Hello everyone
To continue the never ending search for knowledge into the history of brewing & also to fill my lust for making the simple thing extremely complicated I am here to try and replicate my own Jiuqu or Chinese dried yeast balls.
***Warning*** ***In doing this I am dealing with different types of mold. Any of which can be harmful if treated improperly or can cause allergic reactions to some people which can cause irritation, illness or worse death. I conduct my experiments with much care and I understand what I am and am not allergic to when dealing with the ingredients. I do not suggest anyone undertake the same experiment. Please follow in my footsteps at your own caution.***
Ok now that I have that out. Seriously I think a lot can be learned from this experiment so I want to give it a go. I have made Japanese Sake with much success and really enjoy the process. Chinese Rice Wine is a much simpler practice with less ingredients and less strict fermenting practice/environment. The Rice wine gets rave reviews by many. But if you took the Sake ingredients and used them the same way you get a sour bowel of gross. I have a theory that the difference is in the molds used to saccharify the rice into sugar. Also Chinese Rice wine uses no additional water past what is used to steam the rice. I think the lack of water aids in the prevention of lactobacillus bacteria. What I am doing here is trying to test my mold hypothesis by introducing different mold into the fermenting process compared to what I have recently used in my latest Sake batch.
The old school traditional way of creating jiuqu required that someone created a wheat dough block and placed it on the stone floor until there are white mold blooms growing on top of it. Then it was placed in the top of the thatch roof of the home to let the wind dry out the block. Once completely dry the brewer could then layer steamed rice and powdered pieces of the jiuqu in a jar and leave it to ferment. The molds would saccharify the starch and wild yeasts ferment the sugar. After a month the sediment could be strained out and the white cloudy liquid consumed with much joy.
The problem I have with this process is that here in Oklahoma I have no idea what kind molds are floating around in my air. Many molds produce toxins that if ingested can cause a plethora of harmful symptoms. So I am going to use a more modern way of creating jiuqu.
With that a brewer creates a successful batch of rice wine and all the strained lees is mixed into a new dough block. Allowed to cultivate for a week and then dried and used. This process can be repeated to get consistent results from rice wine rather than just letting what the wind carries grow in your dough block.
As said before I recently made some Sake and I am happy with it so far. I have kept the strained lees from that batch in the fridge and I will use it to make my jiuqu; however, I am adding a new component. If I do not then I should have the same yeast and mold type that is in the Sake and I will probably get poor results based off of my hypothesis. I know that the mold I used for Sake was Aspergillus Oryzae. As long as it is cultivated at higher temps it produces larger amounts of Alpha and Beta Amylase. But from what I have been researching I have found that jiuqu also has larger amounts of Lipase & Protease which the Japanese Kome-Koji has less of. I decided to add Penicillium Roqueforti. It is a very common mold found all over the world and does produce the enzymes I am looking for. Bellow is the recipe I am using for the Jiuqu.
3 parts (6 TBS) Inoculants lees
5 parts (10 TBS) bleached wheat flour
1.5 (3 TBS) parts water
1g Penicillium Roqueforti spores
1g Aspergillus Oryzae spores
Needless to say my hands and everything else was cleaned extremely well to keep contamination low. I mixed it all very thoroughly and placed on a glass 11X9 pan. I used 1 TBS of additional flour to allow me to flatten the dough with a spatula without it sticking badly. Then flipped it over and added another 1 TBS so that both sides were not sticky. But up to this point the whole bit was pretty gooey because I wanted a higher liquid content to help the mold spores wake up.
The dough block was shaped into a 1cm high square so that the whole block should have equal exposure to air. The pan went into an incubator that will be kept at 85*F 90*F over the following week. I have a paper towel draped over the dough but resting on the pan and not the dough. This is to keep any condensation from dripping on the dough. After I notice the white blooms growing on the dough but before it changes into the blue and yellow colored molds I will then take the dough outside into the cold to finish drying out and then I will have a go at some Rice wine.
I will let you know how it goes.
Anyone feel free to throw in any criticism or advice.
