Taylor-MadeAK - Brewing Sake

Great guide! I found your site from listening to the basicbrewing podcast. I'm going to give this a try. What type of smaller bottles do you transfer the sake into from the 1 gallon jugs? Just regular beer bottles and cap them the same way?

I have all the ingredients & equipment, and I'm going to start tomorrow on my first batch of Sake. I'm really glad I heard your interview on BBR, otherwise I would have fermented it warm! One thing: when you say to add 2.5 cups of rice is this the cooked or uncooked measurement?

I'm really glad you guys are getting some benefit out of this guide and the BBR interview! All rice measurements in this guide are DRY, that is to say uncooked.

great article..one question, what is the yeast nutrient mentioned?

It's just the standard yeast nutrient sold at your local homebrew supply store. Usually it's made from autolyzed yeast.

Like others have said, this is a great guide. I make sake every couple of years and each time I have to stumble thru the online guides and my old notes. Thanks for taking the time to clarify a few points and put it together in one coherent guide.

I found a web store that offers Cold Mountain Koji: http://www.pacificeastwest.com Search for "Cold Mountain" or "koji" or "072546382100". I live the SF Bay Area. I did find this product at the Ranch Market, a huge Asian grocery store. It was about $10 per tub. So even with shipping charges, the online purchase was cheaper. I'll continue to shop around for better prices locally though. Either way, the premade koji eliminates a step in the process and the arithmetic suggests it's cheaper than making your own from spores.

Wow, $5.99 for a tub of koji is really cheap! Great find, I'll add the link to the guide!

Could you describe the mixing of hot rice with cold koji? It sure seems like dumping hot rice into cold koji could kill the mold, despite the final temperature of about 70-74 F. So I assume there is something I am not understanding about the technique.

I'm at then end of my 3 weeks of fermentation. 3 days ago the SG was 1.001, so I think I'll be ready to rack to 2ndary tomorrow. However the fridge I was using needs to be taken down to 35F for a lager that I have going. So my choices for aging the sake are either the 35F fridge or the high 50s of the basement floor. I understand the 50F temp requirement for fermentation, but is there any special reason you say to age at 50F? I would think the sake would benefit from a cold aging and clarify better there. Any thoughts?

There's a very good reason for keeping the temperature in the 50's during the secondary: it's still fermenting! Keeping the secondaries in your basement for a couple weeks in the 50-60ºF range is just fine, assuming your basement is nice and dark. Once you rack the sake off of the fluffy white sediment that you'll find in those secondary vessels, fine it, pasteurize it, and cap it, then keeping it in the 35ºF fridge while you wait for it to clear will be fine. That is, in fact, exactly what I do. I tried to e-mail this answer directly to you, cj8scrambler, but it bounced. Hopefully you remember to come back and check for an answer. =)

OK, that makes sense. I'll go with basement floor with a box over them.

Really great guide. I have one question - You mentioned white wine yeast (top-fermenting yeast) as possible replacement of sake yeast (lager alias bottom-fermenting yeast). Wouldn't be better to use beer lager yeast instead since the temperature is about 10°C during almost whole process? I know that beer lager yeast can't survive in higher alcohol volumes but I quess that top-fermenting wine yeast won't work properly in low "lager" temperetures.

I live in a hot climate where the temperature is inside is anywhere from 70-80F 20-25C how will this influence the sake.

This is such an excellent guide! Thank you Robert. Do you happen to have the guide in PDF format?

I notice in the process that there are a few additions of water. Do you need to boil and cool the water to sanitize it?

Mahalo, I enjoyed the trip. If I wanted to polish my rice, because dijinjo seems to be from rice that has been 60% polished is their a machine to polish rice? Aloha, dwain

@Keat: The response I e-mailed to you bounced, so I'm posting my answer here. You can pre-boil if you want. I run my water through a charcoal filter that I know has silver in it, so I trust that it's pretty sanitary when it comes out of my filter. If you don't trust your tap water, you can always use bottled.

@Everyone in general: You will get a much faster response from me if you use your real e-mail address when posting a comment on this site. Every comment gets e-mailed to me, which means I usually receive it about two minutes after you post, and snap back a reply as soon as I've had time to consider your question. I totally understand e-mail address paranoia (evidence: my e-mail address appears nowhere on this site - you must use a form to contact me directly, but you have my addy when I respond to you), so please believe me when I tell you that I don't abuse or allow to be abused any e-mail addresses that get stored in my secure (internal access only) SQL database on my personal server when you post your comment on this site.

