This week I take a contemporary have a look at mash hopping and why it would promote long run beer stability.
What’s Mash Hopping?
The concept of including hops on to the mash tun in beer brewing truly has a protracted historical past. Many brewers experimented with mash hopping within the 1980’s and 1990’s as a substitute or complement to boil hops, with the concept it would promote a smoother end on the beer. Sadly, given our restricted data of mash chemistry again then, what was possible occurring is that the mash hop addition was reducing the pH barely giving lots of the advantages of a trendy pH adjustment, now normally finished with acid, however at the next price as hops are costly.
Mash hopping additionally does add some bitterness, however the utilization at a typical mash temperature of 154F (68C) is equal to a whirlpool addition on the similar time and temperature, however with out the benefit of preserving hop oils, which will likely be boiled off later. This someplace within the 8-9% degree as in comparison with boiling the hops. So it’s roughly equal to a 1/tenth measurement boil addition of the identical time interval. Provided that we may use a boil addition 1/tenth the dimensions to realize the identical bitterness, mash hopping isn’t a great way to get bitterness into your beer.
I’ve been a very long time critic of mash hopping as it’s an inefficient use of hops for bittering, and in addition not one of the fragrant hop oils survive the boiling course of so it provides mainly no aromatics.
Mash Hopping For Beer Stability
In a current podcast episode with Scott Janish, he makes the case {that a} mash hop addition will truly decrease the degrees of metals like iron remaining within the completed beer and due to this fact cut back issues with long run stability within the beer. Scott says that the alpha and beta acids within the hops react with iron and different metals through the mash and might cut back iron content material within the completed beer by as a lot as 30%. This was with a reasonably strong addition of hops equal to about 20 IBUs he says.
Iron and different metals are extremely reactive, notably with oxygen, and play a significant position in spoiling your beer after it’s packaged, so decreasing metallic content material is necessary for long run beer stability. Metals will usually oxidize simply so any residual oxygen within the beer will create the traditional stale cardboard end of oxidized beer. Scott additionally claims it reduces aldehydes which might additionally generate off flavors. I encourage you to take heed to the full episode right here for extra info.
Mash Hopping to Improve Thiols
The opposite attention-grabbing growth the previous few years has been using mash hops to free thiols in sure types like Hazy/New England IPAs. I’ve finished quite a lot of podcasts highlighting the position that thiols from hops play in creating fruity tropical flavors in an IPA together with this one with Stan Hieronymus, and this one with Chris Graham and Vito Delluchi. Nevertheless we’ve not coated using mash hopping as a way.
This article from Yakima Valley Hops covers the approach in some element. Thiols are available two types, free and certain, however solely the free thiols make a big contribution to the flavour and aroma of the completed beers. The fundamental thought is that hopping through the mash converts among the crystaline certain thiols within the hops right into a kind that may then be biotransformed by yeast throughout fermentation into free thiols. Whereas thiols make up a tiny portion of the hop cone, they’re perceptable within the components per trillion scale and due to this fact have a big effect on the completed beer.
Yakima recommends selecting hops which might be excessive in thiol content material, similar to Citra, Cascade, Galaxy, Eclipse in addition to a lot of the Australian and New Zealand varieties. Additionally they advocate utilizing a thiol boosting yeast for finest impact similar to Omega’s Cosmic Punch Ale (OLY-402) for max impression. These newer, thiol boosting yeasts are higher at finishing the biotransformation of certain thiols to create free thiols. Yakima has some further ideas like bagging your pelllet hops within the mash, and I encourage you to learn their full article for extra particulars.
So does mash hopping make sense to your subsequent beer? If you’re planning a beer for long run storage or maybe creating a business beer that will sit on the shelf for a while, then mash hopping to scale back metals in your beer may make sense. Equally if you’re creating a giant tropical hazy IPA then combining mash hops with a thiol boosting yeast may additionally be a sensible choice.
I hope you loved this week’s article on mash hopping. Ensure to join my e-newsletter or my podcast (additionally on itunes…and youtube…and streaming radio station) for extra nice recommendations on homebrewing.
