Making Traditional Sake! The difference between it and Rice wine.

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Arpolis

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Hello everyone

I am getting the brew bug off my back this week and wanted to make some Sake again. There has been some really awesome threads on rice wine recently and here I wanted to point out some differences between Sake and Rice wine fermentation. I will start with a small intro into some key differences and then will give some step by step pics as I make the Sake from scratch.

First of all it seems that the steps recently outlined in these forums for Rice wine are more from traditional Main land customs specifically from China and surrounding parts. Sake is more of a Japanese style of brewing. Japanese Sake requires 4 ingredients. Rice, Kome-Koji, Water & yeast. Rice wine requires only two main ingredients, Rice and Jiuqu or dried yeast balls as they are commonly called now.

In both recipes they use molds that produce enzymes that break down the starch in the rice into simple sugars to be eaten by the yeast & changed to alcohol.

Rice wine actually uses multiple mold types which are different depending on the region the Jiuqu was made in. These molds produce Alpha Amalyse, Beta Amalyse, protease & lipase for the sachrification process of changing starches to sugar.

The Kome-Koji is rice that only has aspergillus oryzae growing on it usually and it produces mostly Alpha Amalyse and some Beta Amalyse.

The Jiuqu has natural yeasts that grow in it so the mold and yeast are all cultivated in one flour/water brick which is later rolled into balls and sun dried. More modern ways of creating Jiuqu have these flour/water mixes inoculated with sediments off of a successful rice wine so that the yeast and molds cultivated are uniform.

Kome-Koji is kept in a very sterile environment so that there is only one mold and no yeasts grow on the rice. That means that yeast is introduced separately.

Lastly Rice wine requires no real water addition past cooking the rice because the jiuqu does a really great job sachrifying the rice into liquid quickly. Where as Sake does use water but is completed in multiple steps or additions of extra rice and Koji.

Beyond taste and the exact methods of making the two there is not a whole lot of other differences. If you would like to check out making Rice Wine instead of Sake then sheck out the bellow link.

Click here for a really great Rice wine thread

I think I have rambled enough now so lets look at making some Sake!

Well I normally go out and get my Rice, water, yeast and Kome-Koji but this time I thought I would not by the whole Kome-Koji from the oriental market and just make my own from Koji spores sold at my LHBS. So lets start with making the Koji and then I will get into the recipe and process of Sake making. I actually started yesterday at about this time & I will do my best to update daily with new pics.

I went out and purchase "Rice Select Sushi Rice" because it is highly milled Short grain sticky rice that works well for Sake. Only issue is that it is a bit pricy so I use different rice for the main rice additions in Sake but more on that later.

I am planning a 1 gallon batch of Sake to be made in a wide mouthed 1 gallon glass Jar. For this recipe you will need 1 1/3 cups of dried rice to make your Kome-Koji with. The rice must be cooked for the Koji spores to take hold so we need to properly soak the rice first. I placed the Rice in a metal strainer and rinsed until the water ran pretty clear and back into the measuring cup it went with Hot water filling the measuring cup. Here is a pic several minutes into the soaking:

Making Koji step 1.JPG

We are wanting for the volume of the rice to expand by about 33%. For this batch I am just waiting for the volume to hit the 2 cup mark. That took me about 40 minutes of waiting.

It is very important to Steam the rice and not boil it. If you boil it you will get a sticky glob of rice or it will be too crunchy and the Koji will not properly take hold and not produce the enzymes you want causing bad flavors or worse no amalyse produced at all. I do not have a fancy rice steamer but that does not mean I should just give up and boil the rice anyways. Check out my high tech jerry rigged rice steamer!

Making Koji step 2.JPG

Making Koji step 5.JPG

I just fill the bottom with water and set a high flame under it with the rice resting in the metal strainer. I also cover the whole thing with 2 paper towels. You do not want a hard lid because the steam will condensate and fall into the rice and it will get over cooked and too sticky. I just need to stir the rice every 10 - 12 minutes to make sure the steam evenly cooks the rice.

The whole steaming pocess takes about 45 - 60 minutes. You know you are done when the rice has changed from a stark white to a pale white almost translucent color. the consistency when done should be firm but not krunchy. If it falls apart in your mouth then it is cooked too much. Eat that rice and try again. These steps can not be done improperly or you will get poor results. During this time you want to do two things.

