What is wort?

Wort is the liquid drawn off the mash- tun in which the malted and unmalted cereals have been mashed with warm water Wort contains all the sugars of the malt and certain secondary constituents. After cooling, it is passed to the fermenting vats.

In Malt distilleries the cereals are all malted; in Grain distilleries a proportion only is malted, the remainder being unmalted. In some cases, Grain distilleries do not separate off wort, passing the complete mash to the fermentation vessels.

© SWA 1995