The next experiment!
Okay, so I’ve been thinking about ways in which to make my brewdays more doable without spending a solid afternoon or evening away from the monkey and missus…
I’m thinking about doing some overnight mashes. Get the grain into the mash tun at about 9pm, mash overnight and put the boil on first thing in the morning, but it kinda depends on the temperature hold of the tun, as I dont want to be losing too much heat and ending up with some sour flavours. I’ve just spoken to the 2 other lads on this blog about this and its doable if the temperature loss isnt too high.
I guess the first thing to check is the tuns loss over 9 hours and see where it ends up and go from there?
What do you guys reckon? Worth a shot? If it makes brewdays easier and less fraught, it can only be a good thing surely?
Leave comments below, and lets see if we can work out a method for this, what are the pros and what are the cons?
I want to give this a go myself. Longer mashes increase the extraction on wort-soluble solids and improve mash efficiency. As long as you can keep the temperature above 49°C (I checked 😉) then you’ll be fine. Below 49°C you start getting wildlife taking an interest… lactobacillus and other bugs will lead to some pretty funky off flavours.
Guess this is on for the next experiment. Will run a test with the mash tun during the daylight hours to see what the temp drop is over a 10 hour period… if it’s 1 degree per hour then I’ve got 12 hours easily…