Overnight or Long Step Mash and effects on body

[dmtaylor]

Heh. I just added 2 lbs yesterday to a 5 gallon batch of "pumpkin pie" brown ale. Of course, it's intended as a "pastry" beer (a term that kind of annoys me because some of use were making these kinds of beers for years before millenials decided they had invented something new).

Enjoy your pastry. Hell... it might even be good, if you made it. Cheers.

 

[balrog]

Enjoy your pastry. Hell... it might even be good, if you made it. Cheers.

I will often try samples of many things but the current state of my tastes, and frankly the historical states of my tastes, have never found me wanting more than a sip of any of these (I'm sure wonderful) pastry stouts. But as I have said before, I also despise lima beans and love brussels sprouts. And dry Irish stouts.

 

[BPenny]

Early on in my brewing days, I also had a 6 month old and during that time I made several smaller batches of beer by mashing in at a variety of temps ranging anywhere from room temp to 130 F in a brew kettle that I would place in a 170-180 degree (F) oven overnight. 7-8 hours later the mash temp would usually be somewhere between 140-155 degrees. My main observations were:
1) I always ended up with a significantly higher sg than expected
2) My beers would always ferment out to around 1.000.
3) The body was somehwat thin, but not necessarily inappropriately so since I was making mostly saisons and mixed fermentation sours, plus the extra alcohol (and whatever else I may have extracted from the grains) seemed to contribute some body and perceived sweetness.
4) The primary negative effect was on the head retention. The beers would basically come out looking like barrel aged mixed culture beers with only a thin ring of foam, even if I only fermented them for a month. In agreement with what others have commented, I would assume that was from the extended protein rest more than a lengthy alpha/beta amylase rest. This is the biggest reason why I no longer use this method, but it worked ok for some styles.

 

[odie]

just mashed in this morning. doing a pumpkin ale.

This time I heated the mash water to 155 BEFORE mashing in. It will ride for 10 hours. Maybe this will give more body than mashing in at 80 and letting it step up to 150 for the same 10 hours.

Or will 10 hours mashing make it "dry" no matter what? Or maybe kick it up to a 160 mash in and hold it there for several hour?