sake ingrediants

so, my friends, I have begun an excursion into brewing sake, or probably more accurately rice wine. I have the kokji-kin (that funky mold that converts starch to sugar) but I am sol when it comes to finding a cheap source of good sake rice. The sams club nearby has long grain rice for $17 @ 50lbs. anyone know a similar price for medium or short grain rice?

 

You might find this info useful: http://www.taylor-madeak.org/index.php/2008/02/29/how-to-make-sake-at-home-a-taylor-made-g?page=4 Regards, GF.

 

Sake rice has been polished to remove the outer layers of the grains. The more that gets polished off, the better the sake. Unpolished rice might work, but I wouldn't try using it.

 

Do you really want to try using 50 pounds of rice for your first batch of sake? Good heavens, man, the moromi for that would take up 20 gallons of volume - and that's not even accounting for the foam!

Well anyway, your best bet for buying short grain rice in that kind of bulk will be whatever passes for your local Asian market or ethnic grocer. Any short or "medium" (which is really a short grain rice) grain rice will do. Contrary to what this guy says:

Plain old store-bought short grain white rice works just fine for making sake. Yes, the resulting sake is a bit harsher and has a grainy-ricey taste to it that you won't find in a fine ginjo sake, but I've become rather fond of that grainy flavor and the harshness ages out in just a couple months.

Everyone has their favorite brand, mine happens to be Kokuho Rose. If you can't find it, don't sweat it, even plain Calrose rice will do just fine.

 

That's a nice link there. I might try my hand some day. I haven't had a lot of Sake, and haven't been a big fan of a lot of what I had, but I did have a real nice Thai Sake at a Thai restaurant in the LA suburbs a couple years ago that was rather tasty. The restaurant owner told me Thai Sake is usually a bit sweeter and milder than Japanese Sake.

 

thanks, and no, I was not planning on making one large batch, the plan was to make many batches, and get the bulk discount. If perchance I didn't care for homemade sake, then I would just eat the rice.

 

No problem. If you have any other questions, you now know who to ask. =)

 

I am very interested in trying this. I love the Taylor Made site. The links are good too. Please keep us updated on your attempts. http://www.closetsake.com/

 

TM - I used to belong to an international sake club and I'm biased. When you get sake brewers from Japan flying out for events and they bring their "pride and joys" along...

 

Don't get me wrong, I love ginjo and daiginjo sake as much as any other educated sake lover. But regardless of bias, you wouldn't diss a professional brewer's non-ginjo (but also non-honjozo) sake made from 75% polished rice before you've actually tasted it, would you? Or how about an ultra-rare bottle of junmai akaisake?

My point is that judgment on homebrewed sake made from 90% polished dinner rice should likewise be reserved. Otherwise, you've gone beyond simply "biased" and have begun to move into snob territory.