Mousey Maris Citra Smash

[GillettBreweryCnslt]

Hey.

There are two things I have lots of it's Citra and Maris Otter. So here's my plan for something in between an APA and AIPA. I'm going to mash at 151 to get a light body on this one. I'm personally out of 2-row and I've got a chance to brew tomorrow so out comes the MO. Advice?

Ingredients

22.00 lb - Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) - 100.0 %
1.00 oz - Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min - 20.9 IBUs
1.00 oz - Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min - 16.1 IBUs
1.00 oz - Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 10.0 min - 7.6 IBUs
1.00 oz - Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min - 4.2 IBUs
1.00 oz - Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 0.0 min - 0.0 IBUs
2.0 pkg - Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05)

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.062
Est Final Gravity: 1.011
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.7 %
Bitterness: 48.7 IBUs
Est Color: 5.3 SRM

[mr x]

Looks good to me.

[GuingesRock]

Nice! I’ve done endless smash beers with Bairds Marris Otter, I would like to try the Fawcett MO. I like it a bit dryer still now and start at 149 and let the mash temp drop further a bit in the BIAB pot without insulating. I’m doing 90 min mash and 90 min boils now, but I think you will like it the way you have it too. No experience with Citra yet. Maybe I should get some from you when I come down and try it if you have lots. I think you will really appreciate the hops just having the MO.

[GillettBreweryCnslt]

I have a lb of personal stuff I got in a group buy this spring, but none left in the store.

However, I do have 19 other varieties of hops in the store

[LiverDance]

What about taking the 60 and 30 min addition and doing it FWH? That's the way we done our zombie dust style beer and it turned out great!

[GillettBreweryCnslt]

What about taking the 60 and 30 min addition and doing it FWH? That's the way we done our zombie dust style beer and it turned out great!

That sounds like a decent plan, I didn't consider it. Just eliminate the 60 and 30 and combine them as a FWH addition?

[kberry]

I've been thinking about doing something like this for a while. Your recipe looks good. Can't wait to hear how it turns out!

[GuingesRock]

What about taking the 60 and 30 min addition and doing it FWH? That's the way we done our zombie dust style beer and it turned out great!

That sounds like a decent plan, I didn't consider it. Just eliminate the 60 and 30 and combine them as a FWH addition?

YES! That’s how I would hop that too. If you are going to put aroma hops through the boil, you may as well get the flavour out of them first in the FWH. The bitterness won’t be as harsh if you do that so you could increase the FWH hops. I use a pound of cascade or styrian goldings (both around 5,5% alpha) in FWH (10 gal) mixed with late additions, like LD says, and it tastes really good. Citra has 12% alpha acids so I am not sure if that means you use half as much. I ignore Beersmith IBU calculations if doing FWH. My 1lb FWH beer says it is 132 IBU but it tastes more like 50 (do you find that too LD?). I really believe this Basic Brewing Radio podcast where they tested IBUs in hops that are kept in for a full 1 hour boil and you can’t get above 50 IBU, it doesn’t matter if you use 10lbs. Late hopping etc adds more IBUs. It’s either that is true, or I’m getting 132 IBU and the FWH bitterness is REALLY smooth. I think you would get 50 from the FWH and maybe use 8oz or more for 10 gal. You could move all the rest of them to flameout so your IBUS stayed around 50. The whole thing would be full of flavour and have a really pleasant bitterness. (Basic Brewing Radio IBU podcast here).

I like round numbers. For 10 gal you could use a 1lb bag of Citra and divvy it up between FWH and flameout? and I think you would stay around 50-70 IBU with really nice flavour. As I said, I haven't used Citra before though. Do you think that would work LD?

[jacinthebox]

Glad to hear you're brewing again Dave...
I have a few more brew for you to try, next time I see you

[LiverDance]

What about taking the 60 and 30 min addition and doing it FWH? That's the way we done our zombie dust style beer and it turned out great!

That sounds like a decent plan, I didn't consider it. Just eliminate the 60 and 30 and combine them as a FWH addition?

You got it. What Mark is saying will work as well, but I always try to stay withing the parameters I was given. You got 5oz so I'm guessing its a 5gal batch, moving 2 oz to FWH will work out good.

[mr x]

If it was me, I'd use magnum for the bittering and save the citra for the end. Smash is just a word.....

[jeffsmith]

If it was me, I'd use magnum for the bittering and save the citra for the end. Smash is just a word.....

