Has anyone done this when brewing all-grain

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yewtah-brewha

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So heres my dilema, I love doing the allgrain vs extract except for the time it takes to heat my water for strike and boil, I also hate trying to tune my strike water. with my skill level and low btu out door cooker it takes me about 8 hours to go from grain to yeast pitching.

I was thinking about breaking this up into a 2 day venture by taking my wort after the sparge and put it in 6- 1 gallon jugs and refridgerate it.

Has any one done this?

Brewing all grain has made me late to work on more than one occasion, but I always make up for it by clocking out early! lol
 
How about mashing the day before, putting the lid on the kettle full of wort, letting it sit overnight and then starting the boil the next morning? I haven't done it personally, but have considered it and I know I have read about others doing it without any problems.
 
you can just put the wort into a sanitized bucket, probably much easier and if its just an overnight thing you really won't need to refrigerate it (assuming everything was sanitized). Just dump it in the brewpot the next day and boil per the usual. If you refrigerate it, you'll just be dealing with that much more time to get it up to boil. Otherwise, your approach sounds fine.
 
LLBeanJ said:
How about mashing the day before, putting the lid on the kettle full of wort, letting it sit overnight and then starting the boil the next morning? I haven't done it personally, but have considered it and I know I have read about others doing it without any problems.

My last 4 or 5 brews have been overnight mashes with no issues. I've mashed for up to 11hours(I BIAB). One thing I have noticed us some high attenuation,a recent ipa down to 1.008, but I'm not sure if it was caused by overnight mashing or what. Anyway, ill never do it any other way for the foreseeable future. I just lag and leave it until I'm ready for mashout
 
even if you let it sit instead of refrigerate it, your going to starting the boil from a lower temp than from sparging. this is going to add time the next day.

Is there any way fit a better burner in the budget?
 
Since your pausing between sparge an boil you should be fine. Even waiting several days.

I do all grain and start the night before with equipment setup and crushing grain. I start normally about 8AM or earlier and it takes to about 3 PM to complete the clean up and put the equipment away. I normally do a decoction mash but I look at this as time invested in doing what I love to do, making great beer. So taking an entire day to brew a great beer to me is not labor but love.
 
I was almost late to work once. It was the dead of winter so after the boil I tried cooling the beer. After two hours in an ice bath and temps well over 100, I sanitized my lid and put it on my kettle, then put rubber bands under the handles and through the lid handle. I set the kettle on the porch for the time I was at work. Got back and the temp change caused the lid to be vacuumed to the kettle. Four weeks later and the beer tasted just fine :mug:

That said, I wouldn't recommend it seeing as even confident brewers get high anxiety contamination.
 
I think you have to budget the time and go at it. Many options will work but doing it from start to finish is ideal. I recently did 4 5 gallon AG in 10 hours. The clean up was super easy. I get everything together the night before, make sure I understand recipe. I live in Fl so I use a wort chiller and pre wort chiller to cool to pitch temp quickly. I also do a yeast starter the night before. Not sure if that was helpful.
 
The only issue with not going to boil right after the mash if you don't mash out is not denaturing the enzymes which will lead to a higher attenuation that is experienced by the poster above when mashing overnight. If a new burner isn't in the budget, look into building a heat stick or buy a bucket heater to help your burner get up to temp faster as another option.
 
I know what your saying, but IMHO, I'd look at your brew day and see where you can cut down times. When I got a plate chiller it saved about 40min, when I started using 150 hot water to start in the HLT, it saved 20min. When I pump out the MT to the BK I have the fire on full, and don't splash the wort.. Most importantly I started keeping a brew day log of what I was doing. No more wasted trips up stairs to get one thing!!!! Have a plan and times to hit. 10 gallons still takes me 6hrs.
 
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