Extending my mash time

[Nottsbeer]

Hi,
I'm thinking of organising my brew day around general life with kids. I've been reading around about extending my mash time (from 60 mins to maybe 2 hrs) and I've come to the conclusion that this will be fine. However, before doing this I thought I'd quickly ask what other think.

My plan of action is to put the mash on around 5pm and leave the grain and water well insulated and alone until around 7pm. The temperature will drop but as it should be within the mash temp. range for an hour I presume once the temp falls below say 64oC it should just be fine sitting there? I will then remove the grain and sparge for 10-20 mins in sparge water before continuing with the brew.

I've read somewhere of someone mashing overnight so I'm fairly confident I won't ruin my beer. Any advice on my plan of action gratefully received.

Thanks,
John

 

[An Ankoù]

Hi,
I'm thinking of organising my brew day around general life with kids. I've been reading around about extending my mash time (from 60 mins to maybe 2 hrs) and I've come to the conclusion that this will be fine. However, before doing this I thought I'd quickly ask what other think.

My plan of action is to put the mash on around 5pm and leave the grain and water well insulated and alone until around 7pm. The temperature will drop but as it should be within the mash temp. range for an hour I presume once the temp falls below say 64oC it should just be fine sitting there? I will then remove the grain and sparge for 10-20 mins in sparge water before continuing with the brew.

I've read somewhere of someone mashing overnight so I'm fairly confident I won't ruin my beer. Any advice on my plan of action gratefully received.

Thanks,
John

Hi John.
It should be absolutely fine.
I'm an overnight masher and this works really well with many beers, but I suspect it can allow some of the fuller-bodied beers to be susceptible to over-attenuation. But 2 hours isn't going to make much of a difference if your mash temperature is going to drop out of range for beta-amylase after an hour or so,

 

[Nottsbeer]

Hi John.
It should be absolutely fine.
I'm an overnight masher and this works really well with many beers, but I suspect it can allow some of the fuller-bodied beers to be susceptible to over-attenuation. But 2 hours isn't going to make much of a difference if your mash temperature is going to drop out of range for beta-amylase after an hour or so,

Excellent, thx. It may have been your mention in a past post about overnight mashing I found.

I wasn't allowed to liberate some tights for my hop pellets, so had to clamber over the fence last night for my neighbours bloomers. When you mentioned them yesterday visions of Nora Batty kept going through my head

 

[thegrantickle]

Technically it shouldn't over attenuate a fuller body beer as when you raise the temperature it will denature enzymes which are active at lower temperatures. If you mash at 72C for an alpha amylase rest it will mostly denature beta amylase. If you mash at 67C to hit both sacc rests this might cause a bit of a problem.

I quite regularly do 90 min mashes and have gained a good amount of efficiency from doing this. My 2 cents

 

[Nottsbeer]

Technically it shouldn't over attenuate a fuller body beer as when you raise the temperature it will denature enzymes which are active at lower temperatures. If you mash at 72C for an alpha amylase rest it will mostly denature beta amylase. If you mash at 67C to hit both sacc rests this might cause a bit of a problem.

I quite regularly do 90 min mashes and have gained a good amount of efficiency from doing this. My 2 cents

Thx for your reply. I am planning to add grains to water at 75oC. Once stirred I'll see what the temp is, and adjust if necessary to between 65-70. Maybe I'll aim for 70 then see how that goes. I can't heat the water during the mash but hopefully it won't fall too fast with insulation. If things go to plan I'll brew tomorrow and see how this goes. It's my first AG so it'll be a bit of trial and error at this stage, hopefully with a nice beer at the end

 

[An Ankoù]

Technically it shouldn't over attenuate a fuller body beer as when you raise the temperature it will denature enzymes which are active at lower temperatures. If you mash at 72C for an alpha amylase rest it will mostly denature beta amylase. If you mash at 67C to hit both sacc rests this might cause a bit of a problem.

I quite regularly do 90 min mashes and have gained a good amount of efficiency from doing this. My 2 cents

Back in the day, 90 minute mashes were the standard.
Denaturing enzymes in a heat-leaky mash tun is far from an exact science. The amylases can sometimes be denatured within their saccharification range. I use an old insulated cooler box and a 72C mash would drop in temperature before the beta-amylase is fully denatured. As I like clean tasting, well attenuated beers and pilsners, that suits me down to the ground. If I want something a bit richer and with more body, I'll have to do a daytime mash, but leaving for two hours wouldn't present a problem.
See my thread: What are People's Experiences of Using Windsor Yeast?
That was an overnight mash and there were some (quite appropriate) suggestions that I had a S. Diastiticus contamination. I don't think I have and I'm going to use the slurry on half a can of an out of date Woodford's Wherry kit just to be sure.

 

[moto748]

Because of my low-tech methods, I generally up the mashing time quoted in recipes from an hour to an hour and a half or two hours. I take "1 hour mash" to mean, one hour if your set-up is reasonably efficient. If your brewhouse efficiency is a bit low, then I figure allowing extra mashing time, although it will mean a little more evaporation, is a nett benefit. As An Ankoù rightly says, longer mashes used to be the norm. Back when everyone made beer like I do!

