Mash hopping ? is it worth it

[Frisp]

Amigos.. Im staring down the barel of a golden ale recipe which calls for 20g Admiral in the mash to allegedly provide 8 IBU,

From the little I can find out about mash hopping it doesnt strike me as worth it. So Im thinking Id be better getting 8 IBU from that hop at flameout..

is there any worth in mash hopping ? and does it have to be leaf hops or can you deploy pellets?

 

[jof]

Um. It must work for some people or else it wouldn't be a thing. So all I can offer is my ponderings.

Maybe it's the no boil brigade where you mash, but only bring temp up to pasteurisation (so no boil).

If you boil, then wont you drive off a lot of the aromatics & as the hops are left behind in the sparge, then you won't have extracted as much of the bittering chemicals.

 

[An Ankoù]

Amigos.. Im staring down the barel of a golden ale recipe which calls for 20g Admiral in the mash to allegedly provide 8 IBU,

From the little I can find out about mash hopping it doesnt strike me as worth it. So Im thinking Id be better getting 8 IBU from that hop at flameout..

is there any worth in mash hopping ? and does it have to be leaf hops or can you deploy pellets?

Don't discount mash hopping, try it!
The mash temperature shoudn't be hot enough to isomerise any of the alpha acids so I don't know where the 8 IBUs are going to come from.
Admiral is a good bittering hop. If you don't want to "waste" the hops, contain them in a large bag, like a Sainsbury's produce bag, and then use them in the boil,

 

[Frisp]

Um. It must work for some people or else it wouldn't be a thing. So all I can offer is my ponderings.

Maybe it's the no boil brigade where you mash, but only bring temp up to pasteurisation (so no boil).

If you boil, then wont you drive off a lot of the aromatics & as the hops are left behind in the sparge, then you won't have extracted as much of the bittering chemicals.

its a 60 min boil recipe. And I read a post somewhere that someone did a brew with only mas hopping and they found almost no hopping effect in the beer. The thrust of that discussion seemed to be around the anti oxidant effect of mash hopping..

 

[Stu's Brews]

When mash hopping you have to consider whether you are going to use leaf or pellet hops.

If you use leaf, you can basically assume it will contribute zero IBUs as the mash temperature isn't high enough for isomerisation and the hops are filtered out by the mash.

If you use pellets, then some of the hop material can pass through into the boil. In this case, you will get some IBU contribution.

I've only ever done leaf, so not sure how you estimate the IBUs you would get. I assume it would be lower utilisation than adding hops directly to the boil but not sure by how much.

 

[Agentgonzo]

Um. It must work for some people or else it wouldn't be a thing.

Unless you include the placebo effect, then homeopathy is a good counterexample to your theory

 

[jof]

Unless you include the placebo effect, then homeopathy is a good counterexample to your theory

That's why I said for some people.
Probably the same people that drink cloudy hop juice and buy their beer in garish cans.

 

[An Ankoù]

That's why I said for some people.
Probably the same people that drink cloudy hop juice and buy their beer in garish cans.

.. and wear Union Jack socks inside their sandals?

On the contrary. Isn't it used mainly for lagers and "light" ales?
A quick goggling and googling reveals a lot of discourse about biotransformation by yeast, but the yeast is a long way away from the mash!
There are also references to Janish, who, it would seem favours hop mashing as it (apparently) reduced the iron content and other spoilage compounds in the wort.
Brulosophy did some kind of experiment using (it seems to me) a complete;y wrong style to give mash-hopping a fair crack of the whip.
There. A golden ale seems to be the ideal medium to get the benefits, if, indeed, there are any to be had. Suck it and see!

 

[Sadfield]

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/...t-thiols-chelating-metals-aroma-habit.101866/

As a one off, with nothing to compare the results against, it's probably not worth it.

I've been doing it for almost a year now on every brew, I'm beginning to feel it makes a qualitative difference to my beers.

 

[Sadfield]

If you use leaf, you can basically assume it will contribute zero IBUs as the mash temperature isn't high enough for isomerisation and the hops are filtered out by the mash.

You do extract hop acids that carry over to the kettle, where they are then isomerised. There's humulinones that certainly add bitterness to my preboil wort, in the same way dry hopping can increase bitterness.

 

[Stu's Brews]

You do extract hop acids that carry over to the kettle, where they are then isomerised. There's humulinones that certainly add bitterness to my preboil wort, in the same way dry hopping can increase bitterness.

That does make sense actually. I'm sure I had read somewhere using pellets has almost zero IBU contribution but it could have been a red herring.

 

[Sadfield]

That does make sense actually. I'm sure I had read somewhere using pellets has almost zero IBU contribution but it could have been a red herring.

I think there was a thought that the fine dust from pellets could make its way to the kettle, increasing contact time, you'd then possibly get extra IBU's than predicted. Perhaps that.

Beersmith, certainly predicts IBU's from mash hopping, and it translates well to the end product.

 

[Sadfield]

https://www.beervanablog.com/beervana/2021/3/2/age-of-hops-ibu-addition

 

[Northern_Brewer]

From the little I can find out about mash hopping it doesnt strike me as worth it. So Im thinking Id be better getting 8 IBU from that hop at flameout..

they found almost no hopping effect in the beer. The thrust of that discussion seemed to be around the anti oxidant effect of mash hopping..

Exactly - it's not about bittering, so stop thinking in terms of IBUs, it's why you mash hop.

Personally my suggestion would be to stop overthinking it, either follow the damn recipe or not.

A quick goggling and googling reveals a lot of discourse about biotransformation by yeast, but the yeast is a long way away from the mash!

The yeast is a long way from the mash, but the yeast still interact with barley compounds released in the mash. What matters is what gets delivered into the final wort, mash hopping is just one way to deliver stuff, and may deliver things that can't be delivered by other means.

Brulosophy did some kind of experiment using (it seems to me) a complete;y wrong style to give mash-hopping a fair crack of the whip.

Something similar could be said about far too many Brulosophy "experiments" IMO.

 

[foxy]

Amigos.. Im staring down the barel of a golden ale recipe which calls for 20g Admiral in the mash to allegedly provide 8 IBU,

From the little I can find out about mash hopping it doesnt strike me as worth it. So Im thinking Id be better getting 8 IBU from that hop at flameout..

is there any worth in mash hopping ? and does it have to be leaf hops or can you deploy pellets?

It was a thing some years ago but as brewers didn't notice any difference it has died in the arsch.
Gordon Strong and Brad Smith sum it up, a waste of time and money.
https://beersmith.com/blog/2013/10/...beer-with-gordon-strong-beersmith-podcast-67/

 

[Northern_Brewer]

It was a thing some years ago but as brewers didn't notice any difference it has died in the arsch.
Gordon Strong and Brad Smith sum it up, a waste of time and money.
https://beersmith.com/blog/2013/10/...beer-with-gordon-strong-beersmith-podcast-67/

There's been a revival of interest in it in the last few years, as it can markedly increase the thiols in your wort which contribute the tropical flavours currently fashionable, although this is mostly in the context of gene edited yeast designed to take advantage of them :
https://omegayeast.com/news/cosmic-punch-new-thiol-boosting-strain

 

[Vinylwasp]

This popped up on my YT subscription list today and I thought I'd pass it on.