First get your incubator ready. I use a simple water cooler as the container. You will see here that I have a heating element in there to provide heat. You can use any kind but I have this Flexwatt stuff that I use for other hobby stuff & it works great. On top of the heating element I have a bowel of water. That is to keep the humidity up in the cooler.

There are two mason jars there which will hold up the plastic container that will hold your inoculated Rice. If you find that the humidity still does not hold well then take a damp paper towel and drape that over the rice bowel. The temperature is important so make sure your heating element does not get the cooler too hot and not too cool. The ideal temp is 95*F - 96*F. Koji dies at 113*F and bellow 87*F down to 60*F the Koji produces less and less Amalyse enzyme the cooler it gets but rather other enzymes that do not just break off simple sugars from starches but changes them into other non-fermentable compounds. So too cool and you will get no sachrification/fermentation power from your Kome-Koji.


Making Koji step 3.JPG

Making Koji step 4.JPG

To be continued........
 
OK so at this point you have your incubator ready and warming up and your rice is still cooking. Now you need to get two more things ready for when the rice is done because you want to move quickly.

Get a large metal pan cleaned off or covered in tin foil & stick it in the fridge or freezer. You want it cold so you can rapidly cool off your cooked rice.

Next get your Koji spores ready. You will use 1 1/2 tsp of koji spores and 1/2 tsp of bleached all purpose flower. Mix the two evenly and set aside for your rice.

Once you are happy with the rice spread it over your cooled metal pan. Be carefull because the rice will be super hot. Do not use your hands at first but rather a spoon or butter knife. After about 30 seconds to a minute you should be able to use your hands to turn the rice over and over and cool the rice down to below 85*F.

Now make sure your hands are super clean. Spend at least a good 30 seconds to a minute washing them with anti-bacterial soap.

Making Koji step 7.jpg

Oh and when they call this stuff sticky rice. THEY ARE NOT KIDDING! The rice will permanently attach itself to your skin almost so just do your best. If you loose a little rice because you had to wash your hands to remove the rice then that should be fine. do not worry. See check out one of my hands as I just started turning.

Making Koji step 8.JPG

Now you can take a small spoon or flour sifter and evenly coat the top of the rice.

Again start turning the rice so that the spores are covering the rice more evenly throughout.

Scoop up all the rice and place into your plastic container and get it into your incubator as quickly as you can to prevent any contamination.

Making Koji step 9.JPG

The whole incubation time should take 40 - 50 hours depending on humidity and temps. As the mold grows it will grow out white tendrils that will hold all the rice together and make a hard clump. Because of this you need to turn and break up the rice every 10 - 12 hours. So yes you may find yourself at 3 in the morning turning stinky moldy rice but you have to do it. I have it planned so I can check on it before bed and right before I go to work. I have already turned my rice twice now. I can't seem to get any real good pics of the rice but know someone who has some great pics of the rice changing to Kome-Koji so I will add those pics here to represent my rice unless I see any major differences:

DSC02678.jpg


Here is your rice at 10 hours. No real difference. There will be a little clumping and the smell will be there. Some say they get horrible smells but mine is kind of cheesy and funky. The rice will be much more handelable and will not stick as badly so go crazy with the hands and make sure there are no clumps left.

DSC02683.jpg


Here we are at the second turning at about 20 - 24 hours in. You will really notice the whole mass being stuck together so get those fingers in and break it up. If you did not notice a smell at first you will now! It is getting pungent and noticeable. Just looking you can not see much but it is there.

Tomorrow after my 4th turning I should be able to update on how to finish and store the koji for Sake making!
 
Arpolis.....steaming trick to prevent condensation from lid droplets falling on rice is to wrap the lid from bottom up with a tea towel or the like. The towel absorbs any droplets.

Liking the thread.
 
Good trick with the tea towel. I may need to try it with that next time and just see how the rice cooks differently from the way I have done it here. Might have a lower cooking time.
 
Arpolis.....steaming trick to prevent condensation from lid droplets falling on rice is to wrap the lid from bottom up with a tea towel or the like. The towel absorbs any droplets.

Liking the thread.

I'm probably just being dumb. But what do you mean by "wrap the lid from bottom up"?
 
Ooooooo. Did I just get burned?

I'll link your thread in my main post if you link mine?

And p.s. you got it dead on. Its more a traditional mainland China method I use. Hence why I called it "traditional rice wine". People are just more familiar with the term "Sake". My in laws actually make "Sato" if you are familiar with that.
 
Ooooooo. Did I just get burned?

