A,R,L for sake/saki

[DarrenUK]

Quick question.... Has anyone used Angel Rice Leaven for there Sake?

I read a few posts on other forums saying you still need to add yeast.
On YouTube videos they say the the rice flour ingredient had a wild yeast strain so you don't need to add yeast.

Before anyone bangs on about fungi and enzymes.... I know all that. I just would like to know if anyone on here had any success with ARL.

Or if I should just give it a go and post my findings.

 

[Rice_Guy]

I would add yeast mainly to control for clean flavor.
I have never thought of koji as a source for yeast, but then what I have didn’t come from Japan.

 

[DarrenUK]

As far as I'm aware it's the rice flour they add that is supposed to have wild yeast, but in all honesty I just don't know. Koji obviously just breaks down the starch's. But it's the yeast issue thats confusing me.
I might just do one without yeast and one with to see what happens but I was crossing my fingers that someone already tried it on here. Opinion seems pretty split online so far in regards to ARL

 

[jburtner]

There are various "Angel products" so it depends on which one. Try it and see. For Saki I culture my own koji and use a sake yeast or experiment with different yeasts as well as lacto bacteria for some acidity.

Cheers!
-johann

 

[DarrenUK]

OK cool. Thanks guys. I will just do 2 small runs and see what happens. At least 1 will work so not massive loss.

 

[Rice_Guy]

not an opinion , our specification from the Arkansas mill ,, HUMM?
As a US supplier of long grain and medium grain and parboiled and pregelatinized rice flour we do our best to have a level of zero yeast and mold per kilo sample tested. The US process is substantially dry milling, a little humidity collects in the bag house etc contributing mainly mold spores. There is no fermentable sugar in the flour so koji is the practical way ferment it/ grow a yeast in it. The mill in Belgium also is a dry milling operation.
If you are sourcing imported rice flour it is usually wet milled and has higher Y&M count, ,,, mostly mold again.
HUMM ,,,, if you have dirty equipment you could have a possible yeast source.

As far as I'm aware it's the rice flour they add that is supposed to have wild yeast, but in all honesty I just don't know. Koji obviously just breaks down the starch's. But it's the yeast issue thats confusing me.
I might just do one without yeast and one with to see what happens but I was crossing my fingers that someone already tried it on here. Opinion seems pretty split online so far in regards to ARL

 

[DarrenUK]

not an opinion , our specification from the Arkansas mill ,, HUMM?
As a US supplier of long grain and medium grain and parboiled and pregelatinized rice flour we do our best to have a level of zero yeast and mold per kilo sample tested. The US process is substantially dry milling, a little humidity collects in the bag house etc contributing mainly mold spores. There is no fermentable sugar in the flour so koji is the practical way ferment it/ grow a yeast in it. The mill in Belgium also is a dry milling operation.
If you are sourcing imported rice flour it is usually wet milled and has higher Y&M count, ,,, mostly mold again.
HUMM ,,,, if you have dirty equipment you could have a possible yeast source.

No. I'm not importing rice flour.... Its literally an ingredient on the packet of ARL. Ingredients are Koji fungi enzyme and rice flour. On a YouTube video I watched they said there was a wild yeast init but if that's the case it definitely doesn't say it on the packet. The translation is terrible anyway.... As far as rice England has short grain aromatic everywhere and I'm really lucky I have an Asian shop that sell some sake specific rice. Apparently there's 100 or so strains that are just for saki. She has 2 types and I'm not even sure it is what she's says it is but it's there if I want it.

 

[Rice_Guy]

* England is an importer of rice. There is no domestic rice production.
* there are many neat varieties of rice for specialized products, the saki varieties have an extremely high conversion to sugar syrup. Other than the yield issue, one could use any high amylopectin low gelatinization variety. In the world trade short grain varieties indicate high amylopectin.
* a wet milled flour has a significant percentage of free starch granules so it will have enzyme activity on the starch. The dry milled flours we make in Belgium or Spain have clumps of cells with a top size of fifty mesh, ,,, ie it is not a good feed stock. The flours produced in Asia are better. The typical flour has a moisture of about 12% which is a stressor on yeast cells.
* the EU food labels are similar to the US labels, ,,,, if there is an added yeast it has to be on the label, ,,, wild yeast contamination would be permitted without being listed but the results would be a crap shoot.
* in a wine fermentation a large population of yeast are put in to start the fermentation before an infection is possible. Yes traditional saki, ,,, (1800 process,) did not inoculate the rice syrup with yeast but relied on contamination with a good strain of yeast from equipment which was used in prior batches.

