Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi folks.
With this in mind, is there a possibility of mentorining visits?

To explain, I am a 57yo semi retired bloke who is upgrading from a T500 to a plate/bubbler.

If it were possible to visit a member while they were processing a batch on a bubbler I reckon I would gain far more knowledge in a few hours than a year of internet searching.

I don’t want to become BFFs or poke into anyones business but I wonder if it could work.

I know the BBQ set has Masterclasses by pitmasters and that might be a bit hard for distilling but local mentoring might work.

Just a thought.
AA

Any member of the forum could potentially help you out on that one.

You have your rough location in your profile which is good. Now you have posted this you might get a PM from someone local :handgestures-thumbupleft:

But, don’t forget a lot of members don’t want the world to know what they do and are not happy opening the doors to their homes to a complete stranger.
All I’m saying is don’t be disappointed if you don’t get any offers

:text-+1: with what Sam and Stiggy said. Remember that this hobby is technically on the “wrong” side of the law...
But if you were in rocky id be happy to meet up and give you help.
I’d suggest to anyone that meeting up at the pub or something first would be a good idea.
Hopefully someone can help

Doubleuj wrote:Remember that this hobby is technically on the “wrong” side of the law...

Wrong ... not paying excise is the wrong side of the law.

Distilling alcohol without a license is also illegal..

License is free from the ATO under a law passed in 1901 and I have been unable to find any amendments or reviews. This just might be the worlds longest "hang over". :text-lol:

Arismac wrote:

Doubleuj wrote:Remember that this hobby is technically on the “wrong” side of the law...

Wrong ... not paying excise is the wrong side of the law.

Sorry Arismac but distilling alcohol without an excise manufacturing license does put you on the wrong side of the law. Not paying excise would put you further across the line as would simply owning a still with a boiler greater than 5 litres in volume without permission to do so. There's probably a number of council laws and state liquor licensing laws being broken too.

Totally understood on all fronts folks.

I am reluctant to allow strangers access to my playrooms and understand others aversions.

I’m not sure if I’m allowed back in Rocky.
I lived there for a couple of years around 1990.
I was initially pleased to find my local was going to be the “Berserker Tavern” until I discovered its utter mediocrity.

My missus still won’t go back even though we breed beef cattle and she would love beef week. :)

Professor Green wrote:

Arismac wrote:

Doubleuj wrote:Remember that this hobby is technically on the “wrong” side of the law...

Wrong ... not paying excise is the wrong side of the law.

Sorry Arismac but distilling alcohol without an excise manufacturing license does put you on the wrong side of the law. Not paying excise would put you further across the line as would simply owning a still with a boiler greater than 5 litres in volume without permission to do so. There's probably a number of council laws and state liquor licensing laws being broken too.

Fortunately the state and council could not care less, probably because they do not benefit in the first place. No politician is going to pay to enforce a law that is not costing or benefiting them in any way. It may also be worthy of note that according to my research the "5 litres" is alcohol not wash. So as the T500 only produces 3.8 litres on a fair to average run, it is legal without "license".

I truly would enjoy a battle of words, wits and the law in a magistrates court over this. It would cost me "pennies" but it would cost the state "thousands". Which is probably why I will not live long enough to tick this one off my "bucket list". But ... think of the publicity ...

The law clearly states you can only own a still of 5L CAPACITY. And you can not make ANY alcohol with it unless you have a license to manufacture from the ATO.

You can not sell ANY of that alcohol unless you have a liquor license.

Case closed.

:text-+1: Yep..thats my understanding of the law. Wash capacity as opposed to finished product. I had a good read of the laws recently as I was toying with the idea of getting a permit to produce but not sell. For what its worth to me its just too much rooting around with paperwork etc.

Fatguts wrote::text-+1: Yep..thats my understanding of the law. Wash capacity as opposed to finished product. I had a good read of the laws recently as I was toying with the idea of getting a permit to produce but not sell. For what its worth to me its just too much rooting around with paperwork etc.

