Summer Sake

Summer Sake

I learned this summer why sake is traditionally made in winter. I thought if I kept fermenter in a bucket of water with a wet cloth on it in a basement then would be fine.

Here are my summer batches. I used recipes from visionbrewing.com



1st Run
Sake Intermediate Recipe
Wyeast Sake Yeast
homemade koji
68.5F Fermented 20 Days
Pasteurized
Undrinkable Acidity

2nd Run
Sake Beginner Recipe
Wyeast Sake Yeast
homemade koji
50F Fermented 9 Days
I might have shocked the yeast with temperature
Rice did not break down very well
Pasteurized
Tasted watery

3rd Run
Sake Beginner Recipe
Wyeast Sake Yeast
homemade koji
50F Fermented 14 Days
Rice did not break down very well
I used 1 gallon container to make 1 gallon of sake
1 gallon of sake requires 6 gallon container because sake needs more air
Pasteurized
Tasted a little better, a little more alcohol and acidity but still watery

4th Run
Trappist High Gravity Yeast fresh from Cisco Brewery
homemade koji
Used 6 gallon bucket to make 1 gallon of sake
70F 8 Days ferment
Rice broke down very well
Good ferment
Banana aroma
Unpasteurized Nama style
Flavors similar to Demon Slayer sake



In Fall with colder weather I plan to make intermediate 20 day recipe. I still haven't fully figured out sake. Ales are made around 60-70F and lagers are made at 40-50F and sake is usually made at 50-60F. I read about foamless yeasts and how much of the yeast activity in sake is in foam on top of sake similar to ales.

http://www.esake.com/Knowledge/Newsletter/SW/SW2006/sw2006_6.html

http://www.atroxen.com/~jeremy/blog/

http://www.atroxen.com/gallery2/main.php/view/jeremy/Sake Brewing/?g2_page=5

5th Run
Trappist High Gravity Yeast fresh from Cisco Brewery
store-bought koji
Used 6 gallon bucket to make 1 gallon of sake
70F 5 Days ferment
Rice broke down very well
highly active ferment
Unpasteurized Nama style

This sake is sweeter because I ended the ferment earlier because I was afraid of how much more acidic it could get.

http://www.tibbs-vision.com/sake/instrct.html :
Basket or sieve to drain excess water A 10litres(2.6gal) deep brewing container with a lid. This should be made from either enamel, stainless steel, glazed ceramic material or glass. Plastic containers are not recommended as they are difficult to sanitize and can lead to a vinegar tasting brew.

The acidic flavor I have always tasted in my sake could be from my food grade plastic fermenters. I have sterilized plastic for 1 hour with bleach and I thought if the sake was infected it should taste 10x worse.

Next time I brew it will be using a metal or glass lined container. What many brewers do not know is that I cannot use a carboy because trying to jam all of that cooked rice through the tiny opening would take an unreasonable amount of time. It may be very difficult to find a suitable fermenter for sake.

Could you line your plastic fermenter with a large food grade plastic bag?

I appreciate your help but I was already using food grade plastic and recipe says to avoid any plastic. I also just read on esake.com that professional breweries use glass or ceramic coated fermenters.

Hi jeremyz,

Glad to finally find a thread on this that is recent! I'm currently attempting to brew up a batch of sake from Vision Brewings recipe too. I've been doing a heck of a lot of research into this the last few months but still not having a great deal of luck with even the basic recipe. I haven't been able to get hold of any proper sake yeast here in Australia yet, but am getting closer. So I have used champagne yeast, which I think (strangely enough) has added a strong champagne taste to the sake.

I used premade koji bought from our local Japanese supermarket along with Koshihikari short grain rice. I've had it brewing for about 14 days now. It took a few days for the yeast to kick in, and I sampled about 300ml of it at day 10 on a very empty stomach first thing in the morning. It was slightly sour and had a reasonable alcohol level, from how whacked I felt I'm guessing about 10-12%. I'm suspicious of how much effect the citric acid has on the taste too.

I think the first batch of yeast I had wasn't very good. I tried to rehydrate and then prime it but it didn't do much. Unfortunately wasn't able to get any more for a few days so just crossed my fingers and eventually it started. Fermentation was fairly subdued but did fizz lot and bubble the airlock occassionally, but never much foam on top.