I'll link your thread in my main post if you link mine?

And p.s. you got it dead on. Its more a traditional mainland China method I use. Hence why I called it "traditional rice wine". People are just more familiar with the term "Sake". My in laws actually make "Sato" if you are familiar with that.

Burned? Oh no! I really enjoyed your thread & it really interested me in the comments of everyones end product. Personally I think I like the general process of brewing your rice wine better than the complicated Sake. But I got into brewing for the history and tradition of brewing stuff. So everything is great as long as it has a story to it.

I'll go ahead and add an addendem to my main post and link your thread.

I have only heard of Sato but never read up on it much or tried any. All I know is that it is a Thai Rice wine.
 
Just giving you a hard time. Someone in another thread tweaked my nipple the wrong way. I added your link as well. Looking forward to the results!
 
This is awesome! please continue updating this thread. I'm incredibly curious about trying this myself.
 
OK I checked out the Kome-Koji before work this morning at the god awful time of about 3 in the morning and checked it again just recently. Here are some pics of what the 30 & 40 hour-ish marks should look:

DSC02689.jpg


Here is the 30 hour mark. At this point the rice is really sticking together. There is white fuzzy stuff starting to grow in patches all over. If you notice anything other than white or slightly yellow then throw it away. Especially if it is green, black or brown. Mine was a litty soupier than the pic because I think the humidity got a little too high. I removed the damp paper towel in there and took a clean towel from the clean laundry and wiped the condensation from the insides of the incubator. I also removed the water bowel at this time. If I had more than 10 hours to go then I would not have removed the water bowel. If it gets too dry for too long then the mold goes into spore production which you do not want. But another 10 hours would not hurt & I did want the rice a little drier so it handles more easily.

DSC02691.jpg


This is the finished Kome-Koji. You should notice fuzzy white all over and there should be some liquid starting to pool at the bottom. That stuff should be pure Glucose. Give a piece of rice a taste at this point. It should be super sweet with a slight nutty flavor in the back. It reminds me of a watered down Anise seed extract.

At this point I take all the Kome-Koji and add it to a ziplock bag while removing as much air as I can. Now I am going to weigh the bag and get it's weight in grams. My batch came in at 584 grams. To store the Kome-Koji you can place in the coldest part of the fridge for a maximum of 3 - 4 weeks if needed befor it breaks down the rice too much and use up all the enzymes. You can freeze it like this for 3 months befor the freezer starts giving the stuff funky flavors. If you want to keep it longer you need a cold air dehydrator to repidly dehydrate the stuff then that can keep frozen for a year at most.

Now on to making the Sake!

First lets talk about the recipe.

Traditional Sake is made up of the 3 main ingredients Kome-Koji:Rice:Water & should always be at the ratio of 25:100:160. So depending on the amount of Rice you use you want 25% Kome-Koji and 160% Water. My recipe was scaled down to some odd numbers & are not exact but I am using:

1 1/3 cup Kome-Koji
5 cups Rice
8 cups water

For my rice I am going to use the Sushi Rice for my Moto step (See later) and then will use Botan Calrose Rice for the rest of the steps. It is a medium milled short grain rice that work well for Sake and is much less expensive.

You will find a lot of traditional recipes also using Epsom salt and Mortons salt substitute. That is usually if you are using a highly filtered water or RO water. I will be using spring Fiji water and plan on using a tiny portion of DAP. "1/8th tsp."

If you talk to your LHBS they will tell you to use Citric acid in your Sake recipe. Please do not do that. If you do this stuff will get real sour and not that pleasant. Just make sure to follow instructions here and you will have a great drink without that Citric acid.

The steps for making Sake will be broken up into 4 steps lasting about 30 days. Each step doubles the volume of rice each time. The math can get tricky when trying to figure up how much rice, kome-koji & water to use for each step. That is why I measured my Kome-koji in grams earlier.

Also weigh your Rice and Water in grams as well now. My 5 cups of rice came to 1185g in dry rice weight. My 8 cups of water came to 1936g.

You can figure your additions by grams easily. Just apply the following percentages to the total weight in grams to get how much you need for each step.

6.666%
13.332%
26.664%
53.328%

So now that we have all this data & spent the time to make the Kome-Koji from scratch we can finally go onto making the Sake. Following me so far? Fun in a complicated head hurting way huh :cross:

First we make our Moto or Starter mash.

