Urgent! Overnight Problem?

[bignath]

Howdy brewers,

here's my dilemma...

Last night at 8:30 i started a fairly simple brew, but my esky was ridiculously slow in running off. Not sure what's going on with that. Will pull it apart today and have a look at the manifold...

It got to 12:30 and still hadn't collected pre boil volume (about half actually). It was freezing bloody cold in the shed, so i decided to cut my losses and leave the esky draining to my kettle overnight and went to bed.
Woke up this morning and i've got my volume and gravity collected ok, but was wondering before i go too far into the boil and start wasting hops and then cubing and fermenting, is there any danger in proceeding with the boil as per normal??

Any one else had the same experience with letting the runnings sit in the kettle overnight for maybe 7 hours before bringing to the boil?
I've got it approaching boil now, but if it's not going to be any good, i'll turn the gas off and try again next time....

Cheers in advance for some quick replies.....

Nath

 

[manticle]

Does it taste OK?

I've done something similar once and the beer turned out great, but I wouldn't be in a hurry to repeat. Too many potential things can go wrong. If it tastes alright though then I'd proceed.

 

[bignath]

yeah it smells like wort, tastes like sweet water, no bugs hanging around it when i woke up, no floaties or anything like that...

 

[WitWonder]

yeah it smells like wort, tastes like sweet water, no bugs hanging around it when i woke up, no floaties or anything like that...

I woudn't stress - assuming there's no cockroaches or similar floating in it I'd give it a go - a good 60 (or maybe 90 today) minute boil will kill off most nasties.

 

[MHB]

It will probably be OK, but its far from best practice
The big risk is that there could be residual enzyme activity, I dont know your process but if you didnt do a mash out amylase could have been chewing at your wort which may make the beer as dry a proverbial.
If you are no chilling, running a bit of your wort (say 250 mL) into a bottle and adding a bit of the yeast you plan on using to see where the beer finishes. If the FG is ridiculously low you may be able to take some remedial action like adding some Maltodextrin or some steeped Cara/Crystal (boiled of course) or even choosing a less attenuateive yeast.
MHB

 

[Effect]

The big risk is that there could be residual enzyme activity.

I thought that it would have been lactic acid producing bacteria that is present in grain spoiling the wort that would have been of greater concern...there isn't really a remedy against that.

 

[MHB]

Big Nath had already said the wort didnt smell off, I assume he has done enough brewing to recognise lacto.
M

 

[bignath]

thanks for all the replies fellas,

boiling now, will see how it goes. All seems as per normal, normal smells, normal tastes, normal appearance, nothing out the ordinary apart from it having been left in the kettle overnight - i'm guessing the run off would have finished about 2:00 and i fired it up around 10ish, so 8 hours sitting and cooling and when i checked it this morning it was sitting around 40degrees...

Definitely agree this is best practise, but i was sick of the situation last night, wanted to get to bed, was freezing my balls off, and thought i'd try it out rather than automatically tip it across the lawn this morning.

thanks for everyone's help!

Nath