SteveHoward

Recipes 

Very close. Let me give you more information than you want to know, but it will help you when you ask for it ... sometimes accents keep us from being understood (boy do I know THAT one well).

Nuruk is one transliteration of it. You may also see it written as nuluk, noorook, or noolook. The "k" sound at the end is definitely there and pronounced, though. The reason for the different spellings is:

In Hangul (the Korean alphabet) this is written as: 누룩. There are no silent letters there. The 'ㄹ' is what is transliterated as "r" or "l". But in Korean, there is no equivalent sound to the English r or l sounds. The actual sound of that letter is somewhere between an English r and l, and it varies slightly depending on what part of Korea the person comes from. The closest equivalent sound I can think of is the Spanish 'r.' The 'ㅜ' is the vowel in both syllables and is a long 'U.' However; when it is transliterated as "nuruk," English speakers tend to apply English pronunciation rules to it and make the 'u' short ... that will probably not be understood by native Korean speakers if you pronounce it like that. To avoid that problem, sometimes, people break the old rules of transliteration and use 'oo' in place of 'u' when transliterating 'ㅜ', and then use u when transliterating a couple of other vowels that sound closer to a short 'u.'

So the pronunciation will be like "noo rook" where you touch your tongue to the top of your mouth when you pronounce the 'r' in that.

Like I said, more than you wanted to know. If you're concerned about not being understood, then print out the "누룩" when you ask for it in a Korean market. That will eliminate any confusion .

MeadHorn

Recipes 

So in the wine recipe section, this same recipe is still listed. However, the poster of the recipe added in bold type not to make this stuff because it came out really sour and to delete the recipe. Anyone care to shed light on this?

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SteveHoward

Recipes 

After further review, I'll just save my thoughts until our batch is ready, then will post the recipe and results ...

Jacob_Marley

Recipes 

I was wondering how the rice can be fermented without koji or for that matter even amylase to convert the starch to fermentable sugar ... so I searched online and found that the process is more like making a mash in brewing.

I've got a 25 pound bag of milled rice and a pack of koji mold seeds that have been waiting on me for a few months, but sake is such a pain in the butt to make I've been procrastinating.

SteveHoward

Recipes 

Nuruk is the Korean word for Amylase. I actually didn't know that until buying that at the Korean market this last time. The Nuruk (amylase enzyme) breaks the starch down into simple sugars that are then fermented.

KevinM

Recipes 

The sourness is due to lactic acid, which occurs later in fermentation. There was probably too much in it for him. There's a post elsewhere that mentions using regular amylase and regular yeast, as opposed to Nuruk, and while not traditional, it limits the other ongoing fermentations. Nuruk is said to be more like a sourdough starter over in the NB sake forums.

Sake will do the same thing, it will become sour if left fermenting, which is why both are recommended to be pasturized at some point in time.

In essence... the difference between sake and Makgeolli is the enzymes used to break down the rice. One uses the Nuruk enzyme/yeast combination, the other uses koji as the enzyme addition.

I'm mostly doing sake because a) I like sake, and b) I want to see about adapting the process for other uses (soy sauce, miso, etc)

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CoffeeSnob

Recipes 

Crazy... I just got back from Korea (one night in Incheon and a week on the island of Jeju). I had no idea what I was drinking when they served me the white "rice wine". It was nothing like sake.

We found this at the local restaurants and was even served it at a high end dinner one night. I much prefer the Japanese Sake over this stuff. I do have to say we put away quite a bit of soju however!

drummstikk

Recipes 

You're right that the way Koreans pronounce 누룩 is closer to English "noo-roo" than English "noo-rook". SteveHoward is correct that the "k" is there and that it's pronounced, but it's not pronounced like English "k" at the end of a word either.

Instead, the final "ㄱ" makes a sound phonologists call an unreleased stop, so the sound of the final "oo" ends with the toungue making the shape of a "k" sound without actually letting air out. It's similar to how some American English speakers say the "c" in "act".

Without getting too far off topic, I just wanted to stick up for your listening, which is right on.