To continue the never ending search for knowledge into the history of brewing & also to fill my lust for making the simple thing extremely complicated I am here to try and replicate my own Jiuqu or Chinese dried yeast balls.
***Warning*** ***In doing this I am dealing with different types of mold. Any of which can be harmful if treated improperly or can cause allergic reactions to some people which can cause irritation, illness or worse death. I conduct my experiments with much care and I understand what I am and am not allergic to when dealing with the ingredients. I do not suggest anyone undertake the same experiment. Please follow in my footsteps at your own caution.***
Ok now that I have that out. Seriously I think a lot can be learned from this experiment so I want to give it a go. I have made Japanese Sake with much success and really enjoy the process. Chinese Rice Wine is a much simpler practice with less ingredients and less strict fermenting practice/environment. The Rice wine gets rave reviews by many. But if you took the Sake ingredients and used them the same way you get a sour bowel of gross. I have a theory that the difference is in the molds used to saccharify the rice into sugar. Also Chinese Rice wine uses no additional water past what is used to steam the rice. I think the lack of water aids in the prevention of lactobacillus bacteria. What I am doing here is trying to test my mold hypothesis by introducing different mold into the fermenting process compared to what I have recently used in my latest Sake batch.
The old school traditional way of creating jiuqu required that someone created a wheat dough block and placed it on the stone floor until there are white mold blooms growing on top of it. Then it was placed in the top of the thatch roof of the home to let the wind dry out the block. Once completely dry the brewer could then layer steamed rice and powdered pieces of the jiuqu in a jar and leave it to ferment. The molds would saccharify the starch and wild yeasts ferment the sugar. After a month the sediment could be strained out and the white cloudy liquid consumed with much joy.
The problem I have with this process is that here in Oklahoma I have no idea what kind molds are floating around in my air. Many molds produce toxins that if ingested can cause a plethora of harmful symptoms. So I am going to use a more modern way of creating jiuqu.
With that a brewer creates a successful batch of rice wine and all the strained lees is mixed into a new dough block. Allowed to cultivate for a week and then dried and used. This process can be repeated to get consistent results from rice wine rather than just letting what the wind carries grow in your dough block.
As said before I recently made some Sake and I am happy with it so far. I have kept the strained lees from that batch in the fridge and I will use it to make my jiuqu; however, I am adding a new component. If I do not then I should have the same yeast and mold type that is in the Sake and I will probably get poor results based off of my hypothesis. I know that the mold I used for Sake was Aspergillus Oryzae. As long as it is cultivated at higher temps it produces larger amounts of Alpha and Beta Amylase. But from what I have been researching I have found that jiuqu also has larger amounts of Lipase & Protease which the Japanese Kome-Koji has less of. I decided to add Penicillium Roqueforti. It is a very common mold found all over the world and does produce the enzymes I am looking for. Bellow is the recipe I am using for the Jiuqu.
3 parts (6 TBS) Inoculants lees
5 parts (10 TBS) bleached wheat flour
1.5 (3 TBS) parts water
1g Penicillium Roqueforti spores
1g Aspergillus Oryzae spores
Needless to say my hands and everything else was cleaned extremely well to keep contamination low. I mixed it all very thoroughly and placed on a glass 11X9 pan. I used 1 TBS of additional flour to allow me to flatten the dough with a spatula without it sticking badly. Then flipped it over and added another 1 TBS so that both sides were not sticky. But up to this point the whole bit was pretty gooey because I wanted a higher liquid content to help the mold spores wake up.
The dough block was shaped into a 1cm high square so that the whole block should have equal exposure to air. The pan went into an incubator that will be kept at 85*F 90*F over the following week. I have a paper towel draped over the dough but resting on the pan and not the dough. This is to keep any condensation from dripping on the dough. After I notice the white blooms growing on the dough but before it changes into the blue and yellow colored molds I will then take the dough outside into the cold to finish drying out and then I will have a go at some Rice wine.
I will let you know how it goes.
Anyone feel free to throw in any criticism or advice.
I will be following your experiments closely. I find them extremely interesting.