Lets multiply the 6.666% to the dry rice weight to get the amount of Rice needed and prepare this like we did the Koji rice at first. "Rinse, Soak & steam". Traditionally you use super cold water or Ice water and place the rice in the fridge the night before and let it soak overnight for 12 hours or so. I am feeling lazy right now and will just soak the rice in warm water for 30min to an hour to get that magical 33% growth in volume we want.

I am cooking the rice now so will update more once that is done.
 
OK so the Rice is cooked and ready to be combined with the Kome-Koji and Water. I use 1 gallon glass pickle Jars for the fermentor. I make sure to clean them super well lid and all by soaking in Oxy-Clean Free for 24 hours. So to recap we have multiplied .06666 or 6.666% to each of the 3 main ingredients weight in grams to get:

Rice = 78.99g (Dry weight)
Kome-Koji = 38.93g (Weight after taken from incubator)
Water = 129.05g

For the Moto / starter I also added 1/8 tsp of DAP.

Mix all these together really well by mixing the Rice and cold Fiji Water first. This makes sure to cool down the rice bellow 113*F. Add in the Kome-Koji and yeast nutrient & mix really well some more.

At this point no yeast will be added. We want the Kome-Koji to work it's magic and start to convert the starches to sugar. It is ok to screw the lid on tight at this point.

We will let this sit at room temp for 48 hours stirring twice daily. You will notice within 12 hours that the rice will soak up most of the water. 24 hours from the start the Rice will start to liquefy & after 48 hours it will be soupy again. Check out the following pic as I just mixed the stuff. Lets see how this goes over the next couple days then we will work on getting the yeast added.

Making Sake step 1.JPG

Making Sake step 2.JPG
 
OK so about 48 hours has past. I have been stirring morning and night these last two days so that the rice is evenly in contact with the enzymes from the Kome-Koji.

Here is a pic at about 10 hours after the last pic:

Making Sake step 2 10 hour.JPG

Just about all the liquid is soaked up and the rice is very fluffy with sweet cheesy smells coming from the jar.

Here is a pic about 22 hours in:

Making Sake step 2 22 hour.JPG

Now we can see the starches just starting to liquefy again. The smell now is much cheesier than it was before. At this stage you want to start trying to smell for sour smells. If you do get sour smells you may have a bacterial infection creating too much lactic acid in the mash. There are ways to deal with that but I would rather start over since we are not far in and not wasting much of the rice.

I was in a hurry and so missed taking pics the following morning but here are a couple pics of this evening at about 40 - 42 hours in:

Making Sake step 2 40 hour.JPG

Making Sake step 2 41 hour.JPG

Now this is getting really soft and mushy. There are small pools of pure liquid glucose & sucrose. Still no sour smell on mine so things are looking great.

Now traditional Sake only uses a couple different types of yeast. At the 48 hour mark we add in the yeast to the mix. The best yeast to use for traditional Sake is Wyeast Sake #9 from their smack pack. This yeast is a Lager type yeast that lends a smooth flavor and accentuates the oddly fruity character of fermented rice.

I wanted to try something different this go around to see how it comes out. One of my favorite Mead yeasts is Lalvin K1-V1116. That stuff works well in low or high temps, is great for low nutrient ferments, is a steady & moderate speed yeast that preserves aromas and protects delicate flavors. I started by making a 1/3 cup starter for the yeast so it mimicked about the same volume from a wyeast smack pack. I mixed in just under 1 tsp of local wild flower honey and 1/16 tsp of yeast energizer into the 1/3 cup water. The water used was the Fiji water used for the rice additions. I sprinkled the dried yeast pack on top of the liquid and let sit with a paper towel over it until that 48 hour mark came. The starter was super active with high krausen so I pitched it in at the 48 hour nark and this is what I got:

Making Sake step 2 48 hour.JPG

I also took 3 "Viva" paper towels which are kind of fabric like and added that to the top of the jar under the lid. The lid is tightened but not super tight. That will allow for CO2 to escape from the jar. A piece of cotton cloth works well too.

Now this is really important. The additional liquid will make for a better environment for a Lacto Bacteria colony to grow. In Sake you always expect a little bit of Lacto bacteria because you want a little lactic cid to offset the super sweet fermented rice liquid. But too much makes for awful Sake. So we now want to slow down the bacteria while the yeast colony goes through its lag phase. You do this by cooling the wort/must to about 60*F - 50*F. I put the Jar outside in the shade on my porch. It was about 60*F outside then and over the span of the 12 hours it will hit somewhere at 50*F or slightly under. So the weather is perfect for me right now. After the 12 hour cool rest we bring the Jar inside and it will stay at room temp as close to 70*F as possible for 3 days stirring twice daily and then another 3 days stirring once daily. After that we will cool the wort/must back down to the 60*F - 50*F range and let it rest for 5 days. Finally the Moto/starter step will be complete and the Moromi step can take effect.

