Want to try something a bit different

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Evilgrin

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I have a 200 gram bag of rice koji and a selection of wine yeasts. Im not going for a true sake. I wonder how much sweet rice the 200 gram bag of Koji will convert to sugar.

Do you grind the rice koji like you do with red yeast rice of just mix it with the cooked rice? I normally coarsely grind the RYR before mixing it with no additional water. Some Saki recipes ive seen appear to use water added at the same time the koji and rice are mixed.

Im also wondering if i should mix the koji and sweet rice first and give it a little time to work before adding the yeast with a little water.

Yeasts i have on hand include: 1118, 1116, Cote Des Blancs, and Motrachet. Probably a couple others im forgetting atm. The goal is for roughly a 14% or higher dry rice wine.

Im guessing some nutrient might also be needed when using wine yeasts?
 
Kome-Koji will convert about 4 times the rice by weight. 200g is about a cup right? So 4-5 cups of rice and I would add close to 8 cups of water to give you about a gallon batch. You can start by layering your steamed rice and Kome-Koji in thin layers. Let that sit for two days. In the mean time do an 8 cup starter with yeast nutrient and a little sugar. Pitch the starter after 48 hours.

That is an extremely simplified sake recipe and can work. But will be drastically different to what traditional sake will be like.

For yeast I find Lalvin K1v-1116 does an amazing job at fermenting rice wine. But try and keep the ferment cool. In the 60* or lower range if you can. Take an ice pack and attach it to the carboy with a towel after the fermentation start. Replace daily for a cheap way to keep a yeast cool.
 
Looking at the bag it should be more like 2 cups+. Its a dry koji. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004FH67ZQ/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
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Thank you. My best guess was about 4-5 cups of rice. I still have enough time to ferment cool in the basement. This will be used mostly for cooking. A small bottle of good mirin (sweet sake) runs a little over $7 so i wanted to give this a shot. I can back sweeten if needed with rice syrup.

I will probably use the rice syrup for the starter too.

Now to the rice selection.

I have sweet rice (not Thai long grain), Milky Queen (short grain and sweet rice hybrid) and Japanese variety short grain (koshihikari). I really hate using my Koshihikari for wines because of cost and its my favorite to eat. IIRC it is also a parent variety used in sake production though.

Im leaning towards the Milky Queen aka SnowFlake.
 
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When I make sake I use 1 1/3 cup Koji to 5 cups rice. But I make my Koji fresh and so probably why my 200g is about a cup and yours is about 2 cups.

Milky queen rice should be great. Cold fermented 1116 enhances a lot of the floral aspects of the rice. Less fruity tones like sake yeast. And no butterscotch flavors like in some sake.
 
So layer the koji and cooked rice with no additional water until adding the 8 cup starter?

FermaidK ok for nutrient? Its all i have on hand atm.

If this works out i may try a ginger infused rice wine too. I normally have fresh ginger and crystallized ginger on hand all the time too.
 
Now that I think about it. If your Koji is dry then you may need to rehydrate it. Give it an hour at room temp in just enough water to cover it. Then later it.

Fermaidk isn't fine for nutrients. You don't need much. Like 1/8th to 1/2 tsp worth of nutrients.
 
Ran into a small snag. Im out of 1116

I have 1118, Cote Des Blancs, 71B, Safcider and Motrachet...Im tempted to try Cote Des Blancs unless you think 1118 is a better choice.
 
Ran into a small snag. Im out of 1116

I have 1118, Cote Des Blancs, 71B, Safcider and Motrachet...Im tempted to try Cote Des Blancs unless you think 1118 is a better choice.

Sorry I have been busy with bee keeping recently. It is swarm season here. Never tried any of those but I think Côte des Blanca would do alright. I personally ally would not choose 1118. I think it has too little character for a rice wine. But if you do a stepped feeding like in real sake the. I bet you can get some pretty damn high alcohol out of 1118.
 
I ended up using the 1118 because i wanted it to start fermenting fast. Plus 1118 is fairly cold tolerant. Most of it fit in a gallon wide mouth jar. I lined it with a sterilized filter bag first. The rest went in a 2qt mason jar with an air lock. There is enough room in the mason jar for a small rice addition.

Its currently bubbling away pretty good. Roughly 1 burp every 4 seconds.

Ive got some Angel rice leaven too. I will try it with the Cote Des Blancs and normal sweet rice.
 
It's been 6 weeks and my ARL still hasn't arrived yet. I ordered it from China, so who knows when it'll arrive.
 
Tried a small sample from the 1 gallon container and filter bag. Man is this stuff going to have a kick to it. The container has a spout near the bottom and the liquid is semi clear. Its still a little sweet but that is to be expected after only about 6 days.

First day or so was at basement room temps and then it all went in a cooler with a frozen 1 liter bottle. It seems to be enough to keep it cold for about 16 hours before i need to replace the bottle.

Notes: i like the way this filter bag is working out. As the liquid collects the bag starts to float above the spout making wine easy to harvest without the need to squeeze the bag. The spout is not all the way at the bottom so even if i drained it, the bag will either block the spout or you simply cant get what is below the spout.

It makes me wonder if there would be any advantage to draining it occasionally and letting the semi clear liquid continue fermenting in a secondary? My 2qt mason jars with air lock lids would be ideal for this.
 
Getting close to racking and i think i like this cold fermentation. A small beverage or wine refrigerator is now high on my list of wants. I will have close to a gallon of rice wine since i did a small addition of rice. The 2 cold fermented mason jars are noticeably lighter in color than the 500ml i have at room temp. The room temp one was a partial racking with just a little lees/sediment in the bottom. It started out fermenting cold also.

This experiment has been only slightly more labor intensive and only because im using a cooler with a frozen one liter bottle to keep it cool.

Since koji is so expensive im going to need to repeat this experiment with ARL and probably KV-1116 or a cold tolerant white wine yeast. I wont add additional water to the next batch until i rack it off and try to get it to ferment out dry.
 
And it turned out fairly nice. I was hoping for a bit less color but it is what it is.
KojiWine2_zpsmq4badgy.jpg
 
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