Common Brewing Terms
Ingredients
- Malt: Germinated cereal grains dried in a process called malting
- Hops: Flowers used to add bitterness, flavor, and aroma
- Yeast: Microorganisms that convert sugar to alcohol and CO2
- Adjuncts: Non-malt fermentables like corn, rice, or fruit
- Wort: Liquid extracted from the mashing process before fermentation
Equipment
- Mash Tun: Vessel where grains are mixed with hot water
- Fermenter: Container where wort ferments into beer
- Airlock: Device that allows CO2 to escape while preventing air entry
- Hydrometer: Tool to measure specific gravity and alcohol content
- Wort Chiller: Device to rapidly cool wort before fermentation
Process Terms
- Mashing: Steeping grains in hot water to extract sugars
- Sparging: Rinsing grains to extract remaining sugars
- Boil: Heating wort with hops to sterilize and extract hop compounds
- Pitching: Adding yeast to cooled wort
- Fermentation: Yeast converting sugars to alcohol and CO2
- Racking: Transferring beer between vessels, leaving sediment behind
- Bottling/Kegging: Packaging the finished beer
- Conditioning: Aging beer to develop flavors and carbonation
Beer Characteristics
- ABV: Alcohol By Volume, percentage of alcohol in beer
- IBU: International Bitterness Units, measure of beer's bitterness
- SRM: Standard Reference Method, measure of beer color
- Gravity: Density of wort/beer compared to water (OG: Original Gravity, FG: Final Gravity)
- Attenuation: Percentage of sugars consumed by yeast
- Flocculation: Yeast's tendency to clump together and settle
Beer Styles
- Ale: Beer fermented with top-fermenting yeast at warmer temperatures
- Lager: Beer fermented with bottom-fermenting yeast at cooler temperatures
- IPA: India Pale Ale, characterized by hop bitterness and aroma
- Stout: Dark beer made with roasted malts
- Porter: Dark beer similar to stout but typically lighter
- Sour: Beer with intentional acidic, tart, or sour flavors