So after my taste test at day 10 I threw in some more koji and steamed rice (as per Visions recommendations) and about 100gms dextrose. Also, got some more yeast rehydrated and primed it - frothed up like crazy - and chucked that it. Now it's fermenting like crazy and has already sweetened up a bit.

I'm using a plastic screw-on lid beer fermenter but was also wondering about the effect the plastic would have on a prolonged fermentation like this. Are you stirring yours everyday like Vision recommends? I would like to try a glass carboy but how to stir it! I have one idea, about perhaps using a big stainless steel stock pot.

From research it looks like an airtight seal it not necessary except just to keep any nastys from falling in. If you look at the pics of the traditional or commercial brewers half the time its just in big open vats. I'm sure the old dudes stirring away didn't take any major precautions for sanitising themselves, probably coughing or sniffing away over it.. dropping cigarette ash into the brew I think if you just used the stainless or glass lid that comes with the stock pots and wrapped some clingwrap around to seal it each time it would be fine. Any gas escaping will find a way out. If you had a stainless lid you could always drill a hole and put a grommet and airlock in.

I'd be really interested to hear how your sake is going so please post some more here & I'll do the same. While there are plenty of brew shops around here no one I've come across has a clue about it so I feel I'm kind on my own. I can read some Japanese so found a few more sites about that were interesting, but due to the laws preventing brewing over 1% alcohol in Japan no one really goes into it in much depth.

Cheers
Afromaiko

"If you look at the pics of the traditional or commercial brewers half the time its just in big open vats. I'm sure the old dudes stirring away didn't take any major precautions for sanitising themselves, probably coughing or sniffing away over it.. dropping cigarette ash into the brew."

Do you know anything about Japan? Most traditions in Japan are taken far more seriously than in Western countries.

Jame's Clavell's Shogun novel might help give you some cultural additude of Japan.


My first older brother loves gadgets. He recommended this for you. I hope that I never use a carboy. I can't imagine how annoying it would be to jam all of that cooked rice in the opening.
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=7035

Sake that I just made two weeks about I was going to throw out. I ended it early because when I tasted it I was afraid it was going to get more sour. It came out too sweet of course because the ferment ended early. 4 days instead of 8. So after a week of aging I ended up drinking two wine glasses of it. I want to find out what aging does and how it rounds out the flavors. I just ended my first stainless steal ferment. Not much rice broke down because I think I have to rethink how I make koji. I plan on ignoring instructions and let koji grow as much as I think it needs to. I think my rice is only coated with the fungus and I think the fungus needs to penetrate the rice like store-bought koji. I notice rice breaks down very well after two days with store-bought koji versus my homemade. I think sake should break down in two days or the ferment will never be as good.

How did my stainless steel sake taste? Smoother. I think I will have to age it. Still has sourness or acidity. I wonder if any professional sake brewer has ever tasted sake just off the presses and if they would say it tastes acidic too. I want to research more and find out: sake tastes like this at this stage, if you do this then sake will tastes more like this, blah blah blah.

To define what we are making. I would have to say ending ferment and drinking is doburoku. Straining or filtering and then adding some lees back in can be nigori. Not pasturizing would make it nama style. And, I really need to buy a hydrometer, if the alcohol is 20% then it would be a genshu sake that could be served on the rocks. Nigori sake is usally high alcohol %.

Yes I stir my sake everyday. I read on a blog that someone who didn't stir caused a crust of dry rice to form on top so stiring helps airate and mix. A fungus (yeast) eating a fungus (koji) causes sake to ferment differently then Western brews. So I think stirring is important. Intermediate and Advanced recipes say to stir at least 2x daily I think.

A plastic screw on lid should have very little effect on your brew compaired to the fermenter. After all is the maromi touching the lid all the time? It shouldn't.

One of the best things I think you can do is make friends who like nigori sake. Then taste test their favorite nigori with your sake. From how the professional nigori tastes you might be able to research and change your recipe. My favorite nigori is called Sake Romance. I might buy polished rice and koji from a California homebrew company. I will get the name later, I forgot.


Sake is truely troublesome because it's so easy you can do as much or as little work as you want. If my homemade koji does not get better I cannot use it because it will retard my ferment. I will start adding rice and koji to ferment. Intermediate and Advanced recipes require rice and koji 2 or 3x so that must be important. Adding yeast sounds like a good idea. It sounds like sake needs more fuel for ferment so adding during ferment is a good idea. It is what the breweries do for making even cheap sake.