No. I'm not importing rice flour.... Its literally an ingredient on the packet of ARL. Ingredients are Koji fungi enzyme and rice flour. On a YouTube video I watched they said there was a wild yeast init but if that's the case it definitely doesn't say it on the packet. The translation is terrible anyway.... As far as rice England has short grain aromatic everywhere and I'm really lucky I have an Asian shop that sell some sake specific rice. Apparently there's 100 or so strains that are just for saki. She has 2 types and I'm not even sure it is what she's says it is but it's there if I want it.

you are setting up a good experiment

 

[Khristyjeff]

@DarrenUK could you have any, more targeted question to a WMT member, than a rice question to a food industry guy going by the name of @Rice_Guy? I think not.
By the way, is Rice Wine an enjoyable drinkable wine, or just best used for cooking? The only thing available in my area has salt added and strictly for cooking. Thanks.

 

[DarrenUK]

* England is an importer of rice. There is no domestic rice production.
* there are many neat varieties of rice for specialized products, the saki varieties have an extremely high conversion to sugar syrup. Other than the yield issue, one could use any high amylopectin low gelatinization variety. In the world trade short grain varieties indicate high amylopectin.
* a wet milled flour has a significant percentage of free starch granules so it will have enzyme activity on the starch. The dry milled flours we make in Belgium or Spain have clumps of cells with a top size of fifty mesh, ,,, ie it is not a good feed stock. The flours produced in Asia are better. The typical flour has a moisture of about 12% which is a stressor on yeast cells.
* the EU food labels are similar to the US labels, ,,,, if there is an added yeast it has to be on the label, ,,, wild yeast contamination would be permitted without being listed but the results would be a crap shoot.
* in a wine fermentation a large population of yeast are put in to start the fermentation before an infection is possible. Yes traditional saki, ,,, (1800 process,) did not inoculate the rice syrup with yeast but relied on contamination with a good strain of yeast from equipment which was used in prior batches.


you are setting up a good experiment

I think we are misunderstanding each other or I'm not understanding. Obviously I'm well aware the UK doesn't grow rice. Was just saying I have access to what I need.

That being said. I need my morning coffee and read back over what you said. I'm sure. The answer is in there somewhere and I just breezed over it.

 

[DarrenUK]

OK.... I'm with you now.
That took some unpacking.

So I'm going to add yeast to a main batch and do a small one on the side without any yeast added and see what happens.

 

[DarrenUK]

Since I have your attention and you clearly know more about rice than I could ever know.

Would you or could you add something to table grade rice to bring it in line with saki specific rice?

 

[DarrenUK]

@DarrenUK could you have any, more targeted question to a WMT member, than a rice question to a food industry guy going by the name of @Rice_Guy? I think not.
By the way, is Rice Wine an enjoyable drinkable wine, or just best used for cooking? The only thing available in my area has salt added and strictly for cooking. Thanks.

Cooking sake /rice wine is the equivalent of grape cooking wine.
Drinking grade sake is a really complex drink as complex as grape wines are. The variety of rice and mothods are so vast that the varieties of sake are endless. You can get a premium sake online easily enough. I really enjoy sake but I have had some awful bottles too.

Shochu is well worth giving a go too. Equally as interesting as sake but for some reason it's not really made its way to England.

 

[Rice_Guy]

Much if the table rice in England comes from the US and is mixed long grain (medium amylose) varieties. Tilda basmati, ,,, the dry cooking good stuff, ,,, is an aged high amylose scented type and scented jasmine is someplace in between. The starch in these are resistant to water/ break down. Pullulanase enzyme is needed to break the long amylose starch chains into usable units so that amylase enzyme can cut it into fermentable hexose units.
It would be interesting to make a basmati or jasmine flavored saki.

could you add something to table grade rice to bring it in line with saki specific rice?

 

[DarrenUK]

Much if the table rice in England comes from the US and is mixed long grain (medium amylose) varieties. Tilda basmati, ,,, the dry cooking good stuff, ,,, is an aged high amylose scented type and scented jasmine is someplace in between. The starch in these are resistant to water/ break down. Pullulanase enzyme is needed to break the long amylose starch chains into usable units so that amylase enzyme can cut it into fermentable hexose units.
It would be interesting to make a basmati or jasmine flavored saki.

I can do that... I got jasmine and basmati sitting around. What you thinking.... 70%Jas—30%Bas?

 

[Rice_Guy]

I can do that... I got jasmine and basmati sitting around. What you thinking.... 70%Jas—30%Bas?

