Homebrewing Glossary - Dictionary of Commonly-Used Terms [closed]

Question

What are the common phrases, words, abbreviations that are used by home brewers on this site or in conversation?

In the interest of keeping content on this site, rather than linking elsewhere, this is a list of common home brewing terms that may not be English or common usage in English. Inspired by and largely derived from this SO meta post, though I've left off most of the "crowd control" stuff - we can add it back if it's necessary.

Please:

• Edit the existing answer
• Insert relevant links to more detailed information on the term/phrase/abbreviation
• Add only factual information
• Keep it very, very brief, terse, and to the point
• Delete your own comments once they become irrelevant (integrated into the glossary)
• Use the Edit Summary box to note reasons for your edit, not comments

Please avoid:

• Opinion
• Using abbreviations, terms, and phrases inside a description
• Unverified information
• Uncommon terms, abbreviations, phrases
• Long descriptions
• Unnecessary detail
• Citations or examples of usage
• Inside jokes that are not related to home brewing
• Common Internet jargon (i.e., IMHO, TL;DR, RTFM, etc.) unless usage here differs significantly

Answer 1

Beer

The finished product of home brewing using primarily malted barley, water, hops and yeast. The product does not need to be carbonated to be considered beer, in that case it is "flat beer".

DME

Dry Malt Extract

Fermentation

The process of converting sugars (carbohydrates) to alcohol.

Gravity

See: Specific Gravity

Hops

The female flowers of the plant, Humulus Lupulus. Used for bittering & aroma in most beers.

LDME

Light Dry Malt Extract. A powdered, dry extract of a lightly malted barley, such as Pilsener Malt.

LME

Liquid Malt Extract. A liquid, gooey concentrate of malted barley.

RDWHAHB

Relax; Don't Worry; Have a home brew! An abbreviation usually used to let a poster know that there is nothing to worry about.

Specific Gravity

The ratio of the density of a fluid in relation to another. In brewing terms it is usually used to refer to the dissolved sugar content before & after fermentation (original/starting gravity and final gravity, respectively).

Wort

Name given to beer before fermentation has begun.

Wyeast

A commercial supplier of yeast products. Wyeast web site.

Yeast

A single-celled fungus that ferments wort into beer.