NZ Peated Malt production. A tour in pictures.

Our peated malt comes from the Gladfield maltings in Dunsandel, Canterbury in the South of New Zealand. Doug and Gabbie, are a husband and wife team that   malt the grain themselves founded the company over 18 years ago from scratch. 

We think the quality of the Gladfield malt combined with NZ peat gives us the edge making our peated single malt whisky. 

This is a mini tour of the facility geared towards the peated malt we use, although we recommend you visit the place to see the incredible variety of malts that they make. 

 

This is Doug standing by his peat smoker.  It's safe to say he's pioneered commercial peating of NZ barley and spent the last decade perfecting the craft. There are multiple steeping vessels and kilns on the site, this one is dedicated to smoke and the peat is burnt in this fire box before being transferred to the kiln. 

Here you can see the peat fire box and the huge extraction vent that directs the peat smoke to the kiln. 

The peat is deep dug bog peat from Invercargill [ see my post on NZ peat ], delivered by truck and stored outside ready for use. 

 Once alight the peat burns freely and is self sustaining in terms of fuel. The smoke is used in the kilning phase of the barley once it has been steeped and has germinated. 

Here Mark and Doug are discussing all things peat.......

Here Mark is outside Kiln 1, where the steeped and germinated barley is ready for kilning, this is where the magic happens.......

 

Everything smells of peat in the kiln and it's delicious!, a Mecca for any peat lover.

Mark peering into kiln 1 and having a deep, long smell. The actual specifics  of steeping, germinating, kilning and roasting is unique to each maltings and  Doug who has spent over a decade on this process specific to NZ peat, wasn't giving too much away.... 

The barley ready for processing in the kiln. Once roasted, its transported to silos and then to the warehouse for dressing, bagging and shipping to us in 1 tonne bags.