Sake or Saki

[Boozehag]

I have my asian friend here who is tellnig me interesting stuff about Sake.

I thought I might try make some-

what do others think, anyone made some?
Winemaking Ingredients: Rice Wine (Saki) Wine Recipe - Wine Making Guides
1 lb / 450 grams crushed rice
1 lb / 450 grams minced or chopped sultanas
8 pints / 1 gallon water
2 lemons
Wine yeast and nutrient

Winemaking Method: Rice Wine (Saki) Wine Recipe - Wine Making Guides
Put the rice and sultanas into a bucket and pour on the boiling water. When cool and add the lemon juice and wine yeast and nutrient. Cover and leave for five days, stirring daily. Pour into a demijohn and fit an airlock and leave to ferment.

When fermentation has ceased, rack the wine into a clean jar and place in a cooler environment and leave for a further few months. Rack again if necessary and leave until the wine is clear and stable and then bottle.

 

[cpfan]

Coll:

I'm not really interested in trying to make sake, but I know that there are some sites on the web devoted to sake brewing. Here's one of them.

http://www.taylor-madeak.org/index.php/2008/02/29/how-to-make-sake-at-home-a-taylor-made-g

Steve

 

[kiljoy]

True sake requires koji mold. Anything else is just rice wine. Whick did you want to make?

http://www.thegrape.net/browse.cfm/2,1465.html

 

[Boozehag]

Thanks for those links. Didnt know about the koji mold, I think if Im gonig to make it I should make it properly so will see if I can buy that here.

If its not too complicated of course!

 

[Taylor-MadeAK]

If its not too complicated of course!

The traditional Japanese brewing method does appear to be very complicated at first glance, but don't let that scare you off! Once you realize that it's a clear and linear progression of steps, the art of brewing real saké at home suddenly becomes much simpler to your perception.

While I'm here, however, I have some comments on the recipe you posted:

Winemaking Ingredients: Rice Wine (Saki) Wine Recipe - Wine Making Guides
1 lb / 450 grams crushed rice
1 lb / 450 grams minced or chopped sultanas
8 pints / 1 gallon water
2 lemons
Wine yeast and nutrient

Winemaking Method: Rice Wine (Saki) Wine Recipe - Wine Making Guides
Put the rice and sultanas into a bucket and pour on the boiling water. When cool and add the lemon juice and wine yeast and nutrient. Cover and leave for five days, stirring daily. Pour into a demijohn and fit an airlock and leave to ferment.

I've seen variations of this before, and my first response is always the same: for quite a number of reasons, it just isn't saké. Almost all of your fermentables are contributed by the raisins (maybe a little from the lemons), which is what ferments. The rice starches - what little of them that get gelatinized by the brief boiling water soak - won't be fermented because:

True sake requires koji mold. Anything else is just rice wine.

Koji is the source for the amylolytic enzymes required to convert gelatinized rice starch into fermentable sugar. No koji, no saké. Without it, the starch either encourages wild yeast/bacteria infections (which is why lemon juice is called for - to lower the pH and retard that kind of activity) or just gets left behind when you rack the wine off the lees.

This recipe won't even make rice wine because the rice contributes no fermentables to the must/mash, therefore what you're really making is some kind of raisin wine.

I daresay it would probably result in a better tasting end product if you left out the rice altogether and cut back the lemon juice by half.

Coll:

I'm not really interested in trying to make sake, but I know that there are some sites on the web devoted to sake brewing. Here's one of them.

Thanks for the linkback!

I'm always available to answer questions, guys. There's an e-mail form on my web site, linked above in cpfan's post and below in my sig: please feel free to make use of it. I'll also be watching for e-mail notifications of replies to this thread.

 

[Boozehag]

Hey thanks for that amazing feedback. I personally feel that there is not much point in making Sake if I dotn make it properly so Im gonig to run with your advice.
To think I could have make raisin wine! I am off to visit my local home brew shop tomorrow so shall ask about the Koji and if they dont have it ,Ill send off for some.
Thank goodness I asked! Ill pop along to your site for a more comprhensive look later on today. Really appreciate your help and advice.

Collette

 

[smurfe]

Sake is pretty easy to make. Man brew shops have the inoculation kits for Sake. All you do is find the proper rice and in 2-4 weeks you have some Sake. Pretty good stuff.

 

[Taylor-MadeAK]

Hey thanks for that amazing feedback. I personally feel that there is not much point in making Sake if I dotn make it properly so Im gonig to run with your advice.
To think I could have make raisin wine! I am off to visit my local home brew shop tomorrow so shall ask about the Koji and if they dont have it ,Ill send off for some.
Thank goodness I asked! Ill pop along to your site for a more comprhensive look later on today. Really appreciate your help and advice.

