First Wort Hopping and Mash Hopping?

[Phil_L]

Following a thread on Ratebeer - http://www.ratebeer.com/Forums/Topic-114679.htm

can anyone shed some light on this in a more scientific or from experience?

I am intrigued, as I regularly FWH, I just want to confirm it's not a complete waste of time (and hops)

[Nate Diggler]

My understanding is that the flavoring compounds in hops (cohumulone, myrcene, farnesene, humulene, caryophyllene, et. al.) react differently to the pH and other conditions when added to the mash and/or first wort to "fix" the flavor compounds so that these bittering additions also give a good smooth flavor, and you don't have to use as many hops later on, so you can keep the vegetal matter in your boil to a minimum.

[Sent From My iPhone]

I've Mash hopped once with Chinook pellets (Tasty's APA) and the wort had a mild bitterness and slight aroma pre-boil. Not sure how it affected the beer in the end because I also used a lot of late hop additions. For a separate beer (Janet's Brown Ale, another Tasty Masterpiece), I Mash Hopped and FWH using a hop sack and the beer tuned out (to me) great, tons of flavor. Granted, there were also 15 and 10 minute additions, but the hop flavor was so intense without being over the top that I believe the FWH played a big part. This is one of my favorite beers to brew.

[SacoDeToro]

I mash hop my DIPA and imperial pils. Personally, I think it adds to the overall hop flavor of the beer without contributing much bitterness. I FWH a few of my beers, most notably my IPA. Independent of what the scientific [limited in this area] research says, I know how my beers end up and I like the results, so... I'm gonna keep on doing it.

[siwelwerd]

So, what flavor differences do you get from mash hopping vs. FWH? All the comparisons I see are those two versus boil hopping. But how do they compare to each other?

[SacoDeToro]

I've never substituted one over the other, even for the sake of comparison, but surely, ounce for ounce, FWH imparts more bitterness the mash hopping. With MH, the mash temp and pH are never really in the right zone to isomerize alpha acids.

[BDawg]

+1
Contact time for the mash hops is less than your typical FWH, so you'll get more bitterness and a lot more flavor out of FWH than MH.

I tried mash hopping a few times but found FWH so much more efficient at delivering both the flavor and the bitterness that I never bothered again. I think it really is just a waste of hops, but that's just my opinion.

[Nate Diggler]

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?