Tue Aug 15, 2006 3:30 pm
This topic is a real can of worms. Many folks will tell you not to do this under any circumstances and others will tell you that they have done this hundreds of times with no ill effects.
That said, the reason behind not doing this is that the grain will have lots of lacto organisms. The longer you let the wort sit, the more chance there is for these critters to grow, resulting in a sour beer. Boiling the wort the next day will halt the souring process at whatever stage it had already reached.
If you mash and sparge late in the evening and boil first thing in the morning, chances are that you will not get any noticeable souring. Waiting until the following evening may result in significant souring. If you can cool the wort after the sparge and then refrigerate you may buy an extra half day or so.
I would not do a 2 day sparge myself. My recommendation would be to take a look at your brewday process to see if you can significantly shorten your day. When I know I am going to be short on time on brewday, I mill my grains and weigh out all my hop additions the night before as well as organize all the equipment I will need. I use a heatstick to heat my water for the mash, so I plug that into an appliance timer so by the time I get up in the morning, my water is ready ( I will add cold water if it has gone too high). I can then mash in right when I get up and then brush my teeth, shower, eat breakfast, etc. while the mash is going on.
I then batch sparge. This saves an hour or so over doing a fly sparge. During the boil, I clean the mash tun and any other mess I made. By the time I have finished chilling, the only cleanup I have to do is my brewpot, autosiphon, and hydrometer. If I start my mash at 7:00 a.m., I can have my beer in the fermenter by 11:00. If I couldn't find four hours to brew, I wouldn't brew.
Just my two cents worth. Hope it answers your question and possibly helps your problem.
Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company