I will update more once we get there in about 11 days.
 
I'm probably just being dumb. But what do you mean by "wrap the lid from bottom up"?

You put the towel under the pan lid, and then secure any drooping towel corners upward, to keep them away from a heat source and starting a fire. I literally use a rubberband to hold the corners together-on top of the lid- creating a new handle.

And Halburst--there is no such thing as a dumb question.
 
OK we are 4 days into the Moto. Just a quick update, most of the rice past day two is liquefied with only a scattered amount of broken pieces floating about. On day 2 - 3 you will notice a heavy boozy smell and late day 3 the liquid starts separating with alcohol on top with the broken rice floating and the liquefied solids settling to the bottom. Here late day 4 I know things are going well because when smelling if you try real hard to look past the strong alcohol smell there are faint smells of what I can only describe as sweet vanilla. Who knew that fermented rice would have such complex and wonderful smells?

I must say I am so far pleased with using the Lalvin 1116 instead of the Sake #9. Everything is on schedule and in two days the warm portion of the Moto will be finished. There will be a 5 day resting period at 50*F - 60*F and then we can start main fermentation Moromi!
 
OK I am about a day too early to start Moromi but we have a crazy winter storm coming in and it will be way too cold for the starter so I will be starting the warm portion of Mormi a little sooner. Tonight I am bringing the starter back inside and warming to about 70*F. Moromi will be doubling the Rice & koji additions over the next 5 days in 3 steps. Before adding Rice additions you want to add in your Koji additions 24 hours befor the Rice and Water additions to allow for the Amalyse enzyme to get ready. This is especially important if using Frozen or dried Koji. Tonight I multiplied the previously stated 13.332% or .13332 to the total weight of my Koji giving me about 78g. I added that to the now pure liquid starter and mixed in well to introduce some oxygen. We will let this sit for 24 hours and tommorow day 1 add in the first addition of Rice and Water. Day 2 will add more Koji. Day 3 add more Rice & Water. Day 4 Add in more Koji and day 5 add in the last of the Rice and Water. Day 6 we cool the must back down to around 50*F and keep it there for another 2 - 3 weeks for fermentation to complete. We will filter and clear after that. I will take pics after the main Rice additions and keep you all up to date.
 
I hope everyone has had great holidays so far. Oh! and happy end of the world..... We survived!!! I have been busy busy and have had no time to post pics but I have at least kept on track with the steps of the Sake making and have pics of the progress.

Here I have a couple pics of day 1 as outlined before when I added the first rice/water addition 24 hours after the first Kome-Koji addition. I want to say that I am adding the water when I add the rice and not the kome-koji but if you are using dried pre-packaged kome-koji then make sure you add the water with the kome-koji to help get the enzymes going but since my koji is fresh I add the water later. When you add the Rice and water make sure to stir this up well and introduce plenty of oxygen into the must/wort.

Making Sake step 3-1.JPG

Making Sake step 3-2.JPG

Fermentation has really picked up here now. You should see bubbles rising up in the must/wort. The smell is really alcoholic with that sweet cheesy nutty smell from the fresh Kome-koji. Unlike with the Moto when we added the rice it pretty much soaked up all the liquid and became solid the next day. Going into the morning of day two you will notice the solids expanded but this will be very soupy still.

Here are pics of day 3 with the second addition of water and rice. Fermentation is getting violent now. Popping bubbles and when you stir in the rice you can hear the liquid degassing. As explained on page one we are doubling volume each time we add the ingrediants. This is no different then step feeding honey or sugar to mead/wines to push the yeast to their max.

Making Sake step 4-1.JPG

Making Sake step 4-2.JPG

Check out the Fly strip in the back. I think I got some apples the other day with fruit fly eggs on them because now I have fruit flys all around my brews. God I hate fruit flies lol.

Making Sake step 4-3.JPG

Oh no! I spilled some rice!!! Don't worry about this rice and make sure to throw it away. We do not want spilled rice in our Sake because you may get some unwanted bacteria which is a hard thing to stop with sake. So if you spill a small amount of rice then just throw it away and if you must then rinse, soak, steam & cool new rice.
 