Collette

Always happy to help!

Few homebrew shops sell koji in its prepared form (F.H. Steinbart Co. is the lone exception), but many stock the koji-kin spores marketed by Vision Brewing. Also, if there are grocery stores near where you live that cater to Japanese tastes, you may be able to find Cold Mountain Koji in the refrigerator next to the miso. Buying that for your first few batches of sake is a whole lot easier than diving right into trying to master incubating your own koji from scratch, so I heartily recommend buying the prepared koji if you can find it.

 

[arcticsid]

Taylor, just wondring if you are up here too! Please post your location under your profile. I am interested in the sake, but haven't had the time yet to explore your posts etc.
Troy

 

[Taylor-MadeAK]

Oops, my bad. Anchorage, Alaska.

I'll get the profile thing sorted out post haste.

 

[arcticsid]

Nice to have you on board, for a long time I was the only Alaskan in the whole place, glad to have a neighbor amongst us, still am looking forward to reading more about the sake. Can you find the koji in Anchorage, I was thinking New Sa***a( a large oriental grocer in Anchorage). I worked there several years ago, they seem to have all kinds of out of the ordinary stuff.

Troy

 

[Taylor-MadeAK]

Yeah, New Saga`ya's (I can't believe this forum filters the word "g a y" out of that name - come on, homosexuality or happiness is not profanity, no matter how the teenagers use the word! ) midtown store sells Cold Mountain Koji. You really have to know it's there in the fridge next the miso, however, because most of the employees have never even heard of the product.

 

[Boozehag]

No luck getting Koji in Hamilton, so will make a trip to Auckland soon and get some from there, theyre more multi-cultural there thank goodness! Cant wait to make sake...

 

[St Allie]

Is it something I can pick up and post Coll?

 

[Taylor-MadeAK]

Koji is perishable. It needs to be refrigerated, so consider an ice pack.

 

[smurfe]

Yeah, New Saga`ya's (I can't believe this forum filters the word "g a y" out of that name - come on, homosexuality or happiness is not profanity, no matter how the teenagers use the word!

That should be fixed.

 

[arcticsid]

Does koji have alchohol in it? Is it something they would ship up to me Taylor?
On a side note that is a great asian store, I worked in the seafood dept., we carried over 200 types of seafood. Miss all the fresh seaweed!

I too would love to give sake a try, I may call down there and see about shipping. Is this stuff in a bottle is it a powder, a liquid, etc.? Is it super expensive? How much do you use, how long is the shelf life on this?
Thanks for bringing your sake knowledge to the post.

Troy

 

[arcticsid]

I quess we can't talk about sassafrass and I won't beable to describe my truck as bitchin. LOL. What if my name was Gaylord?
Troy

 

[Taylor-MadeAK]

That should be fixed.

Thanks! I wasn't trying to make an issue out of it, but I always think it's silly to have a word filter on a forum intended to be populated entirely by adults over age 21 (or whatever the variable legal drinking age is in other countries).

Does koji have alchohol in it? Is it something they would ship up to me Taylor?
On a side note that is a great asian store, I worked in the seafood dept., we carried over 200 types of seafood. Miss all the fresh seaweed!

I too would love to give sake a try, I may call down there and see about shipping. Is this stuff in a bottle is it a powder, a liquid, etc.? Is it super expensive? How much do you use, how long is the shelf life on this?
Thanks for bringing your sake knowledge to the post.

Troy

No, koji doesn't contain any alcohol. New Sagaya stocks it because it's also used to make miso, amazaké, and soy sauce. It's just rice that's been incubated with mold spores until it's entirely covered in the fuzzy white mold. The product New Sagaya sells is "Cold Mountain Firm Granular Rice Koji," and it comes in 20 ounce tubs:

To turn ten pounds of rice into about three gallons of sake, you'll need two of those tubs of koji. Before shipping, it'll run you about $15.

For everyone's reference, my typical saké recipe looks like this:

10.00 lbs (4.54 kg)    	 Short grain white rice
40.00 oz  (1.13 kg)     Cold Mountain Rice Koji (2x 20 oz tubs)
 2.00 gal (7.60 l)      Cold water
 0.75 tsp (4.00 gm)     Brewer's yeast nutrient
 1.00 pn  (0.70 gm) 	 Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate - MgSO4)
 1.25 tsp (7.00 gm)     Morton Salt Substitute (potassium chloride - KCl)
 1.00 pack    	         WYeast Sake #9 Yeast

 

[WildSeedGrrrl]

I've been reading this thread and suddenly i have an urge to make Sake.