Short Course In Malting & Brewing

[prideofthesouth]

Does anyone know anything about the "Short Course in Malting & Brewing" at University of Ballarat...
If you know anything about it I would really like to hear your opinion.....
Cheers....

http://guerin.ballarat.edu.au/ard/sci-eng/...rses/scmb.shtml

 

[Stoodoo]

$2200 ????? It wouldn't want to be too short for that sort of $$$$$output. What sort of qualification would this "short" course provide? and what, if any position would you be able to obtain in the industry with this qualification? I amy be intoxicated atm, but $2,200 seems an awful lot of money.

 

[prideofthesouth]

The cost of the 2006 course is $2200 (GST inclusive) and includes all meals, accommodation, lectures, notes and tours
5 days

 

[peas_and_corn]

The info on the head lecturer isn't there!

I'm not interested in doing it; not only have I got enough to do with honours but the drive is a little too much. But the fee doesn't surprise me.

 

[macr]

Talk to Wasabi. He is doing the full blown course at Ballarat. http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...hl=Food+Science

 

[Doc]

Gerard_M should also be able to provide some feedback on the course.

Beers,
Doc

 

[Ross]

A short course would be great for us "out of state" guys, I'd be keen to know what the short course offers, hard to believe you'd achieve much in 5 days though...

cheers Ross

 

[MHB]

The short corse at Ballarat was very good value for money and I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about brewing.

The lectures were presented by both faculty and industry professionals; theory was generally backed up with hands on experience. The week included tours of Jo White Maltings specialty works, and concluded in Melbourne with a tour of Mountain Goat and Carlton breweries. Making a batch of commercial beer on the universities own plant was fun.

Whether this course would lead to a job in the industry, I dont know. If you were interested in opening your own micro it would be a must do. To get this good an overview of the process would be invaluable.
In Brewing as in any business, we all tend to put the most emphasis on the parts we know best and are often blind to or unaware of the traps that lurk in other parts of the big picture. As a fraction of the cost of establishing a small brewery, the course fee is tiny and would save you a lot more than it costs.
If you were looking for employment in an established brewery, I would suspect that having shown the commitment and to have anted up a couple of $K on industry related knowledge wouldnt hurt your application.

One thing that was not in the prospectus were the Sensory Evaluation sessions it appears that they had an awful lot of left over backup bottles from the beer awards crying for appreciation; one was the Alaskan Smoked Porter (Wow). A bemused security guy said we were piling up more empties than the students, what can I say years of practice dedicated to the craft.

I am hearing a rumour that there will be another brewing intro corse offered at Potters Brewery later (mid October) this year. This course will I hear be more styled on the IBD (Institute of Brewers and Distillers) hopefully someone closer to the action will post details.

The IBD also has a home study course available see more here
http://www.ibd.org.uk/igbsite/home/index.asp.

MHB

 

[bigfridge]

I am hearing a rumour that there will be another brewing intro corse offered at Potters Brewery later (mid October) this year.

MHB has a pretty good ear to the ground !

NNL are running a "Introduction to Professional Brewing" course in the NSW Hunter Valley on 16-20th October. The target audience is people contemplating opening a micro brewery, new industry entrants, trade suppliers and advanced home brewers. Run over 5 days it covers:

- Introduction to Brewing: Choosing raw materials, Brewhouse operation and principles,Yeast and fermentation
- Ale brewing master classes: malt selection, infusion mashing, fermentation, skimming, fining, cask/ natural conditioning
- Lager brewing master class: malt selection, decoction, lautering, fermentation, storage, cold conditioning, fitration and bright beer
- Packagaing and Quality control: cask beer, keg beer and bottled beer.

The course also includes a practical brewing day on a 6HL commercial brewery where you take home a sample of wort to ferment and visit to a regional brewery and bottling line.

The instructor for the course is Dr Simon Brooke-Taylor, PhD Chemistry and IBD Master Brewer (the highest brewing qualification available). Simon was former Production Brewer with Bass Brewing in the UK and Eagle Hawk Hill Micro Brewery in Canberra and is NNL Beer Supplies Technical Director and an accredited trainer for the Institute of Brewing and Distilling.

You can PM me if you would like to reserve your place or be sent further details on the course.

