question if you put it to the test. Mark

 

[madcowbrewing]

Who wants to bet it was 70 degrees celcius we can't all think he meant his dough in temp. I have done an overnight mash on my stout. 14 months ago. Still a good bottle. I started at top range of 157-158 and lost about 10 to 12 degrees. I do live where it gets very warm in the high desert so that helped that overnight temp outside was 80 degrees.

 

[Ogri]

Who wants to bet it was 70 degrees celcius we can't all think he meant his dough in temp.

I thought the same at first but then I re-read the OP and saw that room temperature was specified.

 

[bigbeergeek]

I think we're dealing with a simple misunderstanding of what an overnight mash is: not letting grains sit at room temperature but rather insulating them at normal mash temperatures overnight. It works. It's been done by myself and many other brewers. Temperature drops might result in dry beers. Expect a ~10 degree (fahrenheit) drop over eight hours.

 

[ericbw]

But the conversion happens before the drop in temp, right? Basically keeping it warm after the conversion at the right temp for bacteria to grow? Also, there's a max potential, so once you extract it all (100% efficiency) nothing else happens.

But definitely not going to work doing it all at room temp.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Has anyone ever considered or better, tryed to do a mash overnight at room temp then went to boil? I think im gonna try it. How does that sound?

Sounds to me like fresh compost juice...yum!

 

[Tiroux]

Sounds to me like fresh compost juice...yum!

 

[-Tim]

This sounds like an interesting idea, but like others have said there wont be any sugars in the resulting wort. Im all for trying this method, for myself even, but not at room temp. Maybe experiment with a pale ale (something with a low grain volume just in case it fails you wont be out much $$). Also a pale might go good with a bit of dryness as a result of dropping mash temp who knows?

 

[bigbeergeek]

Do it! Fill that mash tun full and pile on the sleeping bags!

 

[LuiInIdaho]

This sounds like an interesting idea, but like others have said there wont be any sugars in the resulting wort. Im all for trying this method, for myself even, but not at room temp. Maybe experiment with a pale ale (something with a low grain volume just in case it fails you wont be out much $$). Also a pale might go good with a bit of dryness as a result of dropping mash temp who knows?

Those who commented about not getting starch conversion, myself included, were commenting on the room temperature part made by the OP. You will be able to achieve proper conversion by mashing overnight provided you start at the proper initial temperature. Either Gordon Strong or Randy Mosher mentioned that they mash overnight in a recent interview episode on Basic Brewing Radio. Mark.

 

[germanmade84]

Thanks to all posters, sorry for confusion of Farenheit temps. I totally agree overnight mash at 150 slowly desending would mean dry beer, and room temp would be.compost. But i do believe after 3 hours mashing u start to get bitter acrid stuff that tends to permiate.

Conclusion: i dont know if i will try it.

 

[Larso]

My last 6 or 7 brews were overnight mashes. It's an excellent way of shortening brewday. I dough in for a normal mash temp, say 68C, lag the vessel(I BIAB) and leave overnight. In the morning bring to mashout and pull bag, begin boil. I can lose up to 13/14degC over about 12 hours sometimes. No problems with off flavours, sourness, conversion. Can't see myself ever going back to mash and boil on same day. Do it!!

 

[germanmade84]

My last 6 or 7 brews were overnight mashes. It's an excellent way of shortening brewday. I dough in for a normal mash temp, say 68C, lag the vessel(I BIAB) and leave overnight. In the morning bring to mashout and pull bag, begin boil. I can lose up to 13/14degC over about 12 hours sometimes. No problems with off flavours, sourness, conversion. Can't see myself ever going back to mash and boil on same day. Do it!!

Exactly the response i was hoping to hear. My thing is getting 2 batches in a weekend so i thought mashing friday night would be a good idea if it worked.

 

[vinnythering]

Are you talking about Celcius? If so, then that would be fine. A little high, but it would convert and make beer. You need to maintain temperature though.