If you're really that paranoid about it, go ahead and keep posting comments as nobody@nobody.com or whatever. Just realize that it might take me a couple days to realize my error in replying to a bogus address and post an answer to your question in these comments.

Hey there- Taylor, great guide. Good combo of science and culture(s). Its hard to find things that dont just tell you what to do because "thats how its done"! so congrats.
One thing I wish was explained a little better however is why it is necessary to continue to add more Koji at each step. If the mold in the Koji is active and digesting the ricestarch shouldnt it be reproducing as well, much like the yeast?
The other question is- why not do this in two basic steps- use the koji to make a sweet amazake like pudding and then introduce the alcohol yeast process aftwerward for a proper ferment. (akin to malting then brewing beer)
In this way you can optimize the conditions for each organizim at each stage.

okay thanks alot.Raphael

You've asked a very good question here, and I want the answer to be publicly available. So I'm posting it as a response to your comment as well as e-mailing it to you. I'm also going to add it to the FAQ first chance I get.

Fair warning to unsuspecting readers: this is going to be a loooong answer.

There are a couple of reasons why koji is added with each rice addition. The first has to do with the conditions koji requires for growing: koji does NOT continue to grow, reproduce, and produce enzymes in the moromi because the mold requires a temperature of around 85ºF to do so. Enzymes are slowly active at low temperatures, but the mold itself is not.

You compared making koji to malting barley, so let's follow that thought to its next step. Koji is like an incredibly powerful diastatic malt that can handle a ton of adjuncts in addition to itself. Just like malt, however, there is a limit to how much starch the enzymes in a given amount of koji can convert. So with each addition of rice we add the amount of koji necessary to convert it.

Which brings us to our next question: why not create a sweet amazake slurry and THEN add yeast to ferment it? Well, for a couple different reasons, actually. If we did that with the stirring and stuff that's necessary for the process, we'd essentially be creating an open invitation for every speck of microflora and fauna in the area. Funky lambics are good, funky sake isn't so good.

The other reason has to do with alcohol tolerance of the yeast itself. Have you ever heard of "syruping" a wine? It's the process of slowly adding fermentables to a wine with the goal of slightly increasing its alcohol content beyond the 16% or so that the yeast is normally tolerant to. By adding rice and koji in additions over a period of a few days, we're pushing the alcohol content of our sake up to the 18-20% ABV that genshu sake is all about.

I hope this clearly answers your questions.

Hey, I am brewing sake from your instructions and everything is going great so far. I just put the sake in the cellar to cool for secondary firmentation. Thanks for the guide! My husband and i have tried to figure out a way to polish rice at home. Have you come up with any ideas?

Are there any issues using ale yeast instead of sake, or lager, besides flavor? I've no real way to keep the temp of the fermenting slurry between 38-65F. I've got a culture of wyeast 1187 Ringwood Ale I was thinking about using.

great guide Taylor!! i was so excited to start making sake that i made a mistake and added the salt substitute to the water for Moto!! will this have an adverse effect on Moto and my Sake? will this kill the molds?

Hi, great guide btw. I just used it to just about complete my first batch, But I noticed when I transfered the sake into the 3 1 gallon jugs I came a little more than half a gallon short. I thought I was being pretty careful with the directions, but maybe I missed a water addition. What effect if any will this have on my sake, I did sample it even in its incomplete stage and it seemed to taste fine, and thats what its all about right? also when you pasteurize it, do you dump the sake into a pot or do you put the jug in a pot full of hot water? Thanks a lot for creating such a great guide.

Great guide, and much more helpful and complete than anything else I've found on the net. Thanks for taking the time to produce it.

Sláinte

Mark

Excellent guide. My problem is that I live on the Texas coast which means it is rarely cool and I have no basement due to the topsoil being so thin. Is there a warm method I could use to make sake?

Hi Bob:
Just to let you know I took a look at your site today, after our chat last night at the Bear Tooth. I appreciate all the work you've done for simplifying the Sake making process. I'm sure I'll be trying it, as Winter gets closer. I'll let you know how I do. Again, thanks for the information, and making it so simple.
Mike Torpy

I prefer clear sake and would like you opinion on using a Brita water filter to speed up the process of removing some of the residual rice solids left in the nigorizake?

