I have never been a fan of the term “flame-out.” I have preferred to use the term “knock-out.” Let’s say that I have gotten into several lively debates about the term knock-out as it applies to brewing. Many brewers seem to think that knock-out is a synonym for “cast-out,” as in knocking out the plug. I have always believed that it meant turning off one’s heat source. I picked the term up in 1994 while visiting the old Wild Goose Brewery in Cambridge, Maryland. Wanting to be a hip brewer, I immediately added it to my brewing lexicon. I thought that knock-out was a cool way to say “extinguish the flame,” but I never knew its origin. Well, it looks like the guys at Wild Goose knew their brewing terms. At the end of one of the Brew Dog episodes, Martin Dickie tells the head brewer at Brew Dog to knock a lamp out on the way out. Hence, the usage is of British or at least Scottish origin, and it means to extinguish; therefore, knock-out is in fact the traditional British brewing term for flame-out.
Well if it was on brew dog it must be true
Well, you can look at it that way, or you can accept it as a colloquialism that crept into brewing.
Here’s an example of even John Palmer using the term:
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter5-1.html
"Finishing
When hops are added during the final minutes of the boil, less of the aromatic oils are lost to evaporation and more hop aroma is retained. One or more varieties of hop may be used, in amounts varying from 1/4 - 4 oz, depending on the character desired. A total of 1-2 oz. is typical. Finishing hop additions are typically 15 minutes or less before the end of the boil, or are added “at knockout” (when the heat is turned off) and allowed to steep ten minutes before the wort is cooled. In some setups, a “hopback” is used - the hot wort is run through a small chamber full of fresh hops before the wort enters a heat exchanger or chiller."
If you dig enough, you will find that knock-out preceded flame-out by a substantial amount of time. In fact, flame-out appears to be a home brewer-only term.
I love the history of brewing and, by extension, preserving the historical accuracy of brewing terms that we all use. But colloqialisms do change over time, in every facet of life. It just happens. Every brewer turns off the flame, Mark.
FWIW, the use of “flameout” to mean “the time at which we stop heating the kettle” and “knockout” to mean “the process of transferring wort to the fermenter” seem to be ubiquitous within the industry. Here in Colorado. Among the breweries I’ve worked at.
The process of transferring wort to a fermentation vessel is called “casting out” here on the East Coast. I believe that it is called “casting out” in the UK as well. It appears that more home brewer created terms enter the brewing lexicon as we move westward in the U.S.
http://www.brewconsult.com/lscbrew.html
“Casting out: The clear wort is pumped from the whirlpool through a heat exchanger to quickly chill it to fermentation temperature. Pure yeast and pure oxygen are introduced as the wort is recovered into the fermentation vessel (50 min.). As soon as the wort is chilled, all equipment coming in contact with the product must be aseptically cleanable. Hot water at or above sparge water temperature (180°F) at a 1 : 1.11 wort to water ratio should be recovered from the chilling of wort.”
On a forum like this, it is a great idea to have a commonly understood language, so we can communicate without any misunderstanding, to use a colloquialism or cliche, be “on the same page.” So, I think it’s a good thing to standardize the terms that we use. It seems to me that Mark is bringing up some good points on words that we use all the time, which may inadvertently cause some misunderstanding among us. Maybe we can agree on how we’ll use these words here on the forum?
Well, I hate when people use the word “lexicon”. I prefer just simply “vocabulary”.
And really, what does it matter? I don’t even ever use that term. I just say I added hops at 0 minutes or flame out I guess. Frivolous debate.
I’m good with either one. If in being honest though, flame out is easier to understand and makes more sense.
I guess I generally say flame out or end of boil. I agree it does seem…Frivolous to debate it.
All of the breweries on my block call it done boiling and that’s good enough where’s the fermenter
Gas off. Power down. Flame out. Knock out. Done boiling. Flux capacitor - not fluxing. It’s all good. If there were another thing that flame out could be confused with then this would be a better debate. For me, flame out means all of the above, and I’m an electric brewer that doesn’t use a flame.
In a world of chain restaurants and Walmart I enjoy the attempt to insert a brewing colloquialism into our vocabulary. I will continue to use flame out here because its unambiguous but I like to learn. As far as this being a frivolous debate, this is a home brewing forum and we are discouraged from talking about politics, race, and religion. Every debate we have is frivolous.
Touché.
From now on I will use the term “knock the flame out” so there is no confusion. 8)
^^^^^^ ;D
[quote author=http://www.anheuser-busch.com/uploads/Chapter-7-Glossary.pdf]Knock-Out To empty the brew kettle.
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Clearly we could just keep going back and forth with counter-examples.
[quote author=http://www.anheuser-busch.com/uploads/Chapter-7-Glossary.pdf]Knock-Out To empty the brew kettle.
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They also have the “Cast or Knockout Wort Boiled Wort” entry. I guarantee that you will find more references to “cast-out” than “knockout” in professional publications. In fact, that is the first time that I have ever seen the term “knockout” used as a synonym for “cast-out” in a pro-level publication.
Just our of sheer curiosity, what is the objective of this discussion? I’m lost
Kyrie Irving was knocked out and therefore the Cavs may flame out.