Beer brewing with Chinese yeast balls?

Ok, So I am still new to home brewing and after a few fairly successful wines I am looking into exploring the wonders of beer brewing. Recently I have browsed the basics of brewing two things Beer, and Rice wine. From my understanding Rice wine is not brought to the 150 degrees to get the starches converted into sugar, Instead there is a Chinese/Japanese "Yeast Ball" that contains molds and the yeast and it does all the work for you! The question is given some boiled grain could I substitute and make beer with less hassle and perhaps and very unique taste? Has anyone tried this?:fro: Well, I am just seeking some opinons as I am going to try this one once i get my hands on some of these yeast ball thingys

"Koji" is the term you're looking for. I can help you with that - not much more! There are some people who have made sake before, but never heard of anyone applying these techniques to making beer.

I was thinking of doing just the opposite - adding a small amount of pale malt to steamed rice in lieu of koji to try to make a kind of sake. sake is special in that the "mash" (saccharification) is taking place during the fermentation, so it is OK if it's a slow process.

I think you could probably use koji to convert the malt starches, but it wouldn't really be necessary, since the enzymatic action of the koji mold is already taken care of by the malt's enzymes... you could use unmalted grain and give it a shot, though. be prepared for a lot of experimentation and probably a few smelly failures.

If you try it out, let us know what happens.

I was actually looking for the Chinese Yeast Balls and found the "Koji" term I also found the term "Jiuqu" The Idea seems like it will work. Thank you for the speedy replies. I will definitely try to keep everyone posted, It should be a fun experiment once I find the Yeast balls or a source of active "Koji" to mix with some yeast and yeast nutrients to make my own facsimile of them.:rockin: I love Experiments

PintOfBitter said:

I was thinking of doing just the opposite - adding a small amount of pale malt to steamed rice in lieu of koji to try to make a kind of sake. sake is special in that the "mash" (saccharification) is taking place during the fermentation, so it is OK if it's a slow process.

I think you could probably use koji to convert the malt starches, but it wouldn't really be necessary, since the enzymatic action of the koji mold is already taken care of by the malt's enzymes... you could use unmalted grain and give it a shot, though. be prepared for a lot of experimentation and probably a few smelly failures.

If you try it out, let us know what happens.

Click to expand...

With some highly modified (6-row?) malts, this might be possible. Definitely interesting idea.

So, I did some more research and yes, the Koji will work with Barley. Apperently it is sometimes used to culture the mold. you can Wiki Aspergillus oryzae and you will see what I mean. From what I have read something similar is already made and sold, but as I said it similar but not the same. I guess what I will be making will be a mix between Huangjiu and Shōchū. the Huangjiu doesnt seem to have a barley version, while the Shōchū is distilled to make it stronger Well, Once everything arrives in the mail I will make this up and see what I can come up with.

Yes

The Koji-Kin finally Arrived! Unfortunately i already got antsy and started a 1 gallon batch of beer with the American 6 row I had bought

I was thinking about just going to the store and picking up some generic Barley and wheat and trying it. Has anyone done this? I guess it wouldn't work good for the mashing would it?

I am going to go for it anyway wish me luck!

if you get flaked grains it should work. you're following a sake-like fermentation process?

I actually bought some Pearled barley, I am hoping that it will be sufficient . I am following the traditional Sake brewing technique. I started the mold culture with a cup of white rice I then boiled the 1lb barley (about 2 cups) and added it. Right now it is starting to produce a milky brown liquid so i think it is working.

I am going to add more barley today, It does have a faint cheese smell which Aspergillus Oryzae is known for. I have not seen the white hairs yet, but as I said I am fairly certain it is working.

sounds cool. it should have a lot more up front flavor than sake! can't wait for an update.

Subscribed. Very curious how this turns out.
Do you also have to add yeast?

Yes, I did have to add yeast as i bought the Koji-kin mold spores separate.

As with the title of the post in china they supposedly sell BOTH Koji and yeast packaged into a single dry ball

Update: this did fail. I am not sure quite what went wrong but, it didnt produce anything palatable or that had any alcohol content that I can tell. Smelly oatmeal is right. I am going to try again I think that maybe i did not get the mold to culture right form the start.

WTF?!?! Check out this "Sponsored Link"... What kind of place do they think this is?

Did this ever go anywhere? I'm researching the chinese yeast balls myself, I've found some recipes for making rice wine and have one brewing/fermenting right now.

I'm brewing a gallon of high-gravity cider with a yeast ball right now. (3 quarts of apple juice and 3 cups of old crabapple jelly) It took several days to show any life, and I was afraid it wouldn't catch. The yeast seems to be doing just fine, and (I hope anyway) that I've starved the bacteria and other fungi so they won't contribute anything -- except maybe a malolactic fermentation because the crabapples were really sour. It's just starting to clear; maybe I can sample and bottle it in another week or two.

As I just posted in the traditional rice wine thread, someday I want to see how well YB does brewing beer, and maybe culture just the yeast. Haven't quite figured out the details yet... but that's okay, I have about a half a dozen other beers to brew first.

At last I found this!! I currently have about 5 pounds of farro steamed like rice with crushed yeast balls sitting in a fermenter. I just bought 6 # 6 row malt not cracked and will cereal mash it and add crushed yeast balls. I might add a regular beer yeast later or do that after in a side by side comparison. Currently my first rice wine takes about 5-7 days before the yeast kicks in.

The farro smells very different I just wish there was a lot easier way to calculate and target abv levels