Cedar Rapids Brewing Society

I squeezed in a brew day yesterday and did a few things different to fit my schedule better and simplify a step.

First, as usual I prepared my water and milled grain night before. A simple outlet timer switches on which fires up the electric HLT and a pump to recirculate the water in my mashtun as well as preheat it. The change was I took a late lunch at work to go home and mash in around 2:30. I mixed in grain, vorlauf a few times, start the pump and head back to work. The HERMS coil in the HLT maintains my temp until I get home around 5. Then I get home, mash out, sparge. Was boiling by 6:30.

Second thing I have been doing since getting a conical involves my yeast starter. I use to make a starter the night before. Now I pull off some chilled wort before it goes to the fermenter and make a starter at the end of my boil. I will pitch it when get home tonight from work after dumping all the trub and hops that made it from the boil kettle to the fermenter. Works pretty slick so far. You must have solid cleaning and sanitation in order to do this. So far no issues.

do you no chill, or put it in the fermenter chilled?

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In fermenter chilled to pitching temp.

Excuse my ignorance of pump/HERMS systems but isn’t 2:30-5ish a long time to mash? Or does the extended time not hurt anything?


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Not much to hurt. 'Worst' possible result is a more attentive beer if the beta amalyse breaks down some more of the long chain sugars.
Some people mash overnight due to not having large blocks of time for a full brew in one day

I have noticed no issues at all with longer mashed.

Cool, I guess I just never thought about it since I’m always trying to maintain my temp just as long as needed so I can start sparging. Thanks.


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With my setup, maintaining mash temps and doing steps is super easy. Just takes time.