Mash vs. 1st wort hop

I'm brewing up the American Brown in this months issue of BYO....The recipe calls for the first hop additions to be added to the mash. Is this the same as adding them to your first runnings from the mash tun.....

Also, what would pellet hops in my mash add or hinder the draining of the wort....Would it act like a filter, or maybe would it clog the manifold....

No it is not the same. FWH-ing is different. FWH uses the higher ph from the first runnings to efficiently extract more bittering potental from the hops. Mash hopping is like the red capped gnome that steals your stuff when you are drunk. You could of swore he was there but alas when you are sober enough to know better you realize he is BS and you drunkenly misplaced your stuff. But people do mash hop- most I have heard use pellets, alas I bet they were drunk, thought it was the boil kettle, or the gnome told them to do it!! From what i know there is little bittering extraction for mash hopping. So I am not sure what it does? Give it a go and see, report back. My guess is that if you are still using traditional bittering hops etc, you might not notice anything from it.

I have seen a few recipes with mash hops.I think Tasty Mcdole has one or two. I have addd about 1/2 oz to the mash once. The beer tasted fine, but there were a bunch of hops added in the kettle as well. Without having the exact same recipe done minus the mash hops I couldn't say what contribution it made. From what I have read there is likely some contribution from mash hops, and it may add in a subtle way, but you get way more bang for your buck from FWH. Now if you just picked up several pounds of hops from the big 2008 clearance sales and youhave hops to burn, then go for it. If your buying by the ounce though FWH will get you much better use out of those hops.

I tried mash hopping 3 times before concluding that it added nothing to my beers.

jlpred55, wouldn't first runnings have a lower pH, not higher?

Denny said:

I tried mash hopping 3 times before concluding that it added nothing to my beers.

jlpred55, wouldn't first runnings have a lower pH, not higher?

Click to expand...

Um yeah. Not sure what I was drinking when I wrote that. LOL

Denny said:

I tried mash hopping 3 times before concluding that it added nothing to my beers.

jlpred55, wouldn't first runnings have a lower pH, not higher?

Click to expand...

I've only mash hopped the "Janet's Brown Ale" recipe from BCS. It is an excellent beer, but with all the kettle additions I can't quite tell what the mash hopping contributed to it.

See, I was thinking that FWH and Mash hopping was the same thing. Thanks for setting me straight. I had been struggling to figure out how mash hopping is doing anything.

Early hopping accentuates oxidized hop character frequently featured in British and German beers. It's a different, more mellow, and less fresh/crisp flavor than late hop flavor. I've heard that German brewers of Pilsner leave their hops out for a couple days before brewing with them in order to oxidize oils in the hops, then toss them in at 60 minutes. It all depends on what you're seeking to get out of your hops.

If you do a FWH, do you pull out the hops when the boil starts, or leave them in????

Wild Duk said:

If you do a FWH, do you pull out the hops when the boil starts, or leave them in????

Click to expand...

I leave em in.

I think you'd leave alot of the hop qualities behind in the spent grain. I've FWH once (and plan to do it again) with nice results. I left them in for the boil.

I don't really know if mash hopping contributes to the bitterness in a beer. I guess I'd have to make the same beer with mash hops and the same beer without mash hops and get a lab report on both beers. The 1.074 Imperial Janet's Brown Ale (Zymurgy) is 61 IBUs by formula using Promash which I've got set to count the mash hop IBU utilization as 70%. If I drop the IBU contribution from the mash hop, the calculated IBUs is 42. I've asked a couple of dozen beer people if the beer tastes like 61 IBUs or 42 IBUs. Everyone said 61 IBUs. Many said it seemed like more than 61 IBUs. Many said it was a silly question because a 1.074OG, 154F mashed beer at 42 IBUs would be way out of balance. My tasters and I are going with George Fix on this one.

Mike, FWIW Dan Listermann did an experiment some time back where he did nothing but mash hop a beer. IIRC, it claced out to over 150 IBU and measured less than 30. And like you say, it's the tastebuds that count.

But people do mash hop- most I have heard use pellets, alas I bet they were drunk, thought it was the boil kettle, or the gnome told them to do it!!

Click to expand...

Last batch I wasn't thinking and threw the intended FWH in the vorlauf pot...it was 10:00 AM and I hadn't had anything but coffee yet! I decided to still use half the amount of FWH I had originally intended, having no idea what I'd get out of the 'Vorlauf hopping'. This was pellets and it all ended up on top of the grain bed. But I also made a hop extract/tea and added that at the very end of the ferment so I'll really have no idea what it contributed.