The Brewing Process & Where Energy Goes2 / 13
Steam & Hot Water Demand in the Brewhouse
Mashing, sparging and the wort boil are the single biggest thermal load in the building — quantifying it and why the boil dominates.
10 min read · Jacob Willis, Net Zero Lead · Last reviewed July 2026
The wort boil is the reason a brewery's gas bill looks the way it does. This lesson puts a number on the brewhouse's thermal demand, batch by batch, using nothing more than the sensible and latent heat calculations from the Mass & Energy Balances course and the steam properties lesson.
In this lesson
- 01Three heating steps, one batch
- 02From process heat to gas meter reading
- 03Where the energy actually goes
- 04Sources and further reading