Will a long mash hurt your brew?

[MMJfan]

I was brewing yesterday and got called to work about a half hour into my mash. My temp was right on at 152 when I left. When I got back, the mash had been going for about 3 hours total and my temp had dropped to about 145.

My question is, does mashing more than 3 hours hurt anything? The wort tasted normal after the boil when I tested it for OG and my OG was also spot on for what I was shooting for. And this morning my airlock is happily bubbling away so I'm assuming everything should be ok?

 

[DustBow]

you should be fine.

 

[Xpertskir]

Mashing longer will generally speaking create a slightly more ferment-able wort. You'll be fine. There are some people on here that do overnight mashing.

 

[ido50]

As long as temperature doesn't drop considerably, mashing that long should be just fine. Even if it did drop considerably, you're probably still fine, conversion had enough time to complete. Like the comment above says, expect a more fermentable wort.

 

[reed1911]

which will also mean a thinner mouth feel. Depending on the recipe you may want to add lactose to add both a bit of sweetness (won't add much) as well as some silky feel to it.

 

[MMJfan]

which will also mean a thinner mouth feel. Depending on the recipe you may want to add lactose to add both a bit of sweetness (won't add much) as well as some silky feel to it.

It's going to be a blueberry wheat so I would think I should get some sweetness from the blueberries right?

 

[reed1911]

Not really. The sugars from the blueberries will be fermented out no matter if you use them in the primary or secondary. The only way you will keep that sugar is to kill the yeast prior to addition of the berries or filter the yeast out. Either way, in order to carb it from there you will have to either force carb or keg. Either way, blueberries are Excellent in any pale or wheat.