How long can you leave wort before boiling?

[Bribie]

The late but great Dave Line's book initially taught me everything I knew about AG brewing back in the 1970s. One notable feature of his recipes was "mash for 90 minutes, or overnight"
However when I have done this I do in fact get a drier beer and a bit more alcohol ... but I've never had a bad beer from overnighting. If you are going to sparge then leave it till the morning to boil I guess the trick is to kill the enzymes first by either doing a 78 degree mashout, or heat the wort to that temperature to avoid the enzymes converting the wort too much.

[Fuggled Mind]

Once again, thanks again for all the replies.

The beer is fermenting at 17.5°C in my cellar. Using S-04. It seems to be fermenting quite happily but I haven't tasted it. I am curious as to whether it's developed any off-flavours or dried-out but I'll just have to wait and see. It's a Summer ale mostly using pale malt and a touch of rye and hopefully should be around 4.2% when done. I've brewed four Summer ales using these two ingredients so I should have a fair idea if something is wrong.

Will definitely try an overnight mash and see how that goes but will save the sparging for the morning. However, I've got into Milds quite recently and I'm not sure if I'd want a drier mild. For some beers, I'll just have to persuade my partner that an all-day brew is the only one that works.

Cheers

Jason

[daddies-beer-factory]

he overdid the finishing process in his book I think which added more work for me (extra barreling time before bottling)

More work maybe, better beer definitely. A common fault with homebrewers is impatience ( ). I understand that having been there too many times but as you brew more and have enough stock you can allow things to progress a little more slowly and reap the benefits of it. GW's advice here is good advice, too many brewers separate the yeast from the beer too soon, before it has had a chance to clear up some of the by products of fermentation that are not desirable in the finished beer. By racking off to a conditioning barrell you benefit from bulk aging so when you do bottle or keg you are that much closer to having a decent beer earlier.

Good advice Orlando - not doubting G.W. however I feel that things have moved on - he insists on boiling the night before - and CRS now makes this unnecessary , and his finishing process insists on barrelling for a month - then bottling for a month.

[orlando]

Boiling the night before is still good advice if you are not going to get into water treatment for a while. The beauty of BYOBRA is it sets out a very easy path for someone starting out to brew good beer very close to what they can buy in very simple procedures. What hasn't "moved on" is his advice around conditioning. There are just some aspects of making beer that remain true regardless of the passage of time and sufficient conditioning is one of them, albeit there are different ways to do it.

The use of acids and salts for reducing alkalinity and changing the profile of your water to suit different styles of beer is also a little more sophisticated than CRS and a one size fits all policy is not the answer for all starting waters or all profiles, but that is really another thread.

[mshergold]

In the winter, I started to mash and sparge one day (allowing the wort to cool before sealing the FV) and then boil the next as I found it difficult to get a rolling boil outside in my Burco when it was cold except for a few hours in the middle of the day. I have even mashed and sparged one day and then left the wort for 48hrs if I've had to work on the day between.

I carried on doing this even when the weather got warmer as I found it a more relaxing way of doing things and due to having to find a new home it gave me more flexibility with my free time and even allowed me to fit in some unexpected brewdays. Also, I needed to build up stocks for the time I'm going to be living with friends and won't be able to brew. As for off-flavours, I suspect my palette is not as refined as most here, but I've not noticed any problems.