I'm planning to do 10 gallons of ordinary bitter tomorrow. I thought my day was free, but now there's some work to do at church in the morning and I need to be over there for three hours or so. I'm wondering how it would work to mash in at, say, 8:30 am and then run off three or four hours later? My concern is that the wort would be too fermentable and a style like an ordinary bitter would suffer for it. Maybe just mash a bit higher at, say, 156 deg F to compensate? I've not made an ordinary bitter before, so any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

I mash in at 157 usually around 9:00PM and mashout at around 6:30 AM. Wrap your cooler in blankets or insulates the best you can.

Word of warning, once you start doing this, you'll be so impressed with how well it works, you'll start doing it every time.

Do you mash all styles at 157 deg, or just certain ones?

The large majority of conversion occurs in the first 1/2 hour of the mashing, so the effect of mashing at 156 will be the dominant characteristic, and the higher fermentables won't be obtained to balance it out later when it gets cooled off.

That being the answer to your question, I happen to think 156 mash for a bitter would be good. However, I'm not a bitter expert like some others on here.

BB, whats your remaining temp like the morning after?

I'm usually around 143F. I also use a lot of US05, so my beer doesn't suffer from the warmer starts.

His beer just suffers..... ba da bing

BB Since your already electric, HERMS or RIMS is around the corner... you could mash in at 150 and maintain that...

Yeah, I've thought about that and might give it a try someday.

Ordinary Bitter IMO should be mashed higher because they are small beers to begin with. In any event I don't think your beer will suffer from the longer mash time. I'm sure you'll have a good beer there.

Richie

Just to report back in this one, my ordinary bitter is in the keg and the body is fine after the longer mash time. No problems.

Question from the bleachers here.
Based on my non-understanding of the abbreviations and noob to boot, understand the premise in thread that allowing wort to rest "conversion"for a longer period of time than minimally required to be beneficial as long as temps remain over magical number of 140 (above bacteria can form). Am not sure if that was question or statement! Would this not apply for all batches, whether it be a bitter or not? Can someone confirm or deny here?
Tom

Correction here: Not wort, but grain was what I meant to say. DOH

Bitter should be mashed at 152-153F.

A 60 Minute Mash is all you need.
It's more your QT's/LB's that you need to worry about with a Bitter.
Also, How you boil..

I've been doing 90-120 Minute Boils.
I've been leaning on the 120 Minute Boils.

120 Minute Boil Run Down:
90 Minute First Bittering
30 Minute Second Bittering
0 Minute at Knock Off for Aroma...

The 140's are the range for beta-amylase, and the 150's are the range for alpha-amylase.
The alphas break the starches in two to form sugars, and the betas break smaller chunks off of the ends.
Alphas leave more body, while betas give a more fermentable wort.

I step-mash everything under the sun, because I'm making the beer for my own consumption.
Do what you want. It's your beer, and it's likely to be better than anything you could get from the store regardless of how you do it.

Hey scopx,

The premise of the thread is that conversion is indeed done in about 60 minutes and a longer mash time will result in a more fermentable wort and possibly a beer that would be too thin. But it turned out just fine.

BTW, I did a ten gallon batch and split it between WYeast London ESB and the WYeast Ringwood. They're both good, but I have to give the nod to the Ringwood. It's very malty and has a wonderful fruitiness. It's the first time I have used the Ringwood--it fermented nicely and I gave it a nice long D-rest. The London ESB has been my go-to yeast for a long time, but that Ringwood is awfully nice.