^ This, or Warrior.

[GuingesRock]

If it was me, I'd use magnum for the bittering and save the citra for the end. Smash is just a word.....

I thought the idea of a smash though was to really feature the hops. Lots of hop flavour from different hopping methods. Wouldn't it be a bit non-descript without that, and such a simple malt bill?

[mr x]

I doubt you're getting much hop flavour from the bittering addition, so why waste your scarce stash?

[GillettBreweryCnslt]

I doubt you're getting much hop flavour from the bittering addition, so why waste your scarce stash?

Well, reading up on the FWH it seems you might get some aroma and flavour from the bittering addition. If that is the case then it should be a citra addition

Plus, there's no point in hoarding hops. There will be more Citra come February. In my personal stash I still have lots of other great hops to use.

[mr x]

might. My experience with FWH is how the fuck would you ever know what it does, other than bittering?

Don't count those February chickens before they are hatched.

[GuingesRock]

might. My experience with FWH is how the fuck would you ever know what it does, other than bittering?

Don't count those February chickens before they are hatched.

Try FWH in isolation...make a smash and put 1lb of aroma hops in FWH, with no other hopping. The flavour is awesome. Sandy tried one of my beers, I made like that, and he asked me if it was a "fruit beer"

[mr x]

But what's the difference if you don't FWH and use late hops? You're still getting awesome flavour. My own experience with smash and FWH is 'not really interested in doing it again'. And I would never use Simcoe, Amarillo, or Citra as bittering hops considering the hop market.

[GuingesRock]

FWH...

the volatile hop constituents undergo very complicated reactions, producing a complexity of hop bitterness and aroma that is obtainable no other way. http://brewery.org/library/1stwort.html

As the boil kettle fills with wort, the hops steep in the hot wort releasing their volatile oils and resins. The aromatic oils are normally insoluble and tend to volatlize during the boil. By letting the hops steep in the wort prior to boiling, the oils have more time to oxidize to more soluble compounds and a greater percentage is retained during the boil. http://www.bacchus-barleycorn.com/catal ... cles_id=22

Mash Hopping...

"Observations on Mash Hopping by Marc Sedam


Every brewer knows when to add hops in the wort. You need some for the long boil to bitter the beer, some between 10-20 minutes from the end of the boil for flavor, and a handful at the end of the boil to get the intoxicating aroma into the beer. The hopheads among us even dry hop beer for that extra something in many pale ales. Oh, and of course you can add hops to the mash.
The mash?

Hops in the mash have a history in brewing. I first came upon this concept while trying to make the ultimate Berliner Weiss. Eric Schneider's article on Berliner Weiss in Brewing Techniques a few years back mentioned that aged leaf hops were often placed in the mash to aid in filtration. My attempt at the recipe came out well, but the concept of adding some hops to the mash was intriguing. What would hops do in the mash? Could you use pellets?

My first mash-hopped brew was a simple lager made using 10 pounds of pilsner malt, two ounces of Hallertauer Hersbrucker in the mash, and an ounce of Bullion in the boil for bittering. The resulting beer was shocking. It had hop aroma and flavor that I'd never been able to get in a beer before. When the beer was warmed up a bit, one whiff put me closer to a hop field than any glass ever before.

I continued to experiment with the amounts of hops to use in the mash, trying to make recipes I knew so I could subjectively predict the bitterness contributed. Pilsners, brown ales, barleywines, and pale ales - all of these styles seemed to benefit from mash hopping. A few postings to the Homebrew Digest (http://www.hbd.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) led me to Paddock Wood Brewing Supplies, a homebrew shop in Canada run by Stephen Cavan. Little did I know that Stephen had been dabbling in mash hopping as well and had some information up on his website. I began to share what I was doing with other homebrewing web groups and convinced a few people to give it a shot. Many were impressed with the result. Some were not. I encouraged people to write me with their experiences and asked for as much detail on the brewing process as they could remember. Several e-mails were swapped over the next few months and some "best methods" began to emerge.
How do you mash hop?

