[agito]

Starting to buy the ingredients whats the thoughts on recipes out there and the taste of hazy sake or is it best to go clear

[weedfiend88]

woah im stayin clear of this one

[Felix Dzerzhinsky]

An interesting project, never seen anyone make their own before.

Cloudy or clear ? Quite partial to clear ones myself but cloudy is also good

[agito]

felix_dzerjinski, on Aug 11 2010, 06:59 AM, said:

An interesting project, never seen anyone make their own before.

Cloudy or clear ? Quite partial to clear ones myself but cloudy is also good

its seems the cloudy are more sweet farm house/rustic style but
pros for me are easier to make sweeter but the yield per ingredients seem alot less

the clearer ones seem to have a more complex flavor and yield more

orderd me koji mold spores (a fav topic of yours ) as rice gluten can not be brocken down to sugar by yeast

the recipes i'll be trying are these

sake recipes the beginner and advanced i think

cloudy sake looks lice rice pudding also

i like the idea the that the waste products can be used for japanese pickles and a make shift puddings. you can also use the koji for Amazake which is like a jap version of horlicks

This post has been edited by agito: 11 August 2010 - 09:39 AM

[distracted]

brilliant! can you post pics when you get going? Good luck with it!

[Felix Dzerzhinsky]

agito, on Aug 11 2010, 11:07 AM, said:

orderd me koji mold spores (a fav topic of yours ) as rice gluten can not be brocken down to sugar by yeast

I do love a bit of mold me

agito, on Aug 11 2010, 11:07 AM, said:

i like the idea the that the waste products can be used for japanese pickles and a make shift puddings. you can also use the koji for Amazake which is like a jap version of horlicks

Warm amazake is nice, great winter drink

[dirtdog]

Best of luck with this Agito,only tried saki once,got very very drunk but really enjoyed the taste

[agito]

Will be giving a good go with the price of ingredients i hope its worth it but home made gear is normally good
i'll post pics when i get up and running.
just sourcing some large sacks of sushi rice.

[agito]

ok time to get this show on the road!!!

got my base ingredients 10kg bag sushi rice about £15
25gm of koji spores around £20
this is far more than i need as the first (beginners v2) recipe im using requires around 0.5 tsp and 1.25 kg of rice im makining the 16% diluted version as thats alot of base for 1 75cl bottle i should come out with around 2.5l of cloudy sweet sake

Making the koji rice (malt/mouldy) rice
I washed the rice has to be around 6-10 times to get it to clear now I have got it soaking. My first hurdle is soaking time the recipe says 1.5 hours but a very good site recommends 18 hours!! So I’m going safe ish for around 4 hours.
Why use mouldy rice? well apparently yeast cant digest rice starch so it has to be converted to sugars thus the mould or you could use the traditional method of spit from virgins sadly there’s not a chance of these in my neck of the wood as they are pushing push chairs at 15

also these time frame can be reduced if you can find the special polished rice which has been ground down to a percentage for example brown rice has no polish is 100% in size sushi/white rice 90%, 70% Honjozo,Ginjo 60% is around middle class sake in higher class sake (Daiginjo) is polished the below 50% of its orginal size which results in a clear brew without the need of charcoal filtering to get it clear as most real sake is yellow due to proteins in the outer husks until you start getting close to the core of the grain in theory giving a slightly smoother brew with less earthy tones but these recipes should be better than we would get in most restaurants easily.

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[agito]

Still debating about going back to the V1 recipe as i have the 400g of koji now but i will decide after 24 hours

I’m at the stage now where I decided to soak the rice for longer as I found a top tip saying pro sake has a soaking weight between 25-35% more so I waited till I got from 400g to 517 grams (6-7 hours later) another tip is to let your rice dry 30-45 mins after soaking to help reduce stickiness and improve the koji mould obviously the extra moisture will help let the spore root through the centre of the grain equates to more sugar for the brew and a better taste. Now cooked for 45 mins to get the slightly clear/rubber rice effect which I seemed to have its a little harder than what I have thought.
I put my 0.5 tsp of spores into my tea sieve and spread it among the rice in a stainless pan and instead of messing about with water bottles to achieve a 30 degrees temp I filled a box with water and added a fish tank heater set to 31 so it should be around 30 when it get through the pan. Some koji rooms are listed at 35 so not worrying too much. Put some wet muslin under the lid to promote humidity and my lid has a small air hole to promote the aerobic conditions I need .
but theres a long road ahead

Some pic’s of rice milling as well i seen a sake with a 20% ratio today dam you would need 5 piece to equate to 1 piece of normal rice

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[agito]

A quick update on the basic recipe v2 with added 2l of water picture below is my white koji after 48 hours its 80% white not 100% as wanted I now know this is due to not enough moisture as I cooked some more rice soaked for 8 hour and added an extra 10 mins to cooking its come out like little clear jelly beans which look like agar which is obviously how they like it more due the fact I’m using a double steamer and it seems to take 10 mins to get good steam to the top.

I am now slightly adapting the recipe. due to a little less mould I’m adding a little more koji and I’m going to add the rice in 2 stage's as I’ve read in many sake recipes as it helps it stop going off. Due to giving the yeast a chance to get a foot hold in.

I added my onion in a glass just below the size of the pan and lid as I did not want to use silicone as some contains fungicides.

I added half the koji and rice and now put the yeast in.

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This post has been edited by agito: 19 August 2010 - 09:52 PM

[distracted]

fascinating process agito, good luck with it, you do your research well, respect!

[agito]

Cheers bro glad to see some one else is on board for this train wreck

i have just washed the rice for the advanced recipe

This post has been edited by agito: 19 August 2010 - 10:08 PM

[Felix Dzerzhinsky]

Looking good man

Seems like you've learned some useful tips for the second run already, nice one.

[agito]

Cheers felix shame ive got koji left to start the advanced i would have prefered to start from scratch but it will only be 75 grams of the the final recipe so very little in reflection hope fully