Wort (brewing)
Encyclopedia
Wort, , is the liquid extracted from the mashing
Mashing
In brewing and distilling, mashing is the process of combining a mix of milled grain , known as the "grain bill", and water, known as "liquor", and heating this mixture...

 process during the brewing
Brewing
Brewing is the production of beer through steeping a starch source in water and then fermenting with yeast. Brewing has taken place since around the 6th millennium BCE, and archeological evidence suggests that this technique was used in ancient Egypt...

 of beer
Beer
Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...

 or whisky
Whisky
Whisky or whiskey is a type of distilled alcoholic beverage made from fermented grain mash. Different grains are used for different varieties, including barley, malted barley, rye, malted rye, wheat, and corn...

. Wort contains the sugar
Sugar
Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...

s that will be fermented
Ethanol fermentation
Ethanol fermentation, also referred to as alcoholic fermentation, is a biological process in which sugars such as glucose, fructose, and sucrose are converted into cellular energy and thereby produce ethanol and carbon dioxide as metabolic waste products...

 by the brewing yeast to produce alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....

.

Production

The first step in wort production is to make malt
Malt
Malt is germinated cereal grains that have been dried in a process known as "malting". The grains are made to germinate by soaking in water, and are then halted from germinating further by drying with hot air...

 from dried, sprouted
Sprouting
Sprouting is the practice of germinating seeds to be eaten either raw or cooked.They are a convenient way to have fresh vegetables for salads, or otherwise, in any season and can be germinated at home or produced industrially...

 barley
Barley
Barley is a major cereal grain, a member of the grass family. It serves as a major animal fodder, as a base malt for beer and certain distilled beverages, and as a component of various health foods...

. The malt is ground into grist
Grist
Grist is grain that has been separated from its chaff in preparation for grinding. It can also mean grain that has been ground at a grist mill. Its etymology derives from the verb grind....

. The grist is mashed
Mashing
In brewing and distilling, mashing is the process of combining a mix of milled grain , known as the "grain bill", and water, known as "liquor", and heating this mixture...

, that is, mixed with hot water and steeped
Steeping
Steeping or weltering may mean:# Saturation in a liquid solvent to extract a soluble ingredient, where the solvent is the desired product. Tea is prepared for drinking by steeping the leaves in heated water to release the flavor and nutrients...

, a complex and slow heating process that enables enzymes to convert the starch
Starch
Starch or amylum is a carbohydrate consisting of a large number of glucose units joined together by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by all green plants as an energy store...

 in the malt into sugars. At set intervals, notably when the mixture has reached a temperature of , , and , the heating is briefly halted. The temperature of the mixture is usually increased to for mash out. Lautering
Lautering
Lautering is a process in brewing beer in which the mash is separated into the clear liquid wort and the residual grain. Lautering usually consists of 3 steps: mashout, recirculation, and sparging.-Mashout:...

 is the next step, which simply means the sugar-extracted grist or solids remaining in the mash are separated from the liquid wort.

In homebrewing
Homebrewing
Homebrewing is the brewing of beer, wine, sake, mead, cider, perry and other beverages through fermentation on a small scale as a hobby for personal consumption, free distribution at social gatherings, amateur brewing competitions or other non-commercial reasons...

, the malt-making and mashing steps can be skipped by adding malt extract to water. The wort is then boiled and the process proceeds as indicated below. (See Brewing
Brewing
Brewing is the production of beer through steeping a starch source in water and then fermenting with yeast. Brewing has taken place since around the 6th millennium BCE, and archeological evidence suggests that this technique was used in ancient Egypt...

 for more details.)

Once the wort mixture has been created, it is then boiled in order to sanitize as well as extract the flavour and aroma from the hops
Hops
Hops are the female flower clusters , of a hop species, Humulus lupulus. They are used primarily as a flavoring and stability agent in beer, to which they impart a bitter, tangy flavor, though hops are also used for various purposes in other beverages and herbal medicine...

, which are added to the wort at set times in two parts: the bittering hops are boiled for around an hour to an hour and a half, and the finishing hops are added toward, or after, the end of the boil. Hop cones contain resins, which provide the bittering and take a long boil to extract, and oils, which provide flavour and aroma, but evaporate quickly. Generally speaking, hops provide the most flavouring when boiled for around 15 minutes, and the most aroma when not boiled at all (i.e., added after the boil, a process called dry hopping.)

At the end of boiling, the hot wort is quickly cooled to a temperature favourable to the yeast
Yeast
Yeasts are eukaryotic micro-organisms classified in the kingdom Fungi, with 1,500 species currently described estimated to be only 1% of all fungal species. Most reproduce asexually by mitosis, and many do so by an asymmetric division process called budding...

. Once sufficiently cooled, the yeast is added, or "pitched", to begin the fermentation
Ethanol fermentation
Ethanol fermentation, also referred to as alcoholic fermentation, is a biological process in which sugars such as glucose, fructose, and sucrose are converted into cellular energy and thereby produce ethanol and carbon dioxide as metabolic waste products...

 process.

The adjunct
Adjuncts
Adjuncts are unmalted grains used in brewing beer which supplement the main mash ingredient , often with the intention of cutting costs, but sometimes to create an additional feature, such as better foam retention.- Definition :Ingredients which are standard for certain beers, such as wheat in a...

 grains which can be added to the mash include wheat
Wheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...

, corn
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...

, rye
Rye
Rye is a grass grown extensively as a grain and as a forage crop. It is a member of the wheat tribe and is closely related to barley and wheat. Rye grain is used for flour, rye bread, rye beer, some whiskeys, some vodkas, and animal fodder...

, and rice
Rice
Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...

. Adjunct grains may first need gelatinization and cooling. They are used to create varietal beers such as wheat beer
Wheat beer
Wheat beer is a beer that is brewed with a large proportion of wheat. Wheat beers often also contain a significant proportion of malted barley. Wheat beers are usually top-fermented...

 and oatmeal stout, to create grain whisky
Grain whisky
Grain whisky ordinarily refers to any whisky made from at least some grains other than malted barley, such as whisky made using maize , wheat or rye....

, or to lighten the body (and cut costs) as in commercial, mass produced pale lager
Pale lager
Pale lager is a very pale to golden-coloured beer with a well attenuated body and a varying degree of noble hop bitterness. The brewing process for this beer developed in the mid 19th century when Gabriel Sedlmayr took pale ale brewing techniques back to the Spaten Brewery in Germany and applied it...

s.

Naming

In beer making, the wort is known as "sweet wort" until the hops have been added, after which it is then called "hopped wort."
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