Not all beers are worth mash hopping. But those beers that are characterized by hop flavor or aroma certainly seem to benefit. My Classic American Pilsner really shines when mash hopped. Others have tried it in a decoction and, other than a slightly increased bittering contribution of the mash hops, enjoyed the results. I have a few simple rules for converting a normally hopped beer to a mash hopped brew:
1.Replace the amount of late addition flavor and aroma hops with 1.5x the amount of mash hops. For example, if your recipe calls for an ounce of Saaz as a flavor addition and another ounce for the aroma addition, you would add three ounces of Saaz to the mash. Hops are added directly to the mash at dough-in.
2.Use pellets. I have mash hopped with leaf and with pellets and the pellets give much better results. This could be because the hop oils are more exposed in the pellets through processing.
3.Add slightly more bittering hops. Current observations indicate that mash hopping provides almost no bitterness to the finished beer. Thus when you move hops from the boil to the mash, you must compensate for the bitterness that is lost. I do this by calculating the IBUs that would have been contributed to the original recipe by the flavor and aroma hops and then increasing the bittering hop addition accordingly.
4.Sparge, boil, chill, ferment, enjoy! That's it. After adding hops to the mash, the rest of the brewing cycle proceeds as normal. Surprisingly, the hops do not get in the way of lautering. I always start the lauter slowly, but have never had a stuck mash since starting mash hopping.


Why does it work?

The short answer is that I don't know. Traditional beers generate hop flavor and aroma through late hop additions because the volatile oils that provide these properties are driven off in the boil. Mash hopping is targeting the aromatic oils and not the bittering oils. Mash hopped beers have plenty of hop flavor and aroma, yet the wort is boiled for over an hour. My main theory is that the otherwise volatile hop oils are stabilized during extended periods at mashing pH (5.2-5.5). A reason to believe this theory is found in Jean DeClerck's classic Textbook of Brewing (1957). DeClerck states that hop aromatic oils form chemical bonds at higher pH values and lower temps than found in boiling wort. The bonds which are formed are not broken during the boil; hence the permanent aromatic profile. DeClerck even suggested steeping hops in warm water. So the mash provides an attractive temperature and pH profile to allow the hop aromatic oils to form permanent bonds and making them less volatile. Even the eventual boil of the wort isn't enough to drive off the aromas. Again, this is my theory that seems to have a toehold in previous scientific observation. But this is far from the definitive answer.

I have done ten mash-hopped beers and the other feedback I've received gives a sample size of over 50 batches. Most folks report achieving a smoother hop flavor and aroma. In addition, of course, everyone gets less debris in the kettle since the hops are added to the mash and not the boil. This helps to increase wort yield and I've eked out an extra quart of wort on each batch due solely to this effect.

I have received other feedback on mash hopping from personal e-mails and public postings on the HBD. Some people have not seen a great effect from trying the process. Most of these were attributed to using too few hops in the mash. But there are still others who don't have an explanation. Other factors such as water chemistry and mash pH may play a role, but these would require further exploration.
Summary

Mash hopping isn't for every beer and it may not be financially sound for commercial breweries. But home brewers should certainly try the process once to test it out for themselves. As most of what is presented here has come from experimentation by myself and others, I'd be happy to hear about your experiences. I always appreciate feedback from those who have tried it and someday hope to have a mash-hopped beer analyzed for content to empirically determine what's happening.

This article was published on Thursday 12 February, 2004."

[NASH]

Yes. Then bury it with a lb of finish hops.

Fwh'ing does make a difference but it's not perceivable in thoroughly hopped beers.

Transmitted from the hop-phone.

[GuingesRock]

But what's the difference if you don't FWH and use late hops? You're still getting awesome flavour. My own experience with smash and FWH is 'not really interested in doing it again'. And I would never use Simcoe, Amarillo, or Citra as bittering hops considering the hop market.

I like both methods very much. I can't say one is better than the other.

[mr x]

In which case I would say again, use the method that reduces the use of the scarce hops and achieves the same goal.

[GuingesRock]

In which case I would say again, use the method that reduces the use of the scarce hops and achieves the same goal.

I use a pound either way, and I usually do either late only or FWH only. I think both methods are about the same as far as flavour extraction goes. I think Nash is right. I have my Randall hooked up and I can't tell what's going on behind that...wow! I find late and FWH are a lot more delicate and fruity/floral type flavours/aromas.

I have fermenting at the moment, my overnight mash hop experiment which had 1lb Styrian Goldings pellets (9.99 per lb. at OBK) in the mash and another 1lb in the FWH in 10 gal. Malt bill: Marris Otter only.

[2Hands-1Mouth]

Did it clear up yet Dave? Did you try gelatin?