Three day, brew day

I already brew over two days but I'm going to have a crack at doing a brew day over three days, starting this eve.

Day 1. Overnight mash
Day 2. Sparge, boil and overnight cool (no-chill in FV)
Day 3. rack off trub/break material into second FV, aeration, re-hydrate yeast and pitch

Will be doing my new house beer, Session Stout, which I nicked from HBC

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=54647

What is the reason for doing this?
From everything I have read on homebrewing so far, the advice is to cool as quickly as possible to pitch temp once the boil has been completed. The reason given is usually to do with reducing the amount of time nasties have to grow in the wort. This method seems to contradict that - so I guess I have two questions:

1) is the advice on cooling as quickly as possible BS - or more likely just a way of completing the process quicker?
2) what benefits would you get from doing things this way?

With the overnight mash you just going to put it on and leave it until the next day regardless of what temp it drops down too?

ALso slight digression but would kind of fall in on topic, I will be doing a clone of your clone probably later on this summer (ordered grains today) I was thinking of doing the cold steep they were talking about the night before.. you ever thought about that?

MCJones87 said:

What is the reason for doing this?
From everything I have read on homebrewing so far, the advice is to cool as quickly as possible to pitch temp once the boil has been completed. The reason given is usually to do with reducing the amount of time nasties have to grow in the wort. This method seems to contradict that - so I guess I have two questions:

1) is the advice on cooling as quickly as possible BS - or more likely just a way of completing the process quicker?
2) what benefits would you get from doing things this way?

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Ideally you want to cool your wort as quick as possible....but what if you haven't got a wort chiller (I don't) are are concerned about the amount of water thats used in a wort chiller - Australia, where the tech was apparently invented, have, I've read major concerns in parts of the country about water use. This is where no chill can help

As for reducing the time nasties have to grow - Obviously the wort itself is sanitised from the boil. The near boiling wort also sanitises the FV. To stop any other nasties getting in I just cover the FV with star san-ed cling film. So nasties don't get a chance to take a hold in my wort.

As to why. As I say I don't have a wort chiller. I am able to cool my wort down to pitching temps in about an hour using a water bath and ice PET bottles but it's a REAL PITA. No-chill in the FV is so much easier. Just chuck it in the FV, cover and leave it till the next day.

One of the down sides of not chilling quickly is you get chill haze but seeing as though I always drink my beer at room temp, no matter what that is, chill haze doesn't have an effect for me

Covrich said:

With the overnight mash you just going to put it on and leave it until the next day regardless of what temp it drops down too?

ALso slight digression but would kind of fall in on topic, I will be doing a clone of your clone probably later on this summer (ordered grains today) I was thinking of doing the cold steep they were talking about the night before.. you ever thought about that?

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Your first point: Yup. From what I've read it's only the first couple of hours that have any effect on conversion after that no more conversion happens so whether you leave it for 2 hours or 11 it has no extra effect.

I do need to keep the temp above about 50C though. If it drops below that bacteria can sour the wort. I've got a couple of space blankets, as well as all the other towels I normally use to insulate during the mash, to help keep the temp up

Re: the cold steeping, was thinking of doing that with this stout after reading the thread about it yeasterday - I've subscribed to that thread.. It's deffo on my humungous list of things to try, especially with this stout.Wont try it tommorow as I'm alread doing experiments on this brew with the 3 day brew day
Was go to right this point on my final PP stout taste report but I'll write it here. The PP stout is quite roasty, maybe too much for some people (I love it) so I definately think it will benefit from cold steeping the roasted grains to round out the roastyness and give it more of the flavour I was first expecting when I tried the first trial jar of the sweet wort

Edit: If I do a cold steep, will that be a clone of your clone of my clone? :lol:

MCJones87 said:

What is the reason for doing this?
From everything I have read on homebrewing so far, the advice is to cool as quickly as possible to pitch temp once the boil has been completed. The reason given is usually to do with reducing the amount of time nasties have to grow in the wort. This method seems to contradict that - so I guess I have two questions:

1) is the advice on cooling as quickly as possible BS - or more likely just a way of completing the process quicker?
2) what benefits would you get from doing things this way?

Click to expand...

For me i'd suppose it would work like this..

Friday after work mash around 9 or 10 pm.
saturday up at 7am and boil and clean up done by 10a.m.
sunday up at 8am (bit of a lie in :grin:) pitched and in fv by 10a.m.

so it would give you most of the w/e free but having managed a brew too, does that sound like a result?:party:

dad_of_jon said:

For me i'd suppose it would work like this..

Friday after work mash around 9 or 10 pm.
saturday up at 7am and boil and clean up done by 10a.m.
sunday up at 8am (bit of a lie in :grin:) pitched and in fv by 10a.m.

so it would give you most of the w/e free but having managed a brew too, does that sound like a result?:party:

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Sounds about right to me. :thumb:

dad_of_jon said:

For me i'd suppose it would work like this..