I have been a bad thread host recently so I hope everyone can forgive. I have the last addition of rice Rinsed/washed/steamed and in the Jar. I topped off the jar with water leaving a little head space because the rice will expand a bit over night.

The Sake is now in full Moromi stage and is dancing like crazy in the jar. I have moved the Jar back outside on th walled in porch. I added a small heater out there so it should not get to below 50*F yet no hotter than 55*F. It will sit hear and slowly ferment over the next 3 weeks. Again I want to stress it is important that we have a cold slow ferment because Lactobacillus bacteria can easily ruin Sake. Also there are some byproducts from the aspergillus mold "Kome-Koji" that can cause sour/off flavors in warmer temps if left too long. So slow and cold is the way to go. Lets re-cap the whole process so I have a condensed step by step on one page:

Day one: Making Kome-Koji
Ingredients:
1 1/3 Cups short grain rice
1 1/2 tsp Koji Spores
1/2 tsp Bleached Flour
Rinse the Rice in strainer until water runs clear. Soak rice until Rice has expanded by 33% of it's original volume. Steam Rice for 30 - 45 minutes untill rice turns semi translucent and not pure white.
Cool Rice to room temp on a cold metal pan.
Mix Koji, Flour and then sprinkle evenly across the surface of rice. Mix well with hands.
Place Rice/Koji mixture in incubator that stays humid to 80% - 85% humidity and at 95*F.
10 -12 hours later mix the Rice

Day Two: Continuing to incubate Kome-Koji
10 - 12 hours after last mixing mix the ricce more and un-clump the now stuck together Rice.
10 - 12 hours later Mix Again.

Day Three: Continuing to incubate Kome-Koji & Start Sake Making (Moto)
10 - 12 hours after last mixing mix the Rice again and then seal in air tight Bag. Measure weight in Grams.
Multiply Weight in grams to .6666 & .13332 & .26664 & .53328. Each weight figure is equal to the 4 separate Kome-Koji addition steps so you can separate the amounts now or write down the figures and measure out at each addition.
Place Kome Koji in coldest part of fridge.

Sake ingredients:
1 1/3 cups Kome-koji dry weight or home made Kome-Koji as above
5 cups short grain Rice
8 cups Spring water or filtered Tap (Absolutely no RO water or Distilled Water)
1/8tsp DAP
Yeast Lalvin K1-V1116
Weigh out the Rice and Water and Multiply to the figures like we did with the wet Kome-Koji. Separate the amounts or write down to be measured out in future steps.
Rinse/Soak/Steam first addition of Rice as we did with the Kome-koji Rice.
Mix the First step of the Rice/Kome-Koji/Water/DAP all together and aerate a lot.
Let Sit at Room Temp for 48 hours.

Day Four: Motto (Starter step)
Mix twice today

Day Five: Motto (Starter step)
Mix very Well in the morning
After 48 hours prepare Yeast with 1/3 cup water, 1tsp honey or sugar, 1/16tsp yeast energizer for 1 - 2 hours.
Mix Yeast starter and the now liquefied Rice Mash & place under airlock
Cool the Moto down to 50*F - 60*F for 12 hours

Day Six: Moto (Starter step)
After 12 hour cool rest bring the Moto back to room temp as close to 70*F as possible & Let Rest Stirring Twice daily.

Day Seven: Moto (Starter step)
Stir Twice today morning and night

Day eight: Moto (Starter step)
Stir Twice today morning and night

Day nine: Moto (Starter step)
Stir once today morning or night

Day Ten: Moto (Starter step)
Stir once today morning or night

Day eleven: Moto (Starter step)
Stir once today morning or night

Day Twelve: Moromi (Main Fermentation)
Bring the must back to 70*F.
Add your 2nd figure of Kome-Koji to the must mixing well & then wait.

Day Thirteen: Moromi (Main Fermentation)
Prepare Rice as done before.
Add your 2nd figure of Rice and water to the must mixing well & then wait.

Day Fourteen: Moromi (Main Fermentation)
Add your 3rd figure of Kome-Koji to the must mixing well & then wait.

Day Fifteen: Moromi (Main Fermentation)
Prepare Rice as done before.
Add your 3rd figure of Rice and water to the must mixing well & then wait.

Day Sixteen: Moromi (Main Fermentation)
Add your 4th figure of Kome-Koji to the must mixing well & then wait.

