First Wort Hopping and Mash Hopping?

[Thirsty Boy]

I suspect not a lot, especially if you use flower hops.

They aren't being bashed around in the boil, so there is less reason why the compounds that might dissolve would do so - and then an amount is left behind in your spent grain.

I can perhaps see that there is a longer time for the hop oils to oxidise in a lower temperature non-boiling environment, so I'm sure it adds something. But I lean towards the waste of hops side of the argument

[SacoDeToro]

But when you mash hop, the true question is how much alpha acids (or beta for that matter) become soluble in your wort and carry over to the boil to become isomerized?

There are many secondary and tertiary flavor and aroma components that can carry over, not so much alpha and beta acids. While only anecdotal, my experience has led me to believe that MH can help to enhance the overall hop flavor of a beer without really increasing the bitterness. Compared to late kettle additions, you don't have to worry about flavors contributed by excess vegetable matter being beaten around by the boil. Regardless, my mashes smell fuckin' awesome when I MH.

[NHBrewer]

So last night in the brewery it was experimental time.

A beer with no hops in the kettle whatsoever.

10 Gallons American Pale Ale.

14 plato
94% pale
6 % Crystal 60

Mash 152 for 60 minutes with all pellets

30g Galena
30g Challenger
58g Newport

24 grams S-05 rehydrated in 10X water at 100F for 20 minutes. Shake for O2.
One of the fermenters, it has gone into two, got 45 grams each of Amarillo and Centenial right off the bat into the primary fermentation.
I want to see if you do indeed get a bitterness from a mash hop addition and if its possible to make a decent beer without adding any hops to the boil. Notes from brew day. Great efficiency but I credit this to BrauKaiser's discussion about mash conversion during the Brewstrong from NHC 2010. Increasing water to grist ratio seems to have helped but thats another discussion. The mash did smell great and tasted of hops some during run off. The wort into the fermenter tasted both sweet and bitter, this is normal as far as I'm concerned. It was a bit strange having no hop additions to add during the boil but I got more racking and cleaning done than normal. Also I was very curious to see how much trub was in the kettle post boil as it would be only from the break material and not hop vegetation. It was not much at all. Most of this seems to come from hop material, at least in hop forward styles. Will have to wait and see once its fermented for more notes.

[Chunk]

Any update on how this turned out? Interesting stuff.

[NHBrewer]

Drinking it now so here goes.
This beer has a firm bitterness. Similar to beers that I have made in this gravity range that have calculated to 35 IBU. I have no idea if this is the actual IBU of this beer just that it finished at 1010 and is very balanced. I have to say that I tend to like my beer bitter and would enjoy this more if it did have a touch more bite. I will say that some others have loved it and the malt profile is showing thru nicely. It has great hop aroma and medium hop flavor. One fermenter got the DH at yeast pitch and the other Tasty style, 90% thru. I have only the keg that was dryhopped near the end of fermentation here at the house, my partner has the other, but the two seem to be similar with the fermentation hopped beer showing a bit more bitterness and a touch less aroma.

Conclusion: This is only one fermentation so don't get too excited but I did get bitterness. I could make a beer similar or better using traditional hopping techniques but it throws some of that talk about not extracting bitterness from hops in the mash or in the fermenter out the window because I got bitterness from somewhere and it was not from boiling my hops. I think it was a bit of a waste of hops, so to say, but WTF it was only one batch.

Hope this all makes sense

Chris

[Chunk]

Interesting stuff, thanks for the update. I guess the difficulty you'd have is being able to measure the IBU's you're getting out of the mash hop ... and then adjusting your recipe accordingly.

It would be good to repeat the process without dry hopping, to see if any hop aroma / flavour manages to survive through the boil.

[TastyMcD]

............. I guess the difficulty you'd have is being able to measure the IBU's you're getting out of the mash hop ... and then adjusting your recipe accordingly.

I calculate the IBU contribution form the mash hops as 70% of what they would be at 60 minutes. There have been times that I forgot to add the mash hops. I then add an adjusted amount at 60 minutes and the beer ends up similar in bitterness to mash hopped batches. Russian River mash hopped their first beer ever when we made the Imperial Janet's Brown for the ProAm last year. At 1.074 OG, it was slightly hop forward and tasted like 65 IBU to mash hopping believers and 45 IBU to non-believers.

Tasty

[Chunk]

Tasty, you are a fountain of knowledge. If you've had reliable results like that, it seems like an easy formula to apply when trying to hit a specific number of IBU (and mash hopping).

Interesting that you say RR did their first ever mash hop with the Imperial Janets Brown. I've been listening to some of the older Sunday Sessions and Vinnie was saying on one of those that they mash hop Pliny the Elder. What's going on there?