David

 

[macr]

MHB has a pretty good ear to the ground !
NNL are running a "Introduction to Professional Brewing" course in the NSW Hunter Valley on 16-20th October. The target audience is people contemplating opening a micro brewery, new industry entrants, trade suppliers and advanced home brewers. Run over 5 days it covers:

- Introduction to Brewing: Choosing raw materials, Brewhouse operation and principles,Yeast and fermentation
- Ale brewing master classes: malt selection, infusion mashing, fermentation, skimming, fining, cask/ natural conditioning
- Lager brewing master class: malt selection, decoction, lautering, fermentation, storage, cold conditioning, fitration and bright beer
- Packagaing and Quality control: cask beer, keg beer and bottled beer.

Sounds expensive ! Shame I won't be able to afford it .

 

[bigfridge]

Sounds expensive ! Shame I won't be able to afford it .

How much would you like to pay ?

What price would represent good value ?

David

 

[macr]

Good value would probably be about $1000 to $1500 depending on what else is included. ie accom, meals, bears etc. How much I would like to pay? Enough to pay for the course, but with a home loan and a missus that is full time Uni student, I will not be able to afford it. Plus I will be competing in the Mont 24hr mountain bike race in Canberra a week before, so I will be skin flint . Next time maybe, if I have more money and more knowledge.

 

[Randall the Enamel Animal]

I would recommend Ballarat to anyone serious about making the transition from home brewer to professional. I did the long and short courses there and that was enough to get a foot in the door at a little brewpub and Ive gone onward from there.

The course at Potters sounds good, Simon knows his stuff.

 

[Gerard_M]

The Short Course offered by Ballarat & the course that is proposed for Potters are pretty good if you are thinking of opening a micro. The Ballarat short course attracts many people from C.U.B (so they get to see real beer I guess) along with chemical, companies & others that deal with the brewing industry. They are very good value if you are not putting your hand in your own pocket for the honor of attending. I will post another topic so look out for "How to get a job in a brewery!"
Cheers
Gerard

 

[peas_and_corn]

Put it on my HECS bill

 

[Wasabi]

Guys,

I know this thread is a little old by now, but I just wanted to address a few things about this course to get some perspective.

The Short Course at Ballarat Uni (5 days) is NOT a "how to do a full mash brew" course, we leave that for the likes of Grape and Grain, NMIT, etc.

The course is aimed at homebrewers who are seriously contemplating that big step into the commercial world. There is a lot of difference between brewing at home and brewing to feed your family, and this is one of the key areas the course addresses.

That's not to say we don't get some very "keen" home brewers.

We cover a range of issues including commercial viability, quality control, spoilage, faults to name but a few.

It is a lot of fun and we do a batch on our 6HL brewhouse which gives people a feel for what it is like to brew on a real (though small) brewery. There is a lot of sensory, both style types and fault identification. There is a lot of discussion on commercial realities of owning your own brewery, and if anything Peter spends a lot fo time telling you why you shouldn't.

Yes $2200 is a lot of money, but when your trying to decide whether to buy that $500,000 second hand brewery from Vanuatu, it suddenly seems like chicken feed.

We have had people come down here who have decided that $2200 was worth just finding out that if they were serious about proceeding, then they should hire a brewer so they can concentrate on the running of the business.

We are playing with the idea of running shorter 1 or 2 day workshops on "introduction to mashing" on our 70Lt brewhouse, but this is still being developed. There aren't a lot of full mash brewers in Western Victoria, but that is slowly changing.

I'd be happy to answer any queries about the course, and I don't mean this as an advertisement for the course, but I just wanted to clear a few things up.

 

[DarkFaerytale]

just updating the url from the first page as it didn't work

http://www.ballarat.edu.au/ard/sci-eng/cou...wing/scmb.shtml

 

[Wasabi]

I think the link was down while our IT department updated the page to the "Sorry, we're full, come back next year".

They're not the quickest IT dept around. It is back up now and the course went really well this year with 26 people enrolled from Barley Growers, Malsters, Brewers and Homebrewers.

 

[DarkFaerytale]

please keep us updated on the next one wasabi, i'd be very interested in doing it while on holidays next year

cheers

-Phill