Sake Anyone?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

loopmd

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 14, 2005
Messages
656
Reaction score
7
Location
Omaha, Nebraska
I've never really been a sake connoisseur before, sure there were the times at the Japanese Steakhouse that we had a pot of warm sake. But I got a couple bottles of sake last week from one of my employees as a gift upon her return from Japan. It is good stuff. Just did some googling on sake and come to find out....it is more like beer, then it is wine. Anyone ever dabble in trying to make their own?

I'm on my 4th glass....mmmmmm

Loop
 
mmm, Sake!

Don't know anything about making it. but I certainly enjoy drinking it.

If you were given really good sake, drink it chilled. Heating is done to make the cheapo stuff tolerable.

There is a Japanese market a couple miles from my house with a good selection. I usually keep a bottle in the wine fridge. It shouldn't be stored longer than one year.

Just remember the following lyrics when you get near the bottom of the bottle:

Turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese, I really think so.
 
Curious if anyone has any information on where to buy either milled Sake rice or a mill to polish the rice at home.

Have found lots of links to the Koji kits, various yeasts #7 through #14, but nothing on true Sake rice except FAQS.

All the kits I have seen suggest the use of plain ol' white rice.
 
Curious if anyone has any information on where to buy either milled Sake rice or a mill to polish the rice at home.

Have found lots of links to the Koji kits, various yeasts #7 through #14, but nothing on true Sake rice except FAQS.

All the kits I have seen suggest the use of plain ol' white rice.

You can make excellent sake from any short grain rice that your local grocery store sells. I recommend doing that for your first few batches until you get the hang of the process, then you might think about trying your hand at a finer grade of sake. For that, you can order ginjo grade polished rice (~63% polish) from F.H. Steinbart Co. They sell both the rice and the prepared koji used by SakeOne to produce their excellent Momokawa sake.

Forget what those FAQs say about "true" sake rice. Yamada Nishiki is way out of reach for most commercial sake brewers outside of Japan, let alone homebrewers anywhere.
 
I don't know anything about making sake, but I definitely prefer cold, unfiltered sake. It has almost a completely different taste, and is very good. If you can get your hands on some of that, give that a try. I usually try to order a small bottle when I go out for sushi.
 
I just bottled my first batch of sake yesterday. Tonight I drank what wouldn't fit into the last bottle and it was good for a first batch. I used the instructions from this site, which I highly recommend.
I'm going to plan out a larger batch very soon (the first batch was only one gallon, the next will be 3 or 5). I used short grain rice and it turned out just fine.
 
Back
Top