Wort

Wort (

Production

The first step in wort production is to obtain malt, which is made from dried, sprouted cereal grains, including barley. The malt is run through a mill, cracking the husk and exposing the starch inside. The milled grain is then mashed by mixing it with hot water, and then steeped, a process that enables enzymes to convert the starch in the malt into sugars which dissolve in the water. Sometimes the mash is heated at set intervals to alter the enzyme activity.^[3] The temperature of the mixture is usually increased to 78 °C (172 °F) for mashout. Lautering is the next step, which means the sugar-extracted grist or solids remaining in the mash are separated from the liquid wort. In homebrewing, the use of grain malt (including milling and mashing) can be skipped by adding malt extract to water to make wort.^[4]

The mixture is then boiled to sanitize the wort and, in the case of most beer production, to extract the bittering, flavour and aroma from

. This extracts the oils, which provide flavour and aroma but evaporate quickly. In general, hops provide the most flavouring when boiled for approximately 15 minutes, and the most aroma when not boiled at all.

At the end of boiling, the hot wort is quickly cooled (in homebrewing, often using an immersion chiller) to a temperature favorable to the yeast. Once sufficiently cooled, the wort is transferred to a separate fermentation vessel, oxygenated, and then yeast is added, or "pitched", to begin the fermentation process.

The

.

References