Sake?

[Kyral210]

Has anyone experience brewing sake? Do you have any advice or a recipe?

 

[johncrobinson]

Yes i have years and years ago

To get it right you need the fungus called koji.My homebrew shop ordered it in for me

You will find lots of recipies for rice wine on the net but these are not saki.
( And taste NOTHING like it.)

If you get it right,Its very alcoholic and to be honest a bit of an aquired taste.

There are or at least used to be (20yrs ago) sites on the interwebs giving detailed instructions
I found it nice when made with basmati rice which was readily availible in east London.

 

[Kyral210]

I have the right kind of rice because we go to the Chinese supermarkets a lot; Pearl rice. I think I have the right yeast, balls that break down into a powder.

 

[johncrobinson]

Yes you will find a lot of stuff about grinding rice down to a tiny kernel for the best saki

I never bothered though.

One thing i did do was on buisiness trips to the far east was visit saki bars so i could have a good reference to my own efforts.

Out of intrest due to the slow way the koji produces sugars its recconed even ale yeast could get to around 20% abv

I allways used ec1118 which (on a good day) can do that anyway.

 

[johncrobinson]

Its not strictly traditional But i did find basmati rice produced a nice drop.
A nice kind of slightly nutty flavour.
Boy oh boy you are really waking up old memorys now

 

[johncrobinson]

One other thing visiting these bars, I remember was the god like addmiration and high regard shown to me as a scientist and technologist.
I was embaresed to tell the truth.
Very very very VERY different to my social status in the UK.

 

[MZonard]

Has anyone experience brewing sake? Do you have any advice or a recipe?

I've been given a book 'Brewing Saki' with a challenge to produce some. Not that I like the stuff... but I'm prepared to give it a go. Did you make any progress?

 

[MZonard]

Making Sake - Brew Your Own - just seen this. It looks a bit daunting, especially the temperature control. But AG brewing looked daunting too...

 

[obscure]

Would be curious how easy it would be to get hold of koji, I have had both really nice (and frankly some pretty terrible) Saki over the years so would be tempted to try brewing it to see if I could get something half way decent.

I had kind of assumed you would need to get specialist rice, so the comment from @johncrobinson about getting decent results with basmati rice means I would be tempted to try making a one gallon batch just to see how it goes (and if it’s a disaster it’s only a few kilos of rice).

 

[MZonard]

Tsurumiso Dried Rice Koji 500g
Is this what we need?
But I've also found this Sake - Koji Kin Home Brewing Kit

 

[LED_ZEP]

This was something I thought about doing a year or two back.
After reading up I decided I was too lazy to go through all the faff for something I don't really like.
The Koji is easy enough to get online (it's a mixture of fungi and bacteria if I remember correctly, as opposed to yeast). You can make a rice wine with amylase to convert the starch to sugar instead of the fungi and (as suggested above) a yeast like EC1118 but it's not the same thing.

I can't remember the names of them now but most of the S.E. Asian countries have a version of this drink (Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam etc.) and I found reading up on these gave much better information on the subtleties of the methods used to make the drink. It's basically the equivalent of potato vodka in eastern Europe and Russia, people will make an alcoholic drink from whatever sugar or starch source the have in abundance. Sometimes though the end result does not live up to the mythical status it's given.

 

[obscure]

Tsurumiso Dried Rice Koji 500g
Is this what we need?
But I've also found this Sake - Koji Kin Home Brewing Kit

I‘ve decided to give the Koji Kin one a go, might be an absolute disaster but not a huge expense and could be an enjoyable way to spend a Saturday.

 

[johncrobinson]

Yup the koji culture i bought was akin to a pack of dried yeast in size and appearance it was sprinkled over the rice (cooked and washed) in a covered tray and allowed to develop.
Before being added to the fermentation bucket.
Not ALL the rice used needs to be so treated,Similar to brewing with malt there is enough left over enzyme to convert untreated rice.

One of the reasons saki can be so strong is that the sugars are formed in parallel with the fermentation,This means the yeast are not stressed by high sugar levels at the start of fermentation.(Similar to the sugar feeding technique in wine making) Saki will often ferment to 20% plus.

