Good afternoon,
I followed the rabbithole of rice wine brewing on the forums (yeast ball to Arpolis sake guide), and came up with some science side/technical questions.
1. A very well respected sake person said koji innoculated rice should be kept at 97F+ to promote sugar production rather than amino acid, most yeast ball recipes say less than 90 is essential. I've found other sources that say 85 is the ideal temp because it's in the yeast golden zone and mold golden zone which is ideal for parallel fermentation. What is your opinion on temperature? Keep it at 85 the entire time, start it high for koji-rice breakdown then lower it for yeast fermentation?
2. Before I started my first batch I looked into why people used polished and short grain rice vs long grain fragrant rices (thinking fragrance would add bouquet to the finished product). Apparently the more polishing, and shorter the grain the higher the starch content which got me looking at starch contents in general of grains/staple foods. Since I have a local southeast asian market I threw some Boba in my "rice wine" and they were actually sachharified far quicker than the rice. Do you think this speed saccharification would make an inferior beverage? If you used a sake formula with boba instead of rice, what difference in flavor can I expect? (Tapioca has higher base starch and base amylopectin than any rice regardless of polishing.)
3. In all recipes for rice wine and sake production, the recipe says steam the rice, innoculate with dry koji/mold by working it into the cooked, but cool rice. Is there a reason making a koji suspension in liquid is not preferred to using the dry koji? Dry yeast is normally activated with warm water before adding to a brew, why not with mold? It seems like liquid suspension would cause more even coating of the rice.
4. I read about other species of mold being better at sugar extraction from starch (rhizopus specifically), have you ever tried using other molds for sugar extraction from starches?
5. In sake recipes you inoculate cooled steamed rice with spores, work it in then add to a pot. To this you add yeast. Then you add molded rice wait a day, add yeast, and repeat 4 cycles after the first one. I'm guessing this slows down the fermentation process. What would be the difference tastewise in the traditional method vs converting your entire mass of rice/koji into "sugar water" then adding the yeast to that slurry?
Thanks for your time, if you only have time to answer 1 question I think #3 is probably my most befuddling.
I followed the rabbithole of rice wine brewing on the forums (yeast ball to Arpolis sake guide), and came up with some science side/technical questions.
1. A very well respected sake person said koji innoculated rice should be kept at 97F+ to promote sugar production rather than amino acid, most yeast ball recipes say less than 90 is essential. I've found other sources that say 85 is the ideal temp because it's in the yeast golden zone and mold golden zone which is ideal for parallel fermentation. What is your opinion on temperature? Keep it at 85 the entire time, start it high for koji-rice breakdown then lower it for yeast fermentation?
2. Before I started my first batch I looked into why people used polished and short grain rice vs long grain fragrant rices (thinking fragrance would add bouquet to the finished product). Apparently the more polishing, and shorter the grain the higher the starch content which got me looking at starch contents in general of grains/staple foods. Since I have a local southeast asian market I threw some Boba in my "rice wine" and they were actually sachharified far quicker than the rice. Do you think this speed saccharification would make an inferior beverage? If you used a sake formula with boba instead of rice, what difference in flavor can I expect? (Tapioca has higher base starch and base amylopectin than any rice regardless of polishing.)
3. In all recipes for rice wine and sake production, the recipe says steam the rice, innoculate with dry koji/mold by working it into the cooked, but cool rice. Is there a reason making a koji suspension in liquid is not preferred to using the dry koji? Dry yeast is normally activated with warm water before adding to a brew, why not with mold? It seems like liquid suspension would cause more even coating of the rice.
4. I read about other species of mold being better at sugar extraction from starch (rhizopus specifically), have you ever tried using other molds for sugar extraction from starches?
5. In sake recipes you inoculate cooled steamed rice with spores, work it in then add to a pot. To this you add yeast. Then you add molded rice wait a day, add yeast, and repeat 4 cycles after the first one. I'm guessing this slows down the fermentation process. What would be the difference tastewise in the traditional method vs converting your entire mass of rice/koji into "sugar water" then adding the yeast to that slurry?
Thanks for your time, if you only have time to answer 1 question I think #3 is probably my most befuddling.
