Bluffer's Guide
Cheltenham's own brewery
Battledown Brewery LLP The Keynsham Works, Keynsham Street, Cheltenham, GL52 6EJ
Glossary of terms
Adjuncts - Anything that is added to the wort other than fermentable barley malt, in order to achieve the desired flavour.
Archers - Strange BBC wireless program that is allegedly a 'true to life story of country folk.'
Bung - Fit the bung to the cask so seal it up. This is a gentle subtle procedure using a mallet.
Brew length - The ultimate quantity of beer produced from each gyle.
Burtonise - To treat the water with additives so that its content is similar to that of Burton-on-Trent, allegedly the world's best water for brewing bitter beer.
Copper - Also called the kettle. This is the third vessel used in the process. It is the vessel in which the wort is boiled and where the hops are added.
Fermenter - The large vessel in which the wort receives its yeast and the fermenting process begins.
Firkin - 9-gallon cask
Goods - The porridge-like mix of grist and hot liquor.
Gravity - As in 'specific gravity' - O.G. (original gravity) being a measurement of the density of the unfermented wort which determines the amount of fermentable sugars in the wort and therefore the strength of the eventual brew.
Gyle - Batch - The term for each separate brew.
Grist - The mixture of crushed barley malt and any adjuncts that is added to the mash tun.
Hot liquor tun - The first brewing vessel. The one in which the untreated, cold water is heated and treated.
Kettle - See 'Copper.'
Kilderkin - 18-gallon cask.
Liquor - Water.
Mash tun - The second large brewing vessel, where the liquor and the grist first meet.
Pitched - Adding yeast, as in ..'At this point the yeast is pitched.'
Prime - Adding a small amount of fermentables, or sugars to the beer before it is racked, to help with the secondary fermentation in the cask, thus naturally carbonating the ale.
Rack - Fill the casks.
Runnings - The mixture of water and dissolved malt that comes out of the mash tun.
Sparge - To sprinkle hot liquor onto the grain bed to extract as much malt as possible from the goods.
Steeped - Oh come on, you know that one don't you!
Strike temperature - The temperature that the liquor is heated to immediately before doughing in.
Trub - The residue of hops, unwanted protein and phenolic material left in the copper after the wort has been removed.
Tun - Large brewing vessel.
Wort - Unfermented beer.