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loveofrose

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Scientist’s Sake

This is a draft for what I plan to do. I am asking you with sake experience to tell me how to improve this. Thanks in advanced!

Technically, this is something different from sake. Historically, sake use a type of fungus (Koji ) to convert starch to sugar, then yeast are used to convert sugar to alcohol. Here, I’ve used science to avoid adding Koji to convert rice starch into sugar. Instead, I’m adding purified alpha amylase to perform this conversion much like the mash for beer brewing. The result is much easier and more consistent than the finicky Koji cultivation.

Sake has been flavored with fruit for a long time, so why not honey? It’s a logical progression in my thought process. In addition, it will add a bit more character to the brew. As a bonus, using honey cuts the amount of rice we need by half. A unique brew with half the work!

Sake BOMM

1. Cook 1.5 pounds (3.75 cups) rice with 5.62 cups water until soft. For a colorful red sake, use half red glutinous rice.
2. Add enough cold water to make a very thick soup. Check pH. Adjust to 5.5 with lactic acid if necessary. A pH of 5.5 is optimal for alpha amylase enzyme.
3. Bring temperature to 152 F. This is the optimal temperature for alpha amylase enzyme. Too hot denatures the enzyme. Better to go 5 degrees lower if your temperature control is poor.
4. Kill heat and add 3 grams amylase (2 grams per lb of rice).
5. Cover and allow starch conversion for 1 hour.
6. Perform iodine starch conversion test. If fully converted, continue. If not fully converted, allow to mash until a positive test is achieved.
7. Cool to less than 100 F.
8. Add 1.5 lb of honey. Varietal honey will have a profound effect on the outcome, so choose wisely. Clover or orange blossom is solid, but some dark honeys could yield interesting results.
9. Add 0.4 tsp Fermaid K and 0.8 tsp Fermaid O. Only upfront addition needed. Rice has lots of nutrients.
10. Add 2 drops Fermcap S.
11. Pitch an activated smack pack of Wyeast 1388 once the rice and yeast temperature are equal.
12. Ferment for 3-4 weeks with daily stirring the first week.
13. Hydrometers are useless here, so wait until it tastes good and not too sweet.
14. Refrigerate overnight. (Why? Oxygen is the enemy because it leads to chemical reactions. Filtering and racking introduces a lot of oxygen. However, chemical reactions occur much slower at cold temperatures. Cold filtering is just an added protection from oxidation).
15. Strain through cheesecloth and a metal strainer into a new carboy. Place back in the refrigerator.
16. Optional: Add a small cedar plank. This is to simulate a taru style sake. Taste first to determine if this would clash with your honey choice. Taste daily until the proper amount is achieved, then remove the plank. This is usually 3-5 days in the refrigerator.
17. Airlock it and allow to clear.
18. Bottle.

Specs (lots of guesswork here)
SG 1.148?
FG 1.020?
ABV 16%?


Rice Gravity Math

1 cup honey is 0.75 lbs
1 Tbsp honey = 64 calories
-1 cup honey has 12x or 768
-1020 calories per pound
-1 lb honey per gallon adds 40 points
-1 point is 25.5 calories

1 cup uncooked rice is 0.4 lbs.
1 cup cooked rice = 242 calories
-1 cup uncooked rice has 2.5x or 605
-1512 calories per pound (uncooked)
-1 lb adds 59 points per gallon
 
Love this idea. Is this still a thought experiment, loveofrose, or have you tried this already? if so, how did it tun out? On a practical note: how much sake are you hoping to bottle? In other words, how much liquid are you fermenting after you have added that quantity of water to the rice mash?
 
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Still a thought experiment. I’ve worked out alpha amylase with my other brews. I’m just inexperienced with how rice turns to liquid. It could be that alpha amylase is not sufficient to break down rice.

I’m trying it either way, but I thought it wise to ask the hive mind first for tips.
 
Please do, I’ve read over the rice wine thread and was very curious and tempted to try it myself. But I haven’t gone shopping for yeast balls yet. I have a brew shop down the street that I could prob get the enzymes from and try to BOMM this as well lol. Although, I though with the use of enzyme, you could just collect the converted “juice” and use that as a base. Take a gravity reading from that. However, then the rice itself won’t be sitting in the brew.
 
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I’ve been going back and forth a bit and searching the rice wine thread, but I can’t find the thread I was thinking about. I swear I saw where someone used enzyme, Had the same liquidation effect on the rice, collected the fluids and pitched the yeast to it. That way there’s no fungus involved. Now I’m just seeing ARL doing that and either getting fermentation that way or adding yeast to that mix.
 
I have no experience with sake, but since you mention oxidation, and then say to strain through a cheesecloth to secondary, that step right there will pick up a lot of oxygen.
 
He also said that colder temps help hinder the oxidation, so cold crash and chill overnight first.
 
He also said that colder temps help hinder the oxidation, so cold crash and chill overnight first.
It stalls oxidative flavors, if the oxygen is already in it. But that there was my point, OP tries to hinder oxidation, but still going to run it through a strainer/cheesecloth. That procedure will pick up a lot of oxygen unless doing it submerged.
 
This is not about "smarts"- some folk have more experience in wine making than others so they may see concerns that those of us who are more novitiate don't. Doesn't make anyone more or less "smart". Just means that experts tend to see through noise that novices treat as potentially meaningful and novices tend to treat as incidental what experts view as critical.
 

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