Heriot-Watt Brewing and Distilling course

[DocAnna]

Oh and I chickened out on the calculus and assumed linear sensible heating of the wash from the start of the boil till the end (97.6 deg to 100 deg) with linear mass loss through the boil. I know it’s not linear but the idea of calculating area under the curve for this just made me want to cry.

 

[DocAnna]

Ughhh... spent two weekends near solid working on the end of unit assessment, and I'm fairly sure I've got lots wrong but I have gone over it so so many times. I have learnt an awful lot about malting temperature schedules, air flow rates and heater duties, my brain hurts. I didn't even try to consider heat losses on the malting question. I've still to sort the references on the first question, but right now I'm giving up for the day, the word count is stuffed, over 5.5K. Now I've finished and it's too late to consider it cheating, I'm posting the questions here to give an idea of what I was tackling:

 

[RichardM]

Are you doing the MSc for "fun" or are you considering a career change?

 

[DocAnna]

Are you doing the MSc for "fun" or are you considering a career change?

it was supposed to be ‘fun’ … but given the utter mess the NHS pension arrangements are (short version - I will soon hit the stage of having to pay more out for clinical work than earn) I am seriously thinking about what I could do outside of the NHS in the future.

 

[Sadfield]

Is the answer 42?

 

[RichardM]

it was supposed to be ‘fun’ … but given the utter mess the NHS pension arrangements are (short version - I will soon hit the stage of having to pay more out for clinical work than earn) I am seriously thinking about what I could do outside of the NHS in the future.

It must have been a year or so ago I was hearing about doctors effectively paying to go to work due to the pension rules (which were hard to understand then, so I have no chance of recalling the detail now). I'd have hoped they would have sorted it out by now.
You have my sympathy

 

[DocAnna]

Submitted in the early hours a day ahead of the deadline. I got to the stage of just wanting it in and done, only 19 references which for an essay that long is not good, but I suppose it was a lot of engineering maths. I am sure I have got some of the questions parts wrong, the pot still in the first question was far too large, a third larger than the largest still in Scotland. It's making me think I'm missing something as a batch process it seemed far too large.

It has though really made me appreciate the malt we buy, and the energy costs in producing it. The price rises in malt make so much more sense now when you realise what an energy intense process it is. I was reading @Branny 's post about Crankshaft brewing closing its doors, and really wondering how businesses can survive with the energy cost increases. It's particularly irksome in Scotland where we produce enough renewable energy overall to balance our consumption, but the problem is that the cost for all electricity is set by the most expensive form of production, ie gas fired power stations at the moment.

 

[SMP Brewery]

Submitted in the early hours a day ahead of the deadline.

My wife uploaded her dissertation for her MSc (2nd one) at 17:57 on Friday had to be in by 18:00 she does it everytime

 

[DocAnna]

So we've been set a task to produce a press pack on the chemistry of flavour/aroma of a distilled product for a fictitious distillery of our own choosing. Now sadly I don't need much encouragement to play with graphics. So I've come up with my own labels, printed one out attached to a bottle and composited it... and I haven't written the essay yet

 

[rybinss]

Hi Anna. A bit of light relief from what sounds a laudable but heavy going course.
True story - in my youth I used to work weekends with my Uncle who was a forester, my job was too gather all the pine tree tops put them in a pile and burn them, not great for the planet and this was early 1970s and global warming hadnt been invented then.
One damp misty day on hills above bannockburn visitor centre (whins o milton?) i duly stacked and set fire to a load of treetops as normal. Atmospheric conditions were not in my favour, instead of smoke rising and billowing away it clung to the hillside and completely enveloped the battlefield in thick acrid smoke! Maybe it added to the authenticity of battle but I dont think I was very popular. So...if you want to create a smokey peaty version of your new whisky, these are the best steps to take!
Good luck with the course, returning to education is hard when working. It took me 20 years to complete my OU degree, they handed me a certificate and a gold watch cheers Ian

 

[DocAnna]

Oh my giddy aunt, that's the essay finally done and submitted, I gave up a bit on the word limit, depending on counting I'm about 100 over. Next time Anna, write the friggin text first. I had thought the chance to do a bit of page layout and formatting would be fun but it added so much time. I used word for the text and referencing, then Pages for compositing and layout. Sheesh took tooooo long.

Now just need to pack for leaving to London early on Tuesday morning, some dafty forgot to cancel her hospital shift the night before so there'll be no chance to do so tomorrow. At least I've discovered the national homebrew entries are open till the 13th of Feb, which leaves me time to package them up after I get back.

 

[DocAnna]

Yesterday I had an absolutely fascinating afternoon in the lab at Herriot Watt in the distilling lab, with a class of 8 of us doing a pot distillation and smelling each 15 mil of distillate to identify cut points for distilling whisky low wine into new spirit. Absolutely incredibly useful and made sense of some of the learning, even if I did come 2nd last in the concentration. I distilled too hot but only realised too late and understood that due to the temperature being higher, the reflux was reduced.
A couple of pictures from the day. To note that I checked with @Chippy_Tea before posting these as this references distilling. I'm certainly in no position to answer questions on distilling- bearing in mind I'm feeling a bit panicky about how far behind I am on the current module, and please note that my distillate wasn't that great tasting either!

 

[Rodcx500z]

Hang in there Anna, all will come right

 

[An Ankoù]

Hang in there Anna, all will come right

And even if it doesn't, with all that ancient alchemy kit, you'll, no doubt, discover the Philosopher's Stone.

Anna the Alchemist has much more "cachet" than mere DocAnna.

 

[Buffers brewery]

please note that my distillate wasn't that great tasting either!

A few months in an old sherry barrel should fix that

 

[An Ankoù]

A few months in an old sherry barrel should fix that

You ever tried spending a few months in a old sherry butt?

 

[Brewnaldo]

Was the spirit made from malt Anna? Did you get to taste the tails? Really quite a unique experience to taste something that is genuinely like wet dog

 

[Sadfield]

I'd welcome reduced reflux from Whiskey.

 

[DocAnna]

And even if it doesn't, with all that ancient alchemy kit, you'll, no doubt, discover the Philosopher's Stone.

Anna the Alchemist has much more "cachet" than mere DocAnna.

Oooo I quite like the sound of that

It was interesting about the different stills, one of the biggest factors though in influencing my still was that I had a larger diameter output silicone tube which meant the output flow looked far slower than others, so I was turning the heat up as the tutor said to do so if the flow was too slow.

 

[DocAnna]

Was the spirit made from malt Anna? Did you get to taste the tails? Really quite a unique experience to taste something that is genuinely like wet dog

The low wine was provided for us presumably was barley.

No we didn't taste the tails, we did though have a smell of the pot ale left... essence of wet kit bag