Day Seventeen: Moromi (Main Fermentation)
Prepare Rice as done before.
Add your 4th figure of Rice and water to the must mixing well & then You want to cool the must down to as close to 50*F as possible. From here forward keep cold between 50*F - 55*F for the next 3 weeks.

Day Thirty-eight: Straining and clearing
Run the finished Sake through a cheese cloth to remove solids.
Add Bentonite and allow to clear.
Bottle and pasteurize after clear.
Pasteurize by bringing a pot of water up to 190*F and remove heat. Add bottles to hot water for 10 minutes. Allow to slowly cool.

That is it!... I think I got it all down. I am enjoying some newly bottled skeeter pee right now and hope I have not missed anything.

We will check out my finished product when fermentation is done and I go to clear it.
 
OK the day has come!

Now I have already strained and tucked away the finished sake for clearing. Here is how it went:

GEDC0305_800x600.jpg

Here we see what the Sake looks like when it is done. You will have a semi clear liquid floating on top of all the fermented rice. I could not help myself but I dipped a clean shot glass into the clearer liquid to get a sip of the brew to see if I kept it cool enough to fight off the sour and evil lactobacillus microbes.

OHHH MYYY!!!! There was a rush of floral rice character at first. Sake yeast gives hints of pear like esters but the Lalvin 1116 when fermented cool gives more floral esters and it shows. There was a hint of sour but not lacto sour but more like just tasting the yeast. then a very clean and crisp finish on the palate that ended cool but hot from alcohol. Wow this stuff has to be in the 20% ABV range.

Now I took a second wide mouth gallon bucket and cleaned it super well with a solution of camden tablet and some water. I also sterilized a cotton bag I use for straining. In the Sake and mush went into the bag. Make sure to take a sanitized spoon and get all you can that may be sticking to your original jar. I closed up and started to slowly squeeze the cotton bag and let the cloudy liquid pour out. as more and more liquid runs out I start to turn and twist the bag to add pressure to the rice lees. After about 10 minutes I have a hard lump in the bag and I have squeezed out 2.5 liters of liquid.

Here are some pics of what was left over in the bag:

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The stuff is like a dry cottage cheese. Looks nothing like rice any more. I am throwing this stuff in the fridge for now. There are lots of Japanese dishes that can be prepared from this stuff but I am going to attempt use some of this to make my own version of Jiuqu. As mentioned in the first post Jiuqu is a type of Chinese yeast/mold brick used in Chinese rice wine. That will be a whole new adventure detailed somewhere else.

Now I cleaned out the original jar and added just under one crushed camden tablet and a bit less than 1/2 tsp of potassium sorbate.

(With this step I am cheating. Usually you add no chemicals and if you want to preserve the Sake you pasteurize it. But since I do this for wines and meads anyways I don't think it terrible to do.)
 

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Looks great. Be sure to link back here if you start a thread for the jiuqu. I would love to follow that too, my rice wine is a little behind your sake. :)

Uh, what's the cardamom for?
 
Uh, what's the cardamom for?

Flavor and aroma. I first used Cardamom for brewing in a Pumpkin melomel and have loved it since. Just it little does the trick to accent the Sake. Cardamom is a spice originally from india i believe but was a common import to Japan which was used for many Sake inspired sea food dishes. But I have yet to find a commercial Sake with cardamom in it regardless of how well it works.
 
First of all, beautiful thread! Second I was wondering if you have ever tried using polished rice, like what is used in many high quality sakes. My one other question is do you have experience freezing the Komi and keeping a "stock" of it like yeast of maybe keeping it in the fridge to use for a next batch. So then you could use 1 batch worth of spores for two or more batches?
 
I sure have thought about using polshed rice. There are plenty out there but you know I never had used any before. The rice I do use is polished but not down to the 40% - 60% slow careful polished rice that super quality Sake has. Calrose or sushi rice makes a fine Sake so unless going to compatition with the stuff I never thought of spending the extra money.

Kome-Koji can freeze just fine. When you buy the stuff at the store it is often frozen. I would personally not have the Kome-Koji be frozen more than 6 months but hear that it can keep up to a year while frozen. While making this batch I kept my active Kome-Koji in the fridge to keep it fresh. I did not add this to the thread before but did notice that with the non-dehydrated or fresh home made Kome-Koji by the last addition of the stuff to the Sake the Kome-Koji was converting itself to sugar in the fridge and was starting to sludge up a bit. A small dip in with the finger to taste and it was like a faint cheese blended with a simple syrup with a little nutty character. Pretty weired but heh not bad.

