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The following is a list of definitions you may find associated with brewing.
- Alcohol Tolerance
- The maximum percentage the yeast can tolerate before it dies off.
- airlock
-
Seals the fermentor and allows the gases produced
during fermentation to escape.
- attenuation
- The percentage of available sugars a yeast will convert to alcohol.
- barm
- A dried yeast cake.
- brew pot
-
The pot that is used to hold the initial ingredients for your brew to create the wort or
must. This pot is usually at least 3 gallons in size.
- dross
- The scum that rises to the top of the boil when heating the must.
- fermenter
- An organism that carries out fermentation.
- fermentor
-
An apparatus for carrying out fermentation. Typical fermentors are either glass bottles
or large plastic buckets with tight-fitting lids.
- flocculate
- To cause to aggregate into a mass. For example, when using a clarifying agent,
such as Sparkeloid the yeast will clump together (flocculate) and fall out of
the solution (i.e. mead).
- hydrometer
- A tool used to take Specific Gravity readings.
- lees
-
Solid precipitates that fall to the bottom of the vessel during fermentation
and aging.
- must
- The heated honey and water mixture made at the start of a batch of mead.
- final gravity
- The specific gravity of your must/wort after fermentation completes.
- original gravity
- The specific gravity of your must/wort before fermentation begins.
- pasteurization
- The process of of killing off wild yeast and bacteria. Bring the solution to
170 degrees F, then maintain the temperature for 15-20 minutes.
- racking
- The process of separating the mead from the lees.
- sediment
- The matter that settles to the bottom of a liquid.
- Sodium Phosphates
-
Nax(PO4)x -- Good for killing beasties.
- specific gravity
- The ratio of the density of a substance to the density of some substance
(as pure water) taken as a standard when both densities are obtained by
weighing in air.
- trub
- see sediment.