Can I do the mash-tun and boiling with a break of a few hours?

I am trying to brew beer (all-grain for the first time) and I am wondering if there can be a longer break between the conversion (in the mash-tun...a cooler in my case) and the actual boiling?

I am asking because I might start the brewing process in the mash-tun, do the sparging......and then I might have to wait hours before the boiling of the wort can be started. Is this okay? All will this affect my wort and the final product?

Thanks.

You'll be fine. I had to do that on Easter since I had to cook dinner and it was in the middle of my brew session

You might want to do a mash out step to stop conversion. That way you don't end up with a thin beer. Otherwise, no problem.

tagz said:

You might want to do a mash out step to stop conversion. That way you don't end up with a thin beer. Otherwise, no problem.

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Mash out in a cooler? How would you do that?

If you really want to stop conversion, after you're done sparging, heat the whole batch of collected wort to 190°F and keep it there for 10 minutes. That will denature most of the enzymes, which are in your wort.

It all depends on how long that lag time is before you get to the actual boil.

There are some problems keeping your fresh wort unboiled. The big one is there are lots of lactobacter in the grain and they started to ferment your wort as soon as you mashed in. Letting the fresh wort sit at their ideal fermentation temperature for prolonged time, will cause sour beer flavors.

Depending on your volume you can add boiling water to hit 170.

Do a search for overnight mashing. It's basically the same thing. You'll be fine. Just try to keep your mash temp above 140.