Mash hopping

I'm curious to see people's thoughts on calculating IBUs for mash hopping. I'm brewing an imperial ipa and was thinking about calculating it as FWH.

Do mash hops contribute to bitterness? I'm not totally up on the process.

Do you put them into the BK, or do you leave them in the mash tun with the spent grains?

You don't get much out of it. I would say 3-10 IBUs depending on AA and amount. I think I calc'd 7 for an ounce of chinook at 11 AA.

I would agree- MH shouldn't contribute significantly to IBUs. You're not boiling the hops, only using them in the mashtun. Sure, you boil the wort after that, but my thinking is that you don't get much isomerization because of the removal of the hops. I could be wrong, of course- I'd appreciate any experts who actually know the science that could explain it.

I have over a pound of chinook, so I'll be experimenting with some mash hopping myself this winter.

According to Promash, you should get about 70% of the utilization compared with a 60 minute boil.

-a.

What's the benefit? I've heard of it, but I've never really understood how or why to use it.

In my experiment mash hopping contributed just more bitterness (assuming from what made it through the braid) and not much flavor as of transferring to secondary.

Killinger said:

What's the benefit? I've heard of it, but I've never really understood how or why to use it.

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SwampassJ said:

In my experiment mash hopping contributed just more bitterness (assuming from what made it through the braid) and not much flavor as of transferring to secondary.

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my understanding is it just gives a more rounded bitterness similar to FWH and just another place to add hops for us hopheads

I'm curious now too. I've heard of hopped extract, but I've never seen an AG recipe calling for hops in the mash. I'm assuming this is how hopped extract is made, but if they get very low utilization out of it, I'd think it would be more cost effective to just include the bittering hops in the kit rather than mashing them for the extract.

For my first AG batch, the LHBS guy recommended a recipe that happened to call for mash hopping. I had not heard of it, basically ignored it (i.e. put the hops in for 60), and forgot about the technique for a while. Lately, I've been using FWH for most batches. I guess I haven't missed much, huh?

ajf said:

According to Promash, you should get about 70% of the utilization compared with a 60 minute boil.

-a.

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Hah, maybe I'll try heavy mash hops and reduce my boil times, can anyone say 2 hour all grain, just kidding, just a thought.