Urbansake.com is a good resource if you want to be a better sake drinker.

This post should be the first I many. I hope to hear from you Afromaiko!

Thank you very much for the update. I have lived in Japan for a while and visited again a few times since then. I've travelled the country from the bottom tip of Kyushu, zig-zagging my way from tiny villages to big cities up to the very northern tip of Honshu. A lap of Hokkaido is planned for my next trip. I studied Japanese seriously for about 2 years and still learning slowly from my fiance who is Japanese.

Last time I was there I got introduced to nigori sake, it was ladled out from a huge communal bowl and totally delicious. My light-hearted comments were simply joking that while commercial brewers surely take their brewing very seriously, some home sake brewers would probably take a less than scientific approach. I know a few of my beer brewing buddies would freak out at the thought of possible infections if they had to open up and stir their brew a dozen times or more.

I found two things of interest in the last few days. One was jars of rice malt syrup in the supermarket, apparantly used as a honey substitute by vegans. The other was Amylase Enzyme which is used in beer to get a more thorough breakdown of starch, prolonging fermentation and leading to a dry taste. I'm going to use these as part of a Kirin beer recipe I'm making, however I am wondering if they have any usefulness in sake production.

I have decided I will next try brewing sake in a stainless pot. But now I'm not sure of the best width/height ratio. I found in my last attempt that a lot of the rice tended to settle at the bottom. So wondering if a wider shallower fermenter is better, rather than a tall narrow one. I was going to put the pot inside a cooler box, and surround with ice changed every day. But I've just had someone offer me a small chest freezer so may end up getting an external thermostat for that. It's going to get hot here soon, it was 36C (96F) here last week. Not great brewing weather!

I asked at my local home brew shop today about high gravity trappist yeast but unfortunately they didn't have any there. I might try a lager yeast, and perhaps even double pitching since I heard that can help generate higher alcohol levels but may also increase acidity. I've found somewhere that can get me the Wyeast Sake #9 here, but there is about a month wait when ordering. It's a bit pricey too, especially since I'm playing around with small batches at the moment.

Tomorrow I'm going to taste this batch again and see it it's still sour. I might filter and pasteurize a bottle worth and put it away for a few weeks to see if it improves. I think it's been brewing nearly 3 weeks now so if it's no good I will say goodbye to it and try again. I'm determined to figure this out!

Shipping for koji alone cost 30$ so I only bought that because it seems like a lot of koji and I really think koji is important. And curiosity is another reason why I spent so much.
http://www.fhsteinbart.com/

Just a thought...how about a large ceramic pot...maybe even a large bowl for a potted plant? Could that work?

I would think that it would have to be glazed inside as well as out to seal the ceramic.

That shipping seems kind of expensive, is that for kome-koji or koji-kin?

The store bought kome-koji is kept in the freezer in the shop and I also store it in there at home. Do you know if this ok to pitch directly in like this, or whether it should be left out to defrost first? However, when it's frozen the kome-koji nicely crumbles up into individual grains and doesn't seem sticky at all. Is your fresh homemade version like that or a is it a different texture? I can see the furry little white mold on it.

I guess it wouldn't actually freeze that much in the first place, but don't know about leaving it sit our for a day on the bench at room temperature would help or hinder a good start to fermentation.

Picked up some Wyeast 3787 Trappist High Gravity today and a new stainless stock pot to use as a fermenter.

Homebrewer_99 - The ceramic pot idea sounded very interesting too, however trying to find one that is glazed on the inside could be difficult as mentioned above.

I'm going to try soaking the rice overnight too, the Vision Brewing recipe said to only soak for about 1.5 hours which is what I did last time. I went to a bigger brew shop here that I hadn't been to before and they seemed to know a bit about making sake and have ordered me some of the Wyeast Sake #9 in to try. They also gave me a semi-local contact for ordering the koji-kin spores too.

Jeremyz - are you using citric acid with your recipes or cultivating a lactic acid base? I noticed that it's possible to purchase lactic acid at the brew shop I went to today and they use it for wine making I think.

Hmm.. I just threw out my second batch. After a week it was yellow and starting to get bitter/sour again. I think this store bought koji is not working properly, would this be why my sake has turned yellow?

The first thing I ever brewed was sake! I read some all grain stuff and thought 'too much money and too expensive' and my roommate made the mistake of saying that his relatives make it all the time in Taiwan. I started doing research and found visionbrewing.com too.