So make as much of the Kome-Koji as you want and you can do a gallon batch each month if you like and only make the Kome-Koji 2 - 3 times a year.
 
Here is a couple pics of the final product prepared the way I like it. Heated to about 120*F in my Onyx tea pot with a tsp of my Mahara ja Chai Oolong tea from Teavna steeped for a minimum of 3 minutes after heating.

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Thanks for your response, and I have one more question: so I know it's tradition and a recipie, but what would the problem be with using less Koji every time for each addition. Since it is just a mold than wouldn't it be fine to use less and just give it more time?
 
No because the mold does not reproduce like yeast in the must. There is a specific amount of amalyse per amount of kome-koji and if it runs out then you will get a stalled ferment. You might be able to back off the kome-koji a bit but I would not since you don't want to run out of enzymes.
 
Just a suggestion but id ask a moderator to condense all of your relevant posts together in order at the beginning of the thread. Also, a basic run through of the absolute simplest way to make the sake would be great (for those that dont want to make everything from scratch).
 
Thanks for the writeup, Arpolis.

The process required of a sake-brewer makes it seem much more like an art than making beer or mead.
 
I prefer the taste of mead to Sake but I brew Sake for the art and fun of making it. I like old traditional methodes and I think Sake making is some of the oldest out there lack traditional show meads. Glad you like the writeup.
 
Erm, I can't seem to find any reference on this point. Should you refrigerate koji-kin? I just received a sake kit, but I don't plan on using it immediately.
 
Koji-kin does not need to be refrigerated as long as it is kept dry. As long as you use the stuff In a few months I would not worry.
 
Koji-kin does not need to be refrigerated as long as it is kept dry. As long as you use the stuff In a few months I would not worry.
Thanks. I doubt I'll get through the summer without starting a batch, or five...
 
I have tried twice now to make the Kome-Koji and this is the result. I have sanitized everything, so I thought. And insight to the error of my ways would be greatly appreciated. I am using a Styrofoam cooler, with a heating pad on a stone. I am able to keep the temp right at 95 F.

:confused:

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Yea that does not look like the right mold. It might be in your styrofoam. Styrofoam is porus and might be holding some mold. I am a fan of the traditional plastic cooler to use as my incubator. They are easier to clean.
 
I was so impressed with the rice wine thread (and results at home) that I decided to see if I could try my hand at Traditional Sake. It wasn't easy, but I managed to track down the ingredients for your recipe, Arpolis. Our city here in Jacksonville has more than a dozen Asian markets. After vainly searching through four of them, it dawned on me it might be best if I find one that specializes strictly in Japanese foods. One call later was all it took to confirm they carried Koji rice and several brands of Japanese Sake complete with a sweet/dry and acidic scale on each with tasting notes. When the owner, Tomoko, asked what I would be doing with it, she was very impressed that I was going to attempt to make Traditional Sake with it. As to the Koji rice, I decided I would go this route as our LHBC doesn't carry Koji spores, but they do carry several varieties of beer, mead and wine yeasts. I'll post updates when I begin tomorrow.
 
Glad you were able to track down the koji. What yeast do you think you will use? Are you able to get ahold of the Wyeast Sake yeast or going to try another cold tolerant or Lager yeast?
 
I do have some White Labs WLP800 pilsner yeast that I could use, but i'm thinking about getting some Lalvin 1116 from our LHBS. They have a pretty good selection of wine and mead yeasts. There's no option for Wyeast locally and i'd rather not have to order it in at this time of year, as our outdoor temperatures are already well over 90 degrees f.

White Labs also has the #7 and #9 strains available seasonally. Their #7 strain, interestingly enough, recommends a fermentation temperature in the 70's for sokujo moto method. Their #9 strain has a range from 62-68 or so which sounds closer to matching your method of cooling down the fermentation to reduce lactic acid production.

IDK, do you think a pilsner strain would work well with sake?
 
Never tried the pilsner strain myself. It will not taste like any commercial sake I am sure but may still be interesting. Even though the #9 strain says 62 - 68 it will work into the mid to high 40*F range for short spells. I said Wyeast earlier but meant the white labs strains. #9 strain is a popular one to use with my method. I liked the 1116 yeast I used in this thread. It had this nice smooth floral and kinda fruity character that was nice. Your choice on the yeast. I am just curious.
 
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