If you are interested in starting your own distillery but you are being held back by a lack of information, you have come to the right place. Obviously, you will need the right Australian distilling equipment and the requisite licenses. But what equipment do you need and how much do they cost? Well, as a guide, here is a guide to the distillery equipment you need as well as other requirements.
A still
Stills can be quite inexpensive if you want to start a small distillery. You need around $3000-$5000 for a 100-200L copper pot still. The same goes for a 200L stainless steel gin still sold by 5-star distilling. If you are trying to set up a small gin or liqueur distillery, this could be all you need to get started.
But if you want to do whiskey or rums, you will need to have a still made entirely of copper for the purposes of managing sulfites. It also needs to be more aesthetic and heavy-duty. If you can afford it, you can go for the Australian version of the Still dragon that costs $25k. Beyond this, the other brands will cost you $50-$70k. These are much larger with a capacity of 500L. Then there are the big sexy German-made stills that cost up to $1m.
Fermenters
If you are in a cold climate like Tasmania, a stainless steel tank will do pretty much fine. Yeast needs a temperature of around 30 degrees to create flavours. Also, yeast tends to generate a few of its own heat during the process of fermentation. This means your fermenters need to be kept just below 25 degrees.
A 1000L fermenter will cost you around $10k, after which you will need to pump a coolant (glycol) through the jacket. Therefore, you need between $5 and $10k for a glycol chiller.
Bottles
At the start, you will require French bottles from Saverglass/Cospak. Nearly everyone uses this company. Chinese bottles cost $2-$3 per each, but the problem is that the quality is horrendous. Saverglass charges $4 per bottle with a cork and the minimum order is 1000 bottles. From experience, I would say you need around 5000 bottles for a start.
Conclusion
There you have it; what you expect to pay Australian distilling equipment. By and large, there are many things that you are going to require to have your distillery up and running. These include licensure, operation place and other expenses like employees and whatnot. However, equipment is going to eat into a huge chunk of your capital.
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