I wasn't overly impressed with the first batch because there was way too much lemon flavor and acidity. Also, we had to drink the entire thing in the first couple days because I didn't know how to pasturize it. We got pretty drunk.

My current favorite sake procedure involves the following :

2-2.5 lbs koji, home made all at once, half frozen
3.5 lbs steamed rice
Korean brand short grain brown rice
Fleishman's Bread Yeast
bottled spring water

I soak the rice before I steam it.
I steam the rice in the stainless pot I use for fermenting, so its sanitized.
Once the koji is ready, and the rice is cooled, I add a gallon of spring water to all the steamed rice and about half the koji.
I seal it with the lid and wrap it up in Saran wrap to keep it nice and sterile.
I try to leave some small air holes for the CO2 to escape.
I let it ferment in a dorm fridge on the lowest setting (~60F) for about 2 weeks.
I take it out once a day and give it good agitation without unsealing it.
Usually agitating it results in lots of bubbles rising up from the rice at the bottom.
After 2 weeks, I thaw the remaining koji and pitch it in.
I let it ferment for another week or two and then drink it!
I pasturized it at whatever the recomended temperature was (130F for 5 minutes?)
I bottle it in beer bottles.


Once I did an experiment where I pasturized a bunch of it and then made 2 "specialty bottles".
One was still fermenting, so after about 3 days it was lightly sparkling.
One was fermenting unsealed.


The people that have tried my sake say it's good, and I like my sake better than most of the commercial sake I have tried.

The sparkling sake was well liked.
The one allowed to fermented longer was driest.
The pasturized sake was a little flat tasting.
One pasturized bottle was left in a fridge for a year, and was quite good when we tried it.




I recently learned that brown rice is exactly the opposite of what you should use since it still has its entire husk. Interestingly enough, soaking brown rice in water is supposed begin the germination process and releases GABA predicesor protiens/amino acids. It works well with mine. *shrug* I think mine tastes great with raw shashimi grade tuna and rice.





My vague understanding of the biochemistry of sake is that the koji mold produces alpha and beta amylase (that's what does the work in the mash for beer). The yeast float around and eat the sugars that the amylase produces. I cannot explain why the amylase works correctly at ~60 F, since the beer literature says it isn't active til near 155F. I would guess that the amylase probably works at the low temperature, but very slowly and inneficiently, but that's not really a problem because the yeast are working slowly too. I know that the koji rice itself is sweet (I've eaten some of it raw before, it's tasty, kind of like a sweet cheese), but I can't imagine that without some amylase action that 2 lbs of rice would produce enough fermentables for the high ABVs that occur.



Here are some potentially useful resources courtesy of brewery.org :

http://brewery.org/brewery/library/chmsk_RA.html
http://brewery.org/brewery/library/sake_MH0499.html
http://home1.gte.net/richwebb/sakeprod.htm


Hope that helps.

Until I can get two five gallon soda kegs I will never try intermediate recipe. I will use lime juice for beginner recipe.

Was sake yellow while fermenting? Did it turn yellow after you ended fermenting? What was smell or taste? I am curious. Maybe it was infected?

Here is the only video I have seen on sake.
http://www.travelistic.com/video/show/530

You may notice I have a hydrometer. I want to know more about what my sake alcohol is.
http://www.atroxen.com/gallery2/main.php/view/jeremy/Sake Brewing/?g2_page=5

I am making two gallons because the wine cellar in my family home has a regulated temperature of 60F so I think it will be good for wyeast labs sake #9. I am also using store bought koji and I have a lot of confidence that it will help break down all of the rice. I might filter some.

For the record whoever moved this post into wine is correct and wrong. Sake is called a wine because it tastes like one but it is made exactly like beer.

I spend 30$ on shipping for completed koji rice, not the spores. I will never spend that much again unless this koji is amazing. Otherwise I will get koji from Japanese grocery store. Frozen or defrosted koji is not the question. Pitch yeast when temperature is good so I assume in most cases the koji defrosts in water or by letting it warm up on a table.

Compared to store bought koji my koji is not good for yeast. Rice does not break down well. Store bought koji makes rice break down very well and ferment is like an engine of bubbling. Homemade koji has been annoying for me. I get some mold but after 48 hours I only get some mold on the surface of kohoku rose sushi rice when I think the mold has to penetrate the rice and "explode" the structure of each rice grain.

