Sake

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Well, I went ahead and ordered the kit from George as it had me pretty intrigued. For the first part of this kit, I need steamed rice, and not having a steamer might make this part kinda tricky. I know I can make steamed rice by suspending rice in a strainer over a pot of boiling water, but I don't have a strainer fine enough that the rice won't fall through. Any ideas out there? I shall keep you all updated on the progress of this kit.


Scuba
 
Rice cookers are really handy to have and not all that expensive either (the cheap ones work as good if not better than any of the expensive ones).

I would pick one up for sure if you eat rice at all. You just dump the rice in the pot add enough water to cover the rice plus a little more and hit the start button. It will ding when its ready, no guess work at all. They also come with a steamer tray for veggies etc.

Keep us posted as this one sounded pretty interesting!
 
Yes please keep us posted. I've wanted to try this kit for a while.
Oh and pics would be great as well
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ibglowin: Thats just the problem, you can't put water on the rice. The rice can't touch the water. Does the stream tray have holes that the rice can fall through? There is a difference between cooking rice, and steaming rice, so I have found out recently.
 
Well crud, no the steam tray has large holes about the size of a nickel or so.

Maybe check a good kitchen supply store, I know my SWMBO has a rather large strainer that will fit into a good sized pot and the holes are pretty darn small so I don't think rice would fall through. I'll check it tonight and see if there is a name on it and report back to you tonight.
 
I also saw that site, it would work for my purposes, but I don't have one.I think I have found a way but don't know for sure yet, but I will let you all know as soon as I do. Anyway,


After looking at my recipe and throughly reading the homebrew sake article from the link provided above, I am first going to make the recipe I have and then at a later date try the alternative method listed above. The recipe I have makes 4 liters of sake, I wish to make 6 gals so on the left I will put the original recipe and on the right I will post the 6 gal recipe that I have multiplied up. 6 gals is 23 liters, since the original recipe makes 4 liters, I am simply multiplying everything by 5.75 to scale upto a 6 gal recipe. Here goes:




Original Recipe: x 5.75 6 gal recipe:
4 liters water 23 liters water
3.3 lbs rice 18.975 lbs rice (19lbs)
0.9 lbs Kome-Koji 5.175 lbs Kome-Koji (5)
5 grams Citric Acid 28.75 grams Citric Acid (29)
5 grams yeast 28.75 grams yeast (using 5 packets of Red Star Pasteur Champagne yeast)




The original recipe for making Kome-Koji called for:
0.9 lbs rice
1.5 grams Koji-Kin

I am not sure if I should multiple this recipe out because I am using a bigger batch, but I received a package of 10ozs of the Koji-Kin so figured why not.


6 Gal recipe once again multiplied by 5.75:
5.175 lbs rice (5)
8.62 oz Koji-Kin (I have 10 oz and will be using it all)


I was not a math major in school, so if any of these numbers or my logic is off, please speak up.
I have checked three different major grocery stores and none of them carry short grain rice, so I will have to resort to using long grain, is this a catastrophic mistake?


Scuba
 
10 lbs is $16. I need 25 lbs. the rice alone will be $40. Shipping on 25lbs will put me most likely close to $80 just for rice. I just got back from another store where they want $3.49 for 2lbs of short grain rice. I will most likely go to Chinatown this weekend and look for some.


Scuba
 
The strainer we have is like this one from OXO

I think you can get them from Target'

No way rice will fall through, you could strain tea leaves!
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Ok so finally got all the ingredients together and started my sake!




For the Kome-koji I used 4 lbs of medium grain rice. I also was able to rig up a system that allowed me to steam this rice to perfection.
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Put the rice into a big bowl and added the koji-kin to it using a powder sugar strainer. Moist towel over the top and let sit.
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It was only supposed to take 40hrs for the kome-koji to turn tan-ish and be ready to add to the fermenter, mine however took about 3 days. I figure it was because of the colder temps in my room combined with not keeping it as moist as possible.
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Today I then cooked 12lbs of rice and added it to my fermenter. (I had to cut the recipe down to 3 gals because my fermenter isn't big enough. Word to the wise, if you try making this, your fermenter needs to be double the size of what you want your output to be).
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Added 2 lbs of kome-koji and put the other half in the freezer so I can use it later. Added the citric acid and yeast nutrient as well here. (The recipe didn't call for yeast nutrient but I figured it couldn't hurt.) Pitched the yeast and put into the big washtub by my washer because I don't know what sort of fermentation it will be nor do I know how big the head will be while it ferments.
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Scuba
 
Nice pics! So after you steam the rice and add the kome-koji does this mixture then get added into the primary bucket? What exactly ends up in the primary?
 
You have two steps, the first is to make a small batch of rice that you add the kome-koji to, about two days later you make your main larger batch. The small batch allows the kome-koji to take hold and grow into a nice mold-ish type thing that converts the rice into a usable food supply for the yeast. The finale contents of the primary was: 4lbs malt rice (rice with kome-koji), 10ish lbs of normal cooked rice, some citric acid, some yeast nutrient, and yeast.


Scuba
 
How do you plan to bottle the finished product? I enjoy the occasional sake at a restaurant put have never thought about making it myself.

Any idea what the finished ABV will be? I don't imagine you can use a hydrometer in that mush...
 
Finished product will go into 1 gal jugs and I will figure out what to do with it from there. The only way that I have come across while reading online to figure out the ABV is to use a vinometer. Best guess for the sake I am making is that it will be between 16 and 20% abv. Closer to the lower side I am guessing.


Oh and I just checked, the current fermention temp is 78*.


Scuba
 
Its been 6 days since fermentation started and things seem to be going well. Temp has stayed between 76-78* F, current temp is 72*. Continue to stir it every 12 to 24 hrs. The Sake has taken on a tan-ish color that concerns me a little bit. I have no idea what caused it or if it will have a impact on my final product. Added airlock 3 days ago but still give it a good stir like I said. Anyone have any ideas if I am on the right track? Did I mess up somewhere? Never made Sake before so this is kinda a shot in the dark.


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Scuba
 
I was finally able to rack into a carboy on the 8th and tried to degas this to move it quickly from carboy to bottling. I pushed the envelope a little too much while using the brake bleeder and had some runoff into the overflow cup. I took this picture today, 4 days after the initial degas attempt. It appears that some gasses escaped allowing for a partial settlement of the lees. I did some addition light degassing today as well.

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Scuba
 
If you had a refractometer you could probably get a good idea..... It would give you a brix you could convert to specific gravity and you calculate the ABV as usual
 

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