Distilling courses

[Buttsieus]

Hi all,

Am interested in doing a distilling course to fast track my learning and was looking for recommendations. Has anyone done one and found it worth while/ worth the cost? There are few I’ve found on the net but not sure if they are any good

Cheers

Buttsieus

[Nathan02]

Redlands distillery..tasmanian whisky academy..

[The Stig]

Trial and error and asking questions here will teach you just as much if not more than some distillery trying to extract a bunch of coin out of you.
Unless your wanting to go commercial

[Buttsieus]

Thanks guys,

I have learnt much through error and will continue to learn mostly through error methinks. Have always believed you learn more when things go wrong then when they go right. I am typically an impatient person and hate not understanding things quickly and so hoped a course would help. I do expect that the expense would not justify the outcome but thought I would ask if anyone had done a course and found it worthwhile. I am amazed at the answers that come from this community but it does take a long time to sift through everything.

Stig, when you say unless your going commercial, do you mean that it would satisfy the ATO requirement for experience?

Cheers

Buttsieus

[RuddyCrazy]

Hi Buttsieus,

Next time you do a run have a sniff close to the output of the still (not too deeply at the start) and you will soon learn when your in hearts as that initial smell of the alderhides will be gone leaving what I would describe as a neutral sniff. When the tails start the sniff will soon become apparent and low in the tails it smell something like wet cardboard.

Leaving the cuts for 24-48 hours will some paper towel covering the cut jars the nasties will evaporate out so when it's time to another sniff test the heads will give a rank sniff where the hearts will give very little. The same goes with the tails as the ABV goes down the tails kick in and it is very noticeable.

On doing research when I first started I used this method and haven't looked back since.

Cheers Bryan

[The Stig]

Stig, when you say unless your going commercial, do you mean that it would satisfy the ATO requirement for experience?

Cheers

Buttsieus

I guess so since there wouldn’t be any other legal reason for a distillery to be running courses on distilling

[Buttsieus]

Good point

[TheMechwarrior]

Start here mate:

https://whiskyacademy.com.au/

There are others that may be closer to your location but I'm not sure where you are.

Cheers,

Mech.

[PeterC]

Hi,
Not sure how much you can learn from small working distilleries. I think there is alot to be learnt from this forum and there are big differences in the way things are done. In fact I think in many ways the people here do it better because they do not have the commercial pressures of low yields when they do cuts.

I visited Tassie recently and went to Sullivans Cove, Redlands, Nants, Helliers Rd, McHenrys, Grandvewe and a couple more. Some of them do not do any fermenting and just buy IBC's of fermented barley from brewers. Most have electrically heated copper pot stills ranging from 300 to 2500 litres and do a stripping run to 25% and then a spirit run. I asked some of the distillers how they managed cuts and several places it was just by the numbers. They collected fores and heads till they hit a certain temperature, then they collected hearts till the %abv dropped to a certain point, then went to tails. Feints went into the next run. I asked about how they learnt their trade and some are doing on-line courses (Scotland) and most have been on the job trained. I think they have been taught to run these stills the same way every run as they need to turn out the volume. They can buy ex JD bourbon barrels at $100 each if they buy by the sea container full. They age 5 - 8 years this way plus get smaller barrels so they have some whisky product coming earlier. (plus sell vodka and gin)

Grandvewe ferments sheep whey and they have a 3 plate bubbler for vodka. McHenrys who focus on gin buys neutral spirit and puts it through a plate still with a carter head. Helliers Rd is the one exception I saw to most small distilleries. They are owned by Betta Dairies and do 6 tonne barley ferments and have large stainless steel boilers with simple copper lyne arms making 2500L a week of cask strength whisky through that process. (Very nice restaurant there as well)

It was a fantastic holiday and great to see and talk to the distillers but I am not sure how much you could learn to apply to our hobby. I did the tasting with the tours but I could not bring myself to pay from $265 - $450 a bottle for the whisky that they need to earn to keep the business going. (Sullivans has been broke 3 times) I have pictures from my visit but I am not sure if it is OK to post here.

Regards,
PeterC.

[YarraRanges]

The Federation Uni does short courses in distilling. On the last day the excise officer for the east coast gave us a talk on excise and qualifying. He accepted the course as valid experience. It was held at the New World distillery at the Essendon airport and cost $1500.