If you're talking Farenheit, then thats a bad bad idea and you would end up with barley tea, possibly sour.

 

[Tiroux]

Are you talking about Celcius? If so, then that would be fine. A little high, but it would convert and make beer. You need to maintain temperature though.

If you're talking Farenheit, then thats a bad bad idea and you would end up with barely tea, possibly sour.

68 celcius is not high at all! Mash out is over 75 (77 most of the time).

That said, I would like to add...

The temperature drop, but the beer should not be drier because of the low temps, because after an hour or two, the enzymes are denaturated and just dont convert sugars anymore (aka overnight mash doesn't change a thing)

 

[vinnythering]

70C calculates out to 158 for a mash temp. Which is high. Not extremely high, but higher than a typical mash temp. I didn't say too high, just a little high.

 

[vinnythering]

My apologies for the late responses and double posting, my work computer doesn't seem to like this website much and lags a lot. My first post didn't seem to register until well into the third page, but I posted it during the first.

 

[Tiroux]

70C calculates out to 158 for a mash temp. Which is high. Not extremely high, but higher than a typical mash temp. I didn't say too high, just a little high.

Ok. I work in Celcius, and I've done a few big with single infusion at 68 and 69 and it was really balanced. At 65-66 you'll get the dryness of a fine lager. At 70 and over, you got something like a sweet stout.

 

[VladOfTrub]

I have done the long soak at a little lower temp than 70. My brewing process is different, as I dough in with cold water. My water is 45 - 55, depending on the season. I use a gas fired mashtun and tri-decoction everything I brew. Anyway, the first time I did the long soak was last Sept.. It happened due to circumstance. I got back to the mash about 9 hours after I doughed in. No, the mash wasn't sour. Lacto is activated around 85 and killed off at about 130. If the mash rested at 70 for a few days, it might get funky. What I did notice. While boiling the mash in the decoction kettle, the mash darkened as usual, but then lightened up, close to the color of the main mash. That has never occured before. The mash pH was right in the park before boiling. Then, after mash out. I dumped the mash into the lautertun, to fly sparge. Here is where I had a problem. The run off slowed to almost a stuck mash, and I had to underlet the grain bed and run off much slower than normally. It was a royal pain. I pump out of the lautertun. This time, I ended up using gravity and pumped out of a kettle. The grind was fine, the same as I always use. Another thing that I noticed, was that the wort was lighter in color after cooling, at the same gravity as a mash that wasn't soaked. Also, I noticed that the yeast (Budvar) chugged along for 5 weeks. When I did a sugar test to determine if it was time for a diacetyl rest. The fermentables were at .6%. The yeast seemed to do a good job. The last thing I noticed, was during filtering through the plates. Using a rough filter, the pressure in the plates was very low. I took out the 20's and went down to a .5 and the pressure was lower, than what occurs with the standard tri decoction mashing procedure. The filters were much cleaner. I tried two more batches with a long soak and the same things happened in those batches. I'm not a chemist. So, I have no idea what took place. For two of the three batches I used 23 pounds of Weyermans Boh. Pils floor malt and two pounds of their sauer malz. For the last batch, I used Mouterij. Even after soaking for hours, I still had to do an acid rest to get the pH down. So, what I did with the last two batches, was check the fermentable sugar percentage at 2 weeks and sparged slower. I need to do a few more batches before determining if what I have experienced, just isn't a freak. The filtered beer isn't going to change too much with age. I am happy with the color and flavor of the two batches. The last batch is in the fermenter. I brewed it 30 Dec.. It's at 42% fermentable sugar. The pH is 5.14, not quite in the Pils park, I know it will drop. What has me wondering? Are all the things written about mashing really true? Or, are the Chefs not giving out the real info? If the Chef tells his secrets. Then everyone can be a Chef. After all, at one time, most people thought the world was flat. It was written in books.