Mash Hopping?

[bwarbiany]

Anyone ever try this?

I'm going to be brewing a beer similar to Arrogant Bastard (92% 2-row, 8% Crystal 120L, 10oz Chinook), similar in style but a bit more moderate on the gravity (1.060 target OG, 10 gallons).

I was thinking away my 5min addition and replacing it with mash hopping... So my hop schedule would be:

2oz Mash hop
2oz @ 60 min
1oz @ 30 min
1oz @ 15 min
2oz @ Flameout
2oz Dry hop (14 days)

I've heard mash hopping can give a flavor/aroma that is unlike traditional late additions, and due to chemical reactions I don't quite understand (and that are not clear in brewing literature) don't boil off during a typical 60 minute boil.

Of course, all the other hops in the recipe will definitely be quite bitter and pungent, so I'm not sure how much I'd notice here... But I think it's worth a try...

[brahn]

I say go for it!

I've never tried it, I'm skeptical of the flavor and aroma coming from mash hops. It sounds similar to the argument for getting flavor and aroma from first wort hopping which I'm also skeptical of.

[JonW]

Like Brent, I'm skeptical of the mash hop as well. I've only done it once and I had no comparative basis, so I don't know if it changed the character of the beer at all.

I do like the idea of FWH, and I've done several of my batches with putting my first hop addition in as a FWH.

On a side note, don't make dog biscuits from your spent grain if you mash hop!

[lexuschris]

I've only mashed hop on Janet's Brown Ale (which is part of that recipe). I have used FWH on several occasions (like my American Honey Wheat), and it sounds to me to achieve similar results.

Some info from HBT on mash hopping results.. The quick recommendation for when to use them are:

1. 1- Replace the amount of late addition flavor and aroma hops with 1.5x the amount of mash hops. For example, if your recipe calls for an ounce of Saaz as a flavor addition and another ounce for the aroma addition, you would add three ounces of Saaz to the mash. Hops are added directly to the mash at dough-in.

• 2- Use pellets. I have mash hopped with leaf and with pellets and the pellets give much better results. This could be because the hop oils are more exposed in the pellets through processing.

• 3- Add slightly more bittering hops. Current observations indicate that mash hopping provides almost no bitterness to the finished beer. Thus when you move hops from the boil to the mash, you must compensate for the bitterness that is lost. I do this by calculating the IBUs that would have been contributed to the original recipe by the flavor and aroma hops and then increasing the bittering hop addition accordingly.

• 4- Sparge, boil, chill, ferment, enjoy! That's it. After adding hops to the mash, the rest of the brewing cycle proceeds as normal. Surprisingly, the hops do not get in the way of lautering. I always start the lauter slowly, but have never had a stuck mash since starting mash hopping.

Further, I found this article on FWH usefull.

If you want to test it out on your own, find a beer recipe and completely remove the flavor & aroma hop additions of late boil, and put them (1.5X) in the mash. Give it a whirl and let us know how it turns out!
--LexusChris

[tikitatt]

That sounds amazing.