Pullulanase is hard to come by. Yes do it but expect a lower conversion than the high amylose commercial flour.

To wet mill in small scale I would take a spray bottle of water give it a spurt or three mix and then let it sit half an hour, ,, repeat, ,, repeat for about twelve hours. (the goal is to shift from 11% to 17 or 18% moisture/ it will look chalky) run the wet grains through a coffee grinder or a Wharing blender to make a powder, ,,, batches of about 100 gm, ,, till all is processed. The flour can be dried in a cookie sheet to make a shelf stable flour or used immediately.

I sin, I play with the food a lot, ,,, but then I got paid to do it.

 

[DarrenUK]

OK so experiment started.
I used a mix of 400g jasmine and 150g basmati.
Rinsed and then Soaked for an hour and placed in the steamer.
Steamed for 30 minutes....... Not cooked
A further 30 minutes..... Hot but dry.

So thing wasn't right and I'm sure rice man will add to this so we all can get this right in the future. But all is not lost I dumped the hot rice into the boiling water, turned the heat off and let it do its thing for 30 minutes-ish until the rice was sticky and fluffy.
Already the strict experiment I hoped for had failed so knowing that I added 2 packets of ARL to the cooled rice since 1 packet didn't seem enough. It dose state on the packet that it should be enough for 2.5kg. But the good old Chinese to English translation failed to mention if that's dry waight or cooked.
Anyway.... I put a small amount in a small lunchbox.
Added yeast to the rest and stuck it all in a larger one.

Done.

Will most likely put both box's in a bucket with an airlock but for now it's ok. I might put them in the fridge as suggested by a YouTube video but I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not.
Instinct tells me to not put it in a fridge but will see how it go's



Ohh and yeah the yeast is a year and a half out of date. Just incase you spot that in the picture. I should think it will be OK.
Waist not, Want not.

 

[jburtner]

I made some saki with jasmine and koji spores i picked up at the LHBS. Now I buy different kinds of koji and experiment with different rices too. A lactic culture can help with acidity and a cool ferment is generally preferred so I make sake in the winter. Rice wine vinegar too and it’s nice and mild.
Following!

cheers,
Johann

 

[Rice_Guy]

The Asian cooking I have seen does more uniformity than the US would bother with. To get the puff rate and lack of chewy bits a rice cracker will soak a high amylopectin rice in ambient water over night, ,,, 12 to 16 hours with an end point 32% moisture. Our parboil process in Arkansas tries to speed it up by running two degrees under gelatinization temp/ 15 psig pressure, for six hours with a 30% finished moisture then going to a 10 pound steam pressure cooker.We run about 20% of the core as still dry/ raw starch.

KEY:
* starch will not cook if it is dry, the Japanese cooking plants hydrate till the centers are moist
* starch in excess water will form pudding when heated above gelatinization temp, ,,, pudding is hard to run through a factory process
* the key to have what Japanese call “it tastes good” is to hydrate the center before applying heat and then use only enough water to cook the starch
* most starches will gelatinize at 50% moisture and 100C
* gelatinized starches will break down to sugars with amylase and pullulanase, these enzymes exist in koji
* pullulanase is added to low calorie beers to increase the conversion to sugar and reduce the residual unfermented dextrins, normal beers/ lagers ignore this since it is part of body
* in the US market Bush beer is made with rice in the wort
* running alkaline will lower the gelatinization temp, see nixtamil as in tortillas

From where you are now, if you can squash grains and show a white chalky center, that portion is not gelatinized. It wouldn’t hurt to look at this as a high solids/ fermentable starch beer in concept. With the tools I have I would have retorted the mash after you dumped it into water (home pressure cooker) to make sure the starches turned into a glass form.

Interesting

 

[DarrenUK]

So a few days in and both containers are doing a fare bit.

The small one without added yeast is swimming in a starchy liquid that smells similar to playdoe, there isn't any sweet smell from it but I appreciate its only been two day.

Lager container that had yeast added is completely different. Resembles a watery rice pudding. The rice has mostly disinterested into a mush and bubbles or pockets of air are trying to rise. This one smells like alcohol.

I would say its extremely clear that the larger container with added yeast definitely has access to sugar converted from the rice. I would like to think the rice without added yeast is extracting sugar simply because the other container is. But obviously if there is any wild yeast or something of that nature in A,R,L it definitely not apparent after only a few days.

In the videos I have seen they have left the rice for upto 4 weeks. I will leave the un-yeasted one for the full 4 weeks but I would be surprised if the yeast in the other container hasn't converted all the suger by weekend after next.