I still need to find out if polished rice was made in 1600s in Japan and how it was made. If it was never made in 1600s then I learn something great and new about sake.

Fred Echardt's recipes
http://www.designerinlight.com/

My newest batch of sake is the greatest batch ever. Food grade plastic is the worst material for sake. Only glass or stainless steel fermenters can be used. Until I get some cornelius kegs I will not make sake again. So how does it taste? For the first time like sake without that weird sour taste the plastic caused. My earlier batches were not extremely sour but the taste was there. After making over a dozen batches of sake I feel that this is truly my first brew of sake. I don't like it really cold but then again all wines should not be drunk right out of the fridge. It's great warm or cold. If I had to compare it to a sake it has the banana fruity floral taste somewhat similar to Fudo Myoo Sake.

Rules of Sake
1. Never use food grade plastic, only glass or stainless steel. Plastic causes a weird sour taste.

2. Temperature is very important like most ferments. I fermented at 60F in family wine cellar.

3. I used sake #9 yeast which is not crucial but does help. It was very fun watching foam.

4. Don't ever let anyone tell you to only use polished rice. Decide for yourself. I used Kokuho Rose rice from Stop & Shop and I plan on always using it unless there is some cheap or easy way of getting polished rice. Fred Eckhardt has the most advanced homebrew sake recipe and even he mentions using Kokuho Rose rice.

5. I used koji from fhsteinbart.com but the shipping was 30$. In the future I will only want to use koji in white tubs sold at Japanese grocery stores. When I made my own koji it never fermented as well.

6. Impatient I always squeezed out sake in under an hour. It would cause half of my bottled sake to be sediment. In my most recent batch I allowed the sake to drip out for 24 hours and I was really surprised how well it worked. I was going to squeeze the sake bag after 24 hours but there was no need. When the sediment settled in my newest sake it was only a 1/10 of a millimeter of the bottle instead of 1/2 of the bottle. I got my dimensions for straining bag from sakebukuro. Traditionally sakebukuro are made from hemp canvas but I used cotton muslin and linen.

http://www.atroxen.com/gallery2/main.php/view/jeremy/Sake Brewing/?g2_page=7

Foam!
http://www.sake-world.com/html/sw-2002_4.html

Hey jeremyz - your photos of the latest batch look great! So clear! Did you work from the basic recipe or use one of the advanced ones? Also, did you let it ferment right out or stop it early? Roughly how long was fermentation?

Mine keeps getting a yellow tinge to it, I really can't figure out why. I'm using a high quality rice (tried two different types) and store bought koji. However so far I've tried the champagne yeast (EC1118?), the Trappist yeast and also a lager yeast. All had the yellow tinge, some quite bad.. almost fluorescent looking!

I have the Sake #9 now, and am waiting on a fridge to brew in since it's been really hot here lately in Australia. With the lager yest I managed to keep a small batch cold enough.. but yellow again.. Taste has been a bit off too, even using stainless or glass.

Ganbarimasu!

Thank you. I used beginner recipe. After a week ferment seemed to end but I added a little more koji and rice like recipe suggested and I let it ferment for another two days. Total ferment 9 days. Next time I may let it ferment for another week after adding more rice and koji. It can be very handy to keep a journal and list the things you do like how do you sterilize, cook rice, temperature fermented, how active ferment was, smell of sake during ferment, etc. Hopefully I can help you solve the problem. Maybe I should note that I kept sake mix at room temperature in a dark place for 24 hours then once the ferment got going I moved fermenters into 60F temperature room.

Genki des!

Every time I've ever brewed sake, it has ended up a light straw color (so, somewhat yellowish), but it never caused any problems. I think that happened because of the type of rice I was using (brown rice from Korea).

I've never heard of a straining bag, I usually let mine settle for a couple days and then decanted off the top of the fermenter into a secondary container, which I further decanted. The remaining milky liquid I put into another container and let it settle to try and get more sake from it. It worked pretty well that way. Also, I drank some of the milky white sake and found it to be different but not unpalatable.

One of my friends used this recipe.

http://www.geocities.co.jp/Foodpia/1751/sake.html

She has only made one batch and I was able to taste it when I visited her recently. Because she fermented in staineless and used good rice her first sake came out better than my first. However she used bread yeast so it has a very yeasty aftertaste I do not care for. Her sake is pretty cloudy and yellowish. Best sake I ever had for first try. I must recommend allowing sake to drip out of muslin or linen for 24hrs. Hemp would be best but I never used it and it is traditional Japanese material.

