Been away from work, enjoying Easter with kids but wow! What a difference couple of weeks make! Seems like autumn was super short and straight into winter in Kinglake!
But colder weather is better for making whisky. We start by making our own wash (beer) before making whisky and the fermentation process generates heat. If the ambient temperature is hot too the yeast stresses and dies. I'll start producing again next week, so I've just been getting all equipment serviced and ready, filling up grain bins, working out which barrels to fill.
The start of the year was slow for us with sales so we pushed all production back, which was fun at the time. Opportunity to help more with kids and do more desk based work. But now task felt daunting when I look at how many barrels I have to fill with less breaks. Always mixed feelings when starting a big production run, trepidation because it's pretty physical at Kinglake Distillery without much automation. But once I get going I enjoy the rhythm and routine.
I'm an early bird so like to be firing up the boiler around 6 am each day, then hopefully I'm finished by 4pm