Steping hops in the mash as substitute for dry hoping

Hy Guys

I'm reading Designing Great Beer, and in the chapter flavor and aroma "steping hops in the mash technique" is mentioned as substitute for dry hoping. I wonder if it would be worth experimenting.

Have anyone done this before.... any thoughts on that?

Thanks,

OfObrewing

Hi - I've never tried it, but I don't see steeping hops in the mash as a substitute for dry hopping, since once you boil your wort, those characteristics that are used to provide flavor and aroma are highly volatile and are destroyed by heat.

There is a good article in BYO on Pre-Boil hops that talks about this subject:  http://byo.com/stories/issue/item/2958-pre-boil-hopping

-Dan

    When You pick up a brewing text, check the date of publication. Designing Great Beer was written in 1996, updated in 2000. Dry hopping is one of the popular newer trends in brewing. We have come a long way in 14 years. I own DGB and occasionally reference it's material. It is essential to have a great book like this to reference to, but I work it into my more modern techniques.

drb1215 said:

There is a good article in BYO on Pre-Boil hops that talks about this subject:  http://byo.com/stories/issue/item/2958-pre-boil-hopping
Dan

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Thanks drb, very interesting article with interesting recipes!
R, Slurk

Whelp, you can count mash hopping as something I've tried and will never do again. I get virtually nothing out of it, except a really good smelling mash. YMMV, though.

Nothing ended up in the finished beer. At a rate where I was getting some bitterness, it very nearly stuck the mash. For me, it seems like a marketing gimmick and for that I only need a token amount.

I get a lot more punch from First Wort hopping.

Guys any book (recent publication ) worth adding to my brewing library.

Depends on how technical you want to get, whether your a pro brewer, or have a specialized interest.

The ASBC store has a variety of books ($$$).

Brewers Publications has their Comprehensive Guide For Brewers Series. John Palmers, How to Brew is great, even for a one book library. Home Brewing with BeerSmith is current and well written. My copy of Brewing Better Beer by Gordon Strong is falling apart from use. Zymurgy & Brew Your Own magazine keeps you up on whats happening in the brewing and home brewing word. Recipes in Brewing Classic Styles are an excellent place to start when your trying a new style.

I read an article recently that mash hopping was used in earlier days of brewing in an attempt to lower mash PH.
Can't find the reference now but I have tried mash hopping and the only result for me was the unnecessary use of hops.

Cheers

Beersmith setting is -80 utilization.  I haven't heard anyone liking this.  Maybe its a delayed knee jerk reaction to the hop shortage, but its a reverse IPA

You can use a hop tea instead.  Use it with correct amount of sugar for your priming solution

Dicko said:

I read an article recently that mash hopping was used in earlier days of brewing in an attempt to lower mash PH.

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According to an old German manuscript from the 1400's to the early 1500's, the brewers in (what's now) Northern Germany would boil hops in water for a little while. Then add the water, hops and all, to grain and/or sometimes twice cooked bread. After letting that sit for several hours (the manuscript hints that low heat was applied), they would separate the wort from the grain and boil that again until they got hot break.

It seems like they were effectively creating isomers first, then using a stewing technique for mashing, let everything "cook" together before separating the wort. They had figured out that hot break was important to achieve, and visible. But, apparently, that's where it stopped.

Weinhenstephan apparently has had the manuscript for at least 400 years.

Thanks for sharing Brewfun! A little old school brewing history is always a great read.

Dicko said:

I read an article recently that mash hopping was used in earlier days of brewing in an attempt to lower mash PH.
Can't find the reference now but I have tried mash hopping and the only result for me was the unnecessary use of hops.

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A presentation by Tom Shellhammer, Oregon State University, for this year's CBC discussed beer bitterness from a quality perspective. Here are some major points he made based on current research:

[list type=decimal]
[*]Mash hopping has no effect on mash pH. Solubility of Lupulone falls to immeasurable at 5.2pH while Humulone is only 84ppm. Contrast to 5.6pH where Humulone can reach 244ppm.
[*]Bitterness Units (BU) measure more than just iso-alpha acids. His HPLC slides hinted that as much as 30% of BUs can be derived from polyphenols from both hop leaves and grain. His statement was that unhopped wort typically has 2-3 BUs from just malt. The polyphenol contribution was a good chunk of his presentation. More on that in a separate post.
[*]Perceived bitterness didn't rise above 55 IBU. Meaningful differences of 10 IBU began with as little as 25 IBU in the beer. In other words, 25 IBU was perceived as bitter as 20 and 30 IBU was perceived as bitter as 25. The graph showed increasing divergence as the IBU level increased to 80.
[/list]

He noted that new standards to measure just iso-alpha acids was being developed. No formula or data was given about that.

So it might be beneficial to raise the wort ph during a whirlpool?

grathan said:

So it might be beneficial to raise the wort ph during a whirlpool?

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Don't stop reading on the first point alone. The real keys are in 2&3.

Wort pH was an early tidbit to introduce the issue of polyphenol contributions to BUs. These were also lab based measurements that isolate 1 spot in a huge array of reactions.

I don't think it's a good idea from a yeast health perspective. And host of other pH related kettle reactions. Yeast are going to reduce pH to 4.6 for fermentation, so raising it in the kettle just increases how much stress/work they have before fermentation. That's never good for yeast health, or the finished beer.

Alright then. How about raising it after fermentation for dry hopping?

In dry hopping, you're not interested in the AA% directly. You're interested in the aromatic oils. It is generally true that higher AA% mean higher oils, but not universally. This can mean less hop is needed to achieve aromatics, which would reduce the hop tannins extracted from the green bits.

Hop oil extraction is mostly a time/temperature balance. Temperatures just below fermentation extract aromatics faster than those closer to storing or crashing. So, since most homebrewers never fully chill their beer before bottling/kegging, dry hop regimens of 4 to 7 days are going to give good results.

All of that is at post fermentation pH of 4.4 to 4.6. Higher pH lends harshness to the beer.

Barley and hops are marvelous things for beer. Barley is terrible at making bread, but does everything to be good beer. Hops are terrible in other foods, but an excellent match for beer. Half the ingredients are unsuitable for nearly anything except making beer!

It wants to become beer. Simple, honest beer.