State laws may prohibit that, I think (could be wrong it's been a while since I looked into it) QLD law only allows for 10% of product to be gifted or sold at cost for friends and family etc. Which means in QLD if you're going to go legit you must sell your product.

db1979 wrote:

Fatguts wrote::text-+1: Yep..thats my understanding of the law. Wash capacity as opposed to finished product. I had a good read of the laws recently as I was toying with the idea of getting a permit to produce but not sell. For what its worth to me its just too much rooting around with paperwork etc.

State laws may prohibit that, I think (could be wrong it's been a while since I looked into it) QLD law only allows for 10% of product to be gifted or sold at cost for friends and family etc. Which means in QLD if you're going to go legit you must sell your product.

if you can find any Australian legislation state or federal that allows for home distillation of alcohol without an excise license please post a link to it.

if you look at the ATO website it is very clear that under no circumstance can anyone distil alcohol without a licence from the ATO. They do allow people a small still up to 5LTS capacity for the purpose of distilling water or essential oils but no still is legal for distilling alcohol.

im no lawyer so im not sure if state governments have the power to over-ride the Australian tax office but i highly doubt it.

make no mistake if you are distilling alcohol without a license you are breaking the law.

Happily the police tend to turn a blind eye to distilling unless you poison yourself or someone else, cause a fire or are dumb enough to sell it.

I never meant that qld law overrides federal law. Fed law doesn't cover everyone aspect of the industry, each level of government covers different aspects. The point I was trying to make was that if you only read the ato website you won't get the full picture for your locality (different states and even different local councils will have an impact).

no worries,
i agree that different levels of government will control different aspects of how a distillery is built and run.
i was just trying to point out that distilling alcohol without a license from the ATO is not legal.
i cant see how state or local laws could permit you to distil alcohol without that license, local government will decide where and how you can build you distillery state government will have laws around how you sell it, but without the ATO license you cant produce it at all so no point bothering the other governments.

i did look into how the licensing works out of curiosity, i never got as far local or state gov requirements, once i saw the stupid amount of excise the grubs at the ATO want i lost a bit of interest.

just my 2C
cheers

Arismac wrote:License is free from the ATO under a law passed in 1901 and I have been unable to find any amendments or reviews. This just might be the worlds longest "hang over". :text-lol:

Just stumbled on this thread and thought this was worth a little elaboration.

A common misconception (mainly because of the way the ATO website is written I'd guess) is that you need a license from the ATO. You need 2 licenses, both free up to a point.

The first is the license to own a still. This does not give you permission to make anything it just allows you to own a still over the 5L size mentioned earlier. This is also required if you intend to build a still.

The second license is to produce excisable goods. To obtain this license is you need to demonstrate that you understand the process, the risks and that you are of good standing (from memory).

If you're going to make brown spirits depending on your level of production capability and the amount of storage you have you may be asked to provide a bond to the ATO for taxes you may incur. You cannot put any amount of alcohol into a still, for any reason, without ATO approval. I've always tried explaining this as the ATO are a silent partner. They give you equity in the form of a license to make something and they expect to get a return for their investment and like all smart operators they watch the books.

The ATO is 1 hurdle and is nothing on dealing with making your space safe for a hazardous area inspection and sign off from WorkSafe or the hurdles to jump for council approvals.

I only chimed in here because I've been reading this forum for a while before I started work in distilleries and I imagine there are other people on here lurking who may intend to start their own distillery one day.

aaaaaaaaaand with that, lets get back to:

Amberale wrote:Hi folks.
With this in mind, is there a possibility of mentorining visits?

To explain, I am a 57yo semi retired bloke who is upgrading from a T500 to a plate/bubbler.

If it were possible to visit a member while they were processing a batch on a bubbler I reckon I would gain far more knowledge in a few hours than a year of internet searching.

I don’t want to become BFFs or poke into anyones business but I wonder if it could work.

I know the BBQ set has Masterclasses by pitmasters and that might be a bit hard for distilling but local mentoring might work.

Just a thought.
AA

Feel free to contact people via PM ;-)