Can Treated Water Sit Overnight and Still be OK?

Systems, Gear, & DIY
1

I plan on drawing all required volumes from my RO system the night before and letting them sit in their respective vessels (HLT and MLT) until the next morning so I can just fire the element in the morning and start heating. The question is; can I also toss my acid and salt additions into the HLT the night before, and will they still be OK the next morning?

Will the salts remain as they were after a night in the RO water? Will the pH remain as it was when adjusted and measured the night before?

2

I do this all the time as well as grind my grains and anything else that will give me a head start on brew day.

3

Yep, same here.

4

Ditto.  All set up the night before.

5

I have let my RO sit for days before brewing, not a common practice but shit happens. As far as the salt additions, I like to wait until the water heats up a bit to better dissolve the salts. IDK if this makes a difference BUT I have put into the water the night before and even with stirring I’ve seen salt remnants the next day. Just my MO.

6

I do all my treatment the night before.  Some salts will dissolve right away in cold water.  Some take more stirring, which I never bother with.  Everything will dissolve on its own by the time the water heats up to mash temperature.

7

Though I also set up the day before the brew and weigh out all the grains, I add my brewing salts on the brew day while the water is heating to strike temp.  Things like pickling lime and gypsum dissolve better in hotter water which is why I do it this way.

That said, I also agree that there is no problem with adding your minerals the day before.

8

I set up hardware and weigh grain the day before but I use bottled distilled water so it’s just as easy to wait until brewday to add it to the kettle. There’s plenty of time for me to drink coffee, measure minerals, and mill grain while it’s heating to strike temp.

My process sequence: condition the grain, make coffee, begin heating water, weigh minerals, drink coffee, prime pump, drink coffee, add minerals to strike water when it’s at strike temp, drink coffee, mill grain, immediately add grain to MLT and underlet strike, begin recirculation, begin mash steps, relax (drink coffee).

9

I’m going to try something new this week. The night before brew day, around 9 PM, I will fill the kettle and heat the water to about 90-95F. I will add 2 grams/gallon of baker’s yeast and sugar to the water and hold the temperature at 90F overnight. That will allow the yeast to use all the dissolved oxygen in the water. Around 7 AM on brew day I will start to ramp the temperature up so that it is stable at strike temperature by the time I am ready to start. Electric kettles are great!

10

FWIW I do my overnight YOS (yeast oxygen scavenging) at room temperature and it seems to work fine.  Knowing what I do about both baking and brewing yeast I’m not surprised (you just don’t want to rehydrate them in really cold water.)  This adds further convenience to my routine of setting up the night before.  If I was adding the yeast right before brewing I might be more inclined to hold it warm for a short period, but even that doesn’t seem necessary.  Yeast scavenge oxygen extremely rapidly, and should be most active right before the heat kills them.  It appears that what Bilsch found in his testing was that this method is not only extremely effective, but also flexible and forgiving, requiring very little initial time under any conditions, and holding DO at the minimum level even in an uncovered vessel overnight at room temperature (I do cap my vessels overnight,  however,  for extra protection.)  All that said, since you have electric kettles, might as well use them.  I don’t, so the convenience lies in holding everything at room temperature.

11

And how many beers does it take to come down from that coffee high??

12

Probably lots! [emoji16]

13

Something’s got to wake me up. Did I mention I like to start early?  LOL

14

I like a really early start too.  Hence being all set the night before.  Brew day is something like, get up, start the water heating, make my usual breakfast smoothie and start coffee.  Mash in, rinse the grain bucket and fill with iodophor, and it’s time for coffee and newspaper.

15

Reading your procedure of overnight YOS, I was wondering if I did my “YOS” the evening before in the water jugs that I store my Mash and Sparge water, then pour that water from the jugs into the MT and the HLT on the morning of brewday, then heating the water to the required temperature, would the yeast keep working after the splashing/pouring of the water into the two vessels? Or would there be oxygen take-up and defeat what I thought I was preventing.

Thanks

tom

16

I think the splashing would defeat the purpose.  I treat my water in my MT and HLT, add the yeast and cap the vessels (floating caps to eliminate any exposed surface area.)  There’s good evidence that even uncovered, the yeast can hold the water below 0.2 ppm DO overnight, because they can scavenge faster than the rate of simple diffusion from the atmosphere.  But that kind of splashing can be an effective way of aerating wort for pitching, so I’m sure it would leave you back at square one.

17

Thanks Robert very helpful, I’ll try the YOS the morning of brewday, as you have said, “Yeast scavenge oxygen extremely rapidly, and should be most active right before the heat kills them”

Tom