You do need a lot of rice though,Unlike rice wine where the sugar is added as normal granulated.

You also need to add acid especially in hard water districts.This is very important to avoid your saki smelling and tasting like glue.!!!!!
Also yeast nutrient for best results. I used Tronomyzol.
Pure koji does NOT contain the yeast. Some use lager yeast i used champagne yeast.

 

[obscure]

Thanks @johncrobinson planing to try making a gallon of, have ordered citric acid, yeast (a wine yeast which was the suggested on the site I’m getting the koji from) and I have yeast nutrient from the last time I made Mead. As for rice planning to use basmati as easy enough to add it to my Tesco order.

I’ve also read that it is best fermented fairly cool (and traditionally made in the winter) so now seems the perfect time to give it a go.

 

[johncrobinson]

Looks like you are good to go .

One point though, You say you are making a gallon,I am wondering if you are planning to use a demijohn ????
If so it might not be ideal,As the rice is VERY bulky,I used a 5 gal bucket filled up all the finished product i got would only fill two demijohns.
There was a lot of liquid/yeast trapped in the rice,that i could not rack off.
In the far east it is distilled to recover it.

Mead is good experience as saki is similariy low in nutrient.

 

[obscure]

Looks like you are good to go .

One point though, You say you are making a gallon,I am wondering if you are planning to use a demijohn ????
If so it might not be ideal,As the rice is VERY bulky,I used a 5 gal bucket filled up all the finished product i got would only fill two demijohns.
There was a lot of liquid/yeast trapped in the rice,that i could not rack off.
In the far east it is distilled to recover it.

Mead is good experience as saki is similariy low in nutrient.

My initial thought was to use a five litre bucket but from the sounds of it I would be better off using my three gallon bucket (or even just using a full five gallon fermentor) does that sound about right?)

 

[johncrobinson]

Yes a bucket should be fine esp the 3gal one.

when fermenting wine WOWs and so on the only sediment is the dead yeast.With saki there is a ton of rice/yeast left over.
Something like a demijohn has too narrow a neck and is a bit on the small side.

I don't think saki is that hard to make so its not likely to be a "disaster",So if you like the stuff in the first place a somewhat larger quantity will be well worth it. You should get at least one full demijohn plus finished saki from your 3gal bucket,If not a bit more I suppose you could increase the yield by trying to squeeze the last drops from the reside but i never bothered.
I did however try to get a second batch going from what was left with extra rice and water It worked quite well,

 

[obscure]

Yes a bucket should be fine esp the 3gal one.

when fermenting wine WOWs and so on the only sediment is the dead yeast.With saki there is a ton of rice/yeast left over.
Something like a demijohn has too narrow a neck and is a bit on the small side.

I don't think saki is that hard to make so its not likely to be a "disaster",So if you like the stuff in the first place a somewhat larger quantity will be well worth it. You should get at least one full demijohn plus finished saki from your 3gal bucket,If not a bit more I suppose you could increase the yield by trying to squeeze the last drops from the reside but i never bothered.
I did however try to get a second batch going from what was left with extra rice and water It worked quite well,

Thanks for all the advise sounds like the best option is to make it in the 3 gallon, then siphon off into a demijohn to clear before bottling. From the sounds of it I need a fair amount to yield a gallon. Honestly I’m looking at it as an experiment which if I’m lucky might even produce something halfway decent, and if I’m not has cost me less the cost of a single bottle of most sake in the UK.

 

[Linalmeemow]

Thanks for all the advise sounds like the best option is to make it in the 3 gallon, then siphon off into a demijohn to clear before bottling. From the sounds of it I need a fair amount to yield a gallon. Honestly I’m looking at it as an experiment which if I’m lucky might even produce something halfway decent, and if I’m not has cost me less the cost of a single bottle of most sake in the UK.

Let me know how you get on and whether the results are anything like commercial sake - it's one of my favourite drinks, and so expensive over here even for really rough quality stuff.

 

[MZonard]

I'm using Arborio rice as it's cheap at Lidl. Steamed 800g and seeded it with Koji mould grains this morning. It's now in the airing cupboard - various recipes say keep it at 30C, mix occasionally and in four days I should have enzyme rich rice. Step one of many...