I love Frisky Dingo. Anyway...

http://www.atroxen.com/gallery2/main.php/view/jeremy/Sake Brewing/?g2_page=8

I overestimated recipe. One keg was full, not to the brim but full. I stirred and shook keg to make sure koji, rice, and yeast were mixed. Very annoying. I dumped mix fast in large pot to get as much rice I could. Then I grabbed handfulls of rice to eyeball equal amounts of water and rice in each keg. I took a hot shower before so I am not worried about contamination. Each keg was cleaned with oxyclean then soaked in oxyclean, then rinsed with boiling water. Now each keg is half full and yeast has woken up. I have now moved kegs into wine cellar to ferment for 2 weeks at 60F. After first week I plan on adding rice and koji to jumpstart second ferment.

I had to cook 2 batches of rice with a two shelf section bamboo steamer. Next time I will buy another bamboo steamer.

Keg locks are not airtight so gas can escape.

If this batch comes out better than my last I have plenty of sterilized sake bottles that I saved. Even still it would be nice to have a full keg of sake! Starting a brewery does sound nice, aside from machinery and investment.

Looking good! Please tell me.. do you still stir the mix everyday now that you are using the kegs?

I've just made another attempt, it's on the second day now. I'm wondering if I should stir it regularly every day from the very start, or leave it a couple of days to break down the rice before beginning to stir it?

My concern was whether I was likely to oxidise the 'wort' and cause it to go off like beer can do because I had previous problems with it turning VERY yellow and sour.

But, I am using the proper Wyeast Sake #9 so hopefully that will help.

Any tips much appreciated!

If you don't stir everyday the foam on top will dry into a disgusting crust. When I was in San Francisco I visited the Sho Chiku Bai free tasting room at their brewery. I learned a new term that explains why sake has more alcohol than beer: Multiple Parrallel Fermentation. Most ferments use only one fungi: yeast. Sake uses two: koji and yeast.

Heat is part of the reason why my summer sake became sour. However I believe food grade plastic is the greater cause. So many fermenters and tea brewers are made from plastic, not because it is the best, but because it is the cheapest material. My tokonome teapot made even my cheap tea taste better than tea made in my trendy looking teavana tea brewer. I have since given away my plastic brewer.

yeah I agree, Plastic is no good for saké.

I split the batch between two 2.5 gallon glass crocks. Kind of a pain. This is what I want to get.




Biggest one holds 5 gallons. Ceramic and made for pickling so food safe.

Esters make it stink like banana or mayflowers. Good progress but I just don't want to end the ferment too early. I don't plan on racking. I think I will let the primary ferment run for about 14-20 days.

I found a cool brewing page. Just use mac translator for a rough translation.

http://www.houraisen.co.jp/main/brew/brew.html

Here are foam stages from John Gauntner's sake-world.com

Two or three days into the ferment
suji-awa (muscle foam)

Next, a think layer of soft foam
mizu-awa (water foam)

most active stage
iwa-awa (rock foam)

highest stage of foam
usually occurs about the tenth day or so
taka-awa

fermentation begins to wane
ochi-awa (falling foam)

tama-awa (ball foam)

Ending
A totally smooth surface is known as bozu, in reference to the shaved head of a priest
Small wrinkles in the surface are referred to as chiri-men (a type of rough cloth).
If rice solids that did not ferment have risen to the surface, it may look like a lid is on the moromi, and this is referred to as futa (lid). ??Much can be told about the quality of the sake at this stage from observing this surface. For example, if the lid is thick (kogai, or thick lid), it indicates that a significant amount of wild yeast ended up in the moromi and survived.

Anyone ever used fruit as sort of a 2nd stage, ferment with Sake recipe. Plums, peaches, litchi?? I have never made Sake, but have Japanese in laws. I would like to brew up a batch and mail them a bottle, but am wanting to use some fruit. I have seen plum sake before, but not sure on how to use it. It was mentioned earlier that brewing is just like a beer. So would a 2nd stage fruit ferment work?

I know of some people who ferment their beer in one of their kegles. They clean up their mash tun while boiling their wort, sterilize my boiling a gallon of water in it , then transfer their wort to the mash tun for fermenting. You could do the same thing for your sake probably. That would give you 15.5 gallons of room so you wouldn't need to worry about splitting the batch.