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Online, July 3, 2011 (Newswire.com) - Whether the homebrewer chooses to mash their own grains or chooses to purchase malt extracts, the homebrewer will then need to boil the liquid and add hops. The length of time the wort boils with the hops varies depending on the style of beer being brewed.

A partial mash differs from an extract brew in that the extract remains enzymatically active. Unlike dead malts where some of the starch has been converted to sugar via the action of heat and the natural enzymes have been destroyed, wheat and unmalted extracts need the help of enzymes to convert their starches into sugars.

The next step up from extract brewing is to use a diastatically active malt extract to convert starches from other beer adjuncts such as flaked and torrified barleys, flaked wheat, and wheat flour into fermentable sugars. These extracts are currently only available in the canned form. Unmalted barleys and wheats can add extra "body" to a finished beer.

Advanced homebrewers make their own extract from crushed malted barley (or alternative grain adjuncts such as unmalted barley, wheat, oats, corn or rye) by mashing the grain in hot water. This requires an insulated vessel known as a mash tun.

In one procedure popular with homebrewers called the "Infusion Mash", milled grains are combined in the tun and hot water is added. Before being combined with the grains, the water is heated to a temperature that is hotter than the desired temperature for enzymatic activity. The reason the liquor is heated is to compensate for the fact that the grains are cooler than the desired temperature.

The mash is then removed to a lauter tun and the grains washed with yet hotter water to obtain all the sugars from the tun in a process known as sparging. The sparging process will also stop any further enzymatic activity if much hotter water is used; conversely the mash may be heated to around 80 °C (176 °F) to end such activity prior to placing it in the lauter-tun, and to prevent cooler grain from lowering the sparge water temperature to a lower than desirable figure.

The resulting wort is then boiled for around sixty minutes, with longer boil times generally required for higher gravity worts. Hops are added at different times during the boil, depending on the desired result. Hops added at the beginning of the boil contribute bitterness, hops are generally added in the last thirty minutes contribue flavor. Hops added in the last few minutes or even after the end of the boil contribute hop aroma. These hop additions are generally referred to as bittering, flavor, and aroma, respectively. Irish Moss, a form of seaweed, is typically added in the final 15-30 minutes of the boil to help prevent haze in the resulting beer; this kind of addition is known as a copper fining. After primary fermentation, the beer may be moved to a secondary fermentation vessel and more fining agents may be added, such as gelatin, which will help to further clarify the beer. Additionally, the beer may be "dry hopped" by adding hops directly to the secondary fermentator at this time which will give the beer a stronger hop aroma.

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