West Coast Brewer Home Brewing Blog
A dictionary of home brewing terms.
The mash is water-saturated crushed malts, unmalted grains, and adjuncts that are present in the mash tun when the mashing occurs. During the mashing process, the starches will be broken down into sugars so they can be fermented by the yeast and converted into alcohol.
The mash for an American Wheat Hefeweizen towards the end of the mashing.
Dry Malt Extract or DME is typically used in extract beer brewing, for yeast starters, and in some cases, all grain brewing. To make dry malt extract, the sugars from a brewing mash are transferred from a mash tun or lauter tun and completely dehydrated and in a vacuum chamber. Typically, hops are not added to a malt extract.
A wide variety of home brewing dry malt extract is available here:
Liquid Malt extract or LME is typically used in extract beer brewing, yeast starters, and in some cases, all grain brewing. To make liquid malt extract, the sugars from a brewing mash are transferred from a mash tun or lauter tun and dehydrated and reduced in a vacuum chamber. When the process is completed, the liquid malt extract is only 20% water. Typically, hops are not added to a malt extract.
Malt is grain, such as barley or wheat, that has been soaked, germinated, and then dried in a process known as malting.
The malting process is conducted by soaking the selected grains in water until they germinate. Then the grains are transferred to the germination floor and dried with hot air to halt the germination process. Malt is critical for brewing because of the enzymes that develop during the germination and malting process. These enzymes are measured as diastatic power and are what enables starches to be converted into sugars during the beer’s mash process.
A beer with too low of a ratio of malted grains to non-malted grains in its grain bill will not have enough diastatic power to be able to convert all of the starches to sugars, and therefore will have a very low starting gravity and a low alcohol by volume.
Malt/malted 2-row barley used as beer grain
Lovibond is one of the methods used to measure the color of beer. Using the Lovibond method, a beer’s color is compared against colored glass slides to determine a numerical value for the beer. The more recently created and precise Standard Reference Method has for the most part replaced the Lovibond method.
The following chart shows approximate Lovibond numerical values with the corresponding color and is categorized by style of beer.
West Coast Brewer SRM Lovibond Beer Color Scale
Liquor is simply water in beer brewing terms. The hot liquor tank is a large vessel that heats water for the different steps in the brewing process. The water that is released from the hot liquor tank is known as liquor.
A beer rack is another term for a home brewery. Most home brewing beer racks or brewing racks have three vessels: a hot liquor tank, mash tun, and a boil kettle. The home brewing beer rack shown below is a single-tier rack that uses march pumps to transfer liquid from one vessel to another at different stages of the brewing process. Each vessel has a separate propane burner beneath it to apply heat when needed.
If you are interested in purchasing a home brewing rack, there are a wide variety of beautiful stainless steel single-tier and multi-tier beer rack models available here:
Here’s an image of the WestCoastBrewer.com home brewing beer rack.
Beer Rack for home brewing
A home brewing sculpture is another term for a home brewery. Most home brewing beer sculptures consist of a hot liquor tank, mash tun, and a boil kettle. The brewing sculpture shown below is a single-tier sculpture that utilizes pumps to transfer liquid from one tank to another at different stages of the brewing process. Each tank has a separate propane fueled burner beneath it to apply heat when needed.
If you are interested in purchasing a prefabricated home brewing sculpture, there are a wide variety of beautiful stainless steel single-tier and multi-tier models available here:
Here’s an image of the WestCoastBrewer.com home brewing beer sculpture. If you are interested in building your own and have any questions, just let me know.
Home Brewing Beer Sculpture
The hot liquor tank or HLT is a brewing vessel used to heat water for different stages of the brewing process, including the mash and sparge. The hot liquor tank is typically heated by either gas, steam, or an electric heating coil. Depending on brewery configuration, the hot liquor tank may hold water at temperatures as high as 170° F or possibly even higher in cases where a boil is conducted to modify the mineral composition of the brewing water in order to remove bicarbonate
The photo below is the brewing configuration that I use. The hot liquor tank is the rightmost kettle, and I utilize a march pump to transfer the heated water to the mash tun at different times in the brewing process. Additionally, at the end of the boil I fill the hot liquor tank with ice and cold water and pump the cooled water through the counter flow wort chiller to cool the wort more quickly.
Home Brewing Hot Liquor Tank
Lautering is a brewing process where hot water (typically heated to 168-170° F) is used to flush the sugars from the crushed grains after the mash has completed. Once flushed from the grains, the hot water and sugars are then transferred from the mash tun or lauter tun.
A lauter tun is a brewing vessel used by large scale breweries. After the mash has completed, the grains are transferred to the lauter tun where the converted sugars can be thoroughly extracted from the grains. The lauter tun has rotating arms with cutting blades that rake the mashed grains. Hot water is sprayed upon the grains to flush the sugar though a false bottom at the base of the lauter tun.
A mash tun is a brewing tank used for converting and extracting sugars from grains and certain types of adjuncts. The crushed grains are loaded into the mash tun and then mixed with temperature controlled hot water. The hot water causes an enzyme reaction in the grains that converts their starches to sugars. The sugars are then rinsed from the grains with hot water that helps liquefy the sugars so that they can be more easily extracted from the grains. Many mash tuns are fitted with a raised perforated false bottom that permits the sugars to be extracted from the grains without requiring the grain husks to be transferred to the next stage of the brewing process.
The photo below displays a mash tun in the WestCoastBrewing.com home brewing sculpture/beer rack. The mash tun is in the center with the hot liquor tank to the right and the boil kettle to the left.
Photo of a home brewing Mash Tun.
20 gallon home brewing mash tun with false bottom
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