Lautering/Boiling

Once the carbohydrates were converted to sugar, I seperated the wort from the spent grain. As you can see from this picture, my mash tun has a false bottom (no, not my false bottom from the early 90's when I was trying to be one of those rap guys girlfriends, and my devious plan fell through when he noticed that butt was stuffed) with holes where the wort can go through to drain out the bottom, while the spent grain is left on the top.

So now as you can see from the bottom of the picture above, I collect the wort so that I can boil it. Here is a picture of the spent grain, which can be used for composting, feeding certain livestock, and even to mix in with dough and make bread or pretzels. Sometimes it tastes pretty good to chew on when its still warm and its cold out. Kindof.

And here is a picture of the wort back in the same mashtun, which I have now cleaned out and removed the false bottom. The object you see floating in there is 2 ounces of willamette whole leaf hops, tied up in a muslin bag so they dont clog up the drainage spigot, and so it doesn't leave a mess.

I will now bring the wort up to a boil, and keep it at a rolling boil for 60 minutes with the hops in. With a few minutes left, I will add half an ounce more for aroma.