 

[crescent city Mike]

I mash overnight most times too. I wrote an article for my club's newsletter in defense of myself and then posted it to my website. It's included.
https://crescentcitybrewtalk.com/overnight-mashing/

 

[An Ankoù]

I mash overnight most times too. I wrote an article for my club's newsletter in defense of myself and then posted it to my website. It's included.
https://crescentcitybrewtalk.com/overnight-mashing/

Interesting that the "raised eyebrows" you mention are inspired by the (real of not realistic) possibility of bacterial infection and I would reply "so what?" I know from the smell when I open the lid sometimes that there's something "bacterial" going on, but by the time I've sparged, let alone boiled, all traces are gone. I really should get a better insulated mash tun, though, to try to limit beta amylase activity for some styles.

 

[foxy]

The effect is he is likely to be making a beer that has poor head, is over attenuated (thin and dry), oxidised (darker and less stable flavour), quite likely much higher in polyphenols (tannins), has an increased chance of bacterial off flavours...
There are very good reasons mashing is preformed in fairly well understood ways - consequences for deviating too far from the norm.
Just set up a timer and let it run as normal, or at least have a read of the basic function of each step. Aussie Home Brewer.

 

[The Furnace Green Brewer]

Hi all I have both Dave Line's and CJJ Berry's, Graham's Johnathan's books that work well is there any recent publications ?

 

[JockyBrewer]

Commercial breweries will often be effectively mashing for much longer than 2 hours.

I will often get the mash on and then take the dog for a walk and have done 2+ hours with no deleterious effects.

It might cause a bit more attenuation, but if it does then just start a couple of degrees higher next time you brew that beer. Or pick a less attenuation yeast.

The key to whatever you do is consistency.

 

[foxy]

Commercial breweries will often be effectively mashing for much longer than 2 hours.

/QUOTE]
I have never heard of commercial breweries mashing far longer than 2 hours, 2 hours would be the optimum. Remember there grain bills are huge, they brew high ABV beers then dilute it it to requirement.

 

[crescent city Mike]

I had an inadvertent reason to mash for longer than the normal hour. After about 3.5 hrs, I got more extract than normal which eventually haunted me enough to go back to Dave Line's "Big Book of Brewing" which illuminated my mind and put me on the path of overnight mashing. All of the recent detractor's admonishments of "poor head, over attenuated, oxidised (darker and less stable flavour), quite likely much higher in polyphenols (tannins), has an increased chance of bacterial off flavours..." NEVER CAME TRUE. I've had to swallow my pride many times when something that I didn't think of first actually came to fruition. It might be time for others to figure this out also. Weigh out any advice you might get whether it comes from a forum or face to face and decide after reasonable consideration.

 

[foxy]

Its all down to personal choice. More discussion here from AHB.
https://aussiehomebrewer.com/threads/overnight-mash.98479/

 

[JockyBrewer]

Commercial breweries take a lot longer to dough in, sparge and lauter than a home brewer due to the scale, meaning that effectively they are mashing for considerably longer than the 1 hour they are supposedly mashing for.

Additionally there are plenty of continental breweries that decoct, which can take hours, not to mention plenty that follow a fairly long multi rest schedule that will end up lasting a lot longer, and that’s in addition to a long sparge, lauter etc.

 

[foxy]

Commercial breweries take a lot longer to dough in, sparge and lauter than a home brewer due to the scale, meaning that effectively they are mashing for considerably longer than the 1 hour they are supposedly mashing for.

Additionally there are plenty of continental breweries that decoct, which can take hours, not to mention plenty that follow a fairly long multi rest schedule that will end up lasting a lot longer, and that’s in addition to a long sparge, lauter etc.

The mash time is nothing to do with sparge or lauter we are discussing mash time. Decoct is a different process to what the majority of home brewers do. Majority of home brewers do a single infusion mash, I pesonally can't see any advantage in going more than 90 minutes on a home brew scale. If anyone wants to go overnight that is their choice. I just can't see any advantage of saving a little bit of time, at what could be the expense of quality.

 

[JockyBrewer]

The mash time is nothing to do with sparge or lauter we are discussing mash time. Decoct is a different process to what the majority of home brewers do. Majority of home brewers do a single infusion mash, I pesonally can't see any advantage in going more than 90 minutes on a home brew scale. If anyone wants to go overnight that is their choice. I just can't see any advantage of saving a little bit of time, at what could be the expense of quality.

The enzymes active in the mash don’t just stop working when you decide your mash has ended. They’ll keep working during lautering until the initial wort is drained.

Personally I wouldn’t go overnight either, but if it enables someone to fit brewing into their life and they’re happy with the results I’m not going to tell them they’re wrong.

 

[foxy]

The enzymes active in the mash don’t just stop working when you decide your mash has ended. They’ll keep working during lautering until the initial wort is drained.

Personally I wouldn’t go overnight either, but if it enables someone to fit brewing into their life and they’re happy with the results I’m not going to tell them they’re wrong.

Well the mash ends at mash out. I haven't seen anyone say it is wrong to do overnight mash, just that the practice is questionable.