Friday after work mash around 9 or 10 pm.
saturday up at 7am and boil and clean up done by 10a.m.
sunday up at 8am (bit of a lie in :grin:) pitched and in fv by 10a.m.

so it would give you most of the w/e free but having managed a brew too, does that sound like a result?:party:

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When put like that it sounds like a no brainer... Though the obligatory Saturday and Sunday morning hangovers may have something to say about that!! The age old conundrum - do I focus time and effort on making homebrew or drinking it??? :hmm:

Myqul - Thanks for the complete and detailed answer! Having DIY'd my chiller from a roll of bendy copper pipe I hadn't really thought too much about other forms of cooling - and now you mention the excess use of water it is definitely something to consider... And yes, to be fair the reason I made it in the first place was because I found it an enormous pain chilling in a waterbath with ice...
I can now certainly see the reason behind the method and in the right circumstances may well give it a go!

Looking forward to reading your updates :thumb:

Just cling filmed the FV and tucked it away in the brewing corner for the wort to cool now.

Im so loving ovenight mash! This is D2 of of my 3 day brew day and I consider it to be the main bit - sparge and boil. It's SO much quicker. Normally it takes 40 mins for my mash liquor to heat to strike temp (on my cooker hob) then a 40 min mash - plus about 10 mins of doughing in and a bit of faffing about time. Doing an overnight mash has saved me about 1hr and a half. Finished at 11.30 (although I've stillgot a bit of cleaning up to do) usually I'm still going till about 1.30.

As for temp loss, my mash temp was 69C (strike water calcs were off by 1C, I was aiming for 70C. Could of heated the pot but I couldn't be arsed with it at 11.00 at night). Approx 9 1/2 hours later it was 61C so only 8 degress C loss!

I did have a couple of hiccups which I put down to not following my usual routines. I put about 1L too much mash water in my pot - My pot was totally full. So when I put the lid on which has a kind of concave rim and wrapped everything up/insulated some wort was displaced and spilled onto the hob top and floor. Not loads but enough for me to have to clear it up properly and replace the foil I covered the hob with. Else I would have had a horrid burn mess after the boil. This extra clean up took some time so added to the brew day

I also forgot to add campden tablets to the mash water. After a bit of googling I found that chlorophenols are produced by the yeast during fermentation. So I added the campden tabs just before the boil. Hopefully I haven't ruined my brew by forgeting the Campden tabs :pray: .Remembered to add irish moss this time though, even though it is a stout :-D

Just took a pre-dilution gravity reading 1.074 :shock: If I dilute to my target 1.047 it gives me 25.1L. My target brew length is 23L. Seems overnight mashing really does lead to huge mash efficiencies

Edit: Just reread the hydrometer it's now 1.078 <gulp> :-o

MyQul said:

Just reread the hydrometer it's now 1.078 <gulp> :-o

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Wow! Sounds like my kind of stout right there :drink:

baggybill said:

Wow! Sounds like my kind of stout right there :drink:

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:lol:

Definately a stout stout!

Tbh I think it may actually be 1.080! as the gravity sample was a bit warm and as it cooled the gravity increased. I'll take another gravity sample tommorow late afternoon just too make sure before I dilute the wort and pitch.

I've been toying with getting an ordinary cool box to mash in then transferring the mash to a lauter tun to sparge. I reckon the overnight mash in a cool box could be a great idea.

This sounds incredible. Almost a convert to the prolonged brew day! Hard to find any faults with it. Hope it continues to progress well!

MCJones87 said:

This sounds incredible. Almost a convert to the prolonged brew day! Hard to find any faults with it. Hope it continues to progress well!

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Well it just gets better for me as the whole point of doing a three day brew day is to cut down brew day/spread brew day into more managable chunks. If this huge efficiency happens as a matter of course with overnight mashing and isn't just a one off, as a maxi-BIABer I have to do two dunk sparges to account for the concentrated wort but if I'm getting 80%+ efficiency I will only have to do one sparge (perhaps I can get away without doing a sparge at all). Which saves me even more time. :party:

cornyandy said:

I've been toying with getting an ordinary cool box to mash in then transferring the mash to a lauter tun to sparge. I reckon the overnight mash in a cool box could be a great idea.

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Yea, definately.

cornyandy said:

I've been toying with getting an ordinary cool box to mash in

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Asda are selling non-branded 24L ones for a tenner. Ideal for small batch brews. I used it on my last brew (warmed it up first), chucked a coat over it and it never dropped a single degree in an hour!

baggybill said:

Asda are selling non-branded 24L ones for a tenner. Ideal for small batch brews. I used it on my last brew (warmed it up first), chucked a coat over it and it never dropped a single degree in an hour!

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Wonder how much they might lose during an overnight mash? As mentioned I only lost 8C, so I think a insulated cool box might lose even less?

Yep my local Tesco is doing them for £12 too thanks Bill. (It depends on whether I go to either York or Hull or stay local). The extra petrol probably takes care of the extra £2