Odd Mash Question...

[Yacov327]

Say I'm limited on time but want to brew. Can I heat my strike water, put in my grain, and let the grain steep for 9 hours while I'm at work?

I put my kettle in a thermal jacket and it usually drops from 155 to 148 over the course of the 60 min mash. I'm guessing I will come home to a 100 deg or so wort. I can then remove the grains and start my boil.

Any thoughts on the pros/cons of this?

 

[JimRausch]

It would probably work, assuming your temperature drop behaves itself. But I would be a little worried that length of time at that temps above 100, might allow the lactobacillus which is present on all grain, to take off and start to sour the wort. Now, if you're OK with a little bit of 'tang' then go ahead and let us know how it turned out.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Lots of folks have done this with success, instead of an “at work” mash it is typically referred to as “overnight mash”

Wort May be a bit more fermentable, but you could consider staring the mash a few degrees higher to compensate.

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

yes this works great. I had a thread a few years ago on my experience with this. It worked great for me when I was dealing with limited time and very young kids.

 

[jimmyjusa]

Maybe throw on some more insulation below and all around to hold the temps longer? Does your kettle fit in the oven? Maybe heating it to low then turning it off when the kettle goes in and leave the oven light on.

 

[RM-MN]

Say I'm limited on time but want to brew. Can I heat my strike water, put in my grain, and let the grain steep for 9 hours while I'm at work?

I put my kettle in a thermal jacket and it usually drops from 155 to 148 over the course of the 60 min mash. I'm guessing I will come home to a 100 deg or so wort. I can then remove the grains and start my boil.

Any thoughts on the pros/cons of this?

That seems like a fairly big drop for an hour long mash but the real question is how long does it take for your mash to complete the conversion of starch to sugar? Once the conversion is completed the temperature drop is of no great consequence as the enzymes responsible for conversion denature fairly quickly at mash temperatures. Once the enzymes are denatured your mash can sit for hours or maybe even days if there is no entrance of bacteria.

 

[balrog]

+1 what @RM-MN said -- temp drop over an hour is not the issue for enzyme work; only during conversion which can happen much more quickly. The temp at which you keep the mash after that will possibly affect the flavor extraction that occurs, but by keeping it mashing longer can only enhance that, regardless of eventual temp drop. @HausBrauerei_Harvey 's thread is an interesting read on a real-world example of doing this.

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

+1 what @RM-MN USER=186740]@HausBrauerei_Harvey[/USER] 's thread is an interesting read on a real-world example of doing this.

Thanks Balrog. I will report the last few years I've moved away from doing 10 gallon overnight mash batches to doing more 5 gallon no-chill batches (with great success BTW). If I have everything ready I can brew 5 gallons from 6-10pm on friday night, then leave the kettle outside overnight to chill to pitching temps. Pitching the yeast and cleaning the kettle in the morning takes about an hour. I've enjoyed this change as it also gets me brewing more frequently, which is great with my current life situation.

 

[Lefou]

Thanks for documenting your overnight mash methods.
It's something new outside my realm of experience and I'm going to read the linked thread immediately to see how other people fared!