[Joe_Beer]

Joe, I did an overnight mash in my anvil last night, details in the light beer thread in Beer Recipes. I will post when I find out how the beer comes out.

I did an overnight mash in mine last night. Mashed in almost 14# of grain at 150F. Stirred it a few times, didn't use the recirc pump. As far as electricity usage goes, I had my Watt-a-meter hooked up to it the whole night. Before mashing in, I had it at 100% power and it was pulling 1275 watts. I turned it down to 50% power (as you did) once it reached temp. It only pulled 375 watts when the heater was on. It mashed for 8.5 hours and the total killowatt hours in the morning was .87. Last time I checked I think I was paying under $0.25/KwH so the cost of running this at night is nothing. As long as it doesn't burn the house down.

The wort was a surprise, but I guess not really when you consider the 8 hour mash. Gravity was 1.064 pre-boil and 1.073 when I transferred to the fermenter (around 6.25 gallons). That's quite a bit higher than last time I brewed this recipe. It was 1.062 when I transferred.

We'll see what happens in a week or so.

[erockrph]

OK, this has my interest piqued now. I could feasibly have my brewday done and cleaned up by 10AM or earlier if overnight mashing leads to good beer for me. Waking up to the smell of mashed barley is a plus, too.

[pete b]

OK, this has my interest piqued now. I could feasibly have my brewday done and cleaned up by 10AM or earlier if overnight mashing leads to good beer for me. Waking up to the smell of mashed barley is a plus, too.

The results for my beer were very good although this was one of my light beer experiments that had some other variables. I definitely think you should try it. Maybe do a familiar recipe and see if you want to play around with the grist and mash temp to make up for an increase in efficiency and fermentability.

[Joe_Beer]

OK, this has my interest piqued now. I could feasibly have my brewday done and cleaned up by 10AM or earlier if overnight mashing leads to good beer for me. Waking up to the smell of mashed barley is a plus, too.

Yes, the aroma in the kitchen was an added benefit!  I did an iodine test when I got up and thought I could see a little bit of black in the solution yet so turned it up to 152F and left it for an hour (I'll probably just mash at 152 next time) I was nearly cleaned up by 9:00am and pitched at 9:30 so 10am is certainly a reasonable expectation (plenty of time in the day to brew another batch, too!).

The results for my beer were very good although this was one of my light beer experiments that had some other variables.

Good to hear. I'm kind of wondering what the effect of the 8 hour mash will have on body, etc. I'll follow up in a week or two.