I've never tried it myself, but you're welcome to give it a shot. For what it's worth, here are my reasons for not trying it before: Water filters like the ones Brita makes use activated charcoal (and sometimes other additional mediums) to strip chlorine and other trace impurities out of municipal or well water sources. This water is already pretty clear to start with, so this kind of filter isn't generally meant to remove turbidity like what would be found in nigorizake. With that in mind, it seems to me that if a Brita filter didn't clog up almost immediately, then the activated charcoal would remove a lot of the color and flavor of my sake in addition to the haze material.

Look at what charcoal filtering does to commercial sake. Takara's Sho Chiku Bai is made from 75% polish rice (which would result in yellow sake) and yet, by the time they're done filtering it, the sake looks exactly like water. Tastes like water, too. Isn't the point to making your own sake at home so you can drink something that's more flavorful than the industrial swill?

I like clear sake, too. So I use bentonite. It can still remove some of the color of the sake, but not to the degree that a charcoal filter does and it doesn't affect flavor. It only takes a few days and results in visibly bright sake. The down side is that you lose a little bit of sake to the bentonite slurry, but I'm okay with that.

If you want to try a charcoal water filter on your sake, try this: Wait for most of the nigori to settle out first. While you're waiting, use some clean water to flush a NEW pitcher-type water filter. Once your filter is flushed, you can rack the muroka off of the nigori directly into the filter and, hopefully, out the other side and into the pitcher. Once the pitcher is full, siphon the clear sake into bottles and pasteurize. Discard the filter cartridge after moving all of your batch of sake through it - with all that organic material and yeast in there, I don't think it would be a good idea to keep it for later use or to re-use it for water.

Good luck to you. If you try it, come on back and let me know how successful you were. If it turns out to be viable, maybe I'll add it as an optional step in my guide (crediting you for it, of course).

This guide has been invaluable, thanks so much for making it!

Would you recommend pasteurizing at bottling nigorizake at this point, or after a couple weeks of secondary, as you describe on the next page? I imagine that difference would change the characteristics quite a bit.

During the 3 days of Bentonite fining, is the sake to stay in the 50 degree setting or the 68-74 degree setting? Or does it even matter?

When allowing the moto to sit for 2 days, how critical is it to hit the 74 degree F mark? Or, in the moromi and odori, how critical is the 70 degree F mark? This time of year my house sits in the 60-65 degree F range. Any suggestions?

what is shelf life

I'm not sure I understand your question, if it is indeed a question (lack of punctuation confuses me), Ken. I will attempt to answer as best I can, given the ambiguous nature of your comment.

Shelf life is the length of time that food, drink, medicine, and other perishable are given before they are considered unsuitable for sale or consumption.

The shelf life of sake is about a year at room temperature if kept away from light, and almost indefinite if kept refrigerated.

I live in San Francisco and found Koji at the big grocery store in the Japantown center for $5.99 a tub. It's in the freezer section where they keep the tofu and ingredients for making miso soup. I tried Chinatown first and they didn't know what in the world I was talking about, LOL.

Bob: Just had a good friend ask if I would make some sake for her. Been a winemaker for over 25 years but never particularly liked sake myself (don't tell Fred Eckhardt). In any event, I just wanted to tell you that your site is excellent and I wondered if you would consider writing an article on sake for our newsletter, The Advocate? I would pay you, of course.
Look forward to hearing from you and in the meantime, I'll be all over your site trying to get down the basics!
Cheers,
Dee Roberson, Executive Director
Home Wine & Beer Trade Association
http://www.hwbta.org

Wondering something, for i am an experienced homebrwer but not a winebrewer. In the initial fermentations are we fermenting in a closed buchket with an airlock or what? I find this part of the process quite uncertain...am i jut to put it in a pot with a lid on it? UNSURE, and this is my first try, but have wanted to make it for years.

hi i was wondering if you have tried using Nishiki Rice and if you have why you prefer the Kokuho Rose.

Hi Bob, thank you very much for your insightful guide.
I made a batch of Nigori Sho Chiku Bai (trying to imitate the Takara product I see on my local bottle shop shelves) using your recipe and it came out fantastic!

One question though - when it settles my sake is yellow, not white like the sake I see in your photos. This is the third batch I've had like this and I'm not sure what is causing it, any ideas? I've used three different types of rice, changes out my yeast type and done pretty much everything else I can think of, but get the same effect.
Have you ever seen this before?
Sake tastes fine, just looks strange!

Hey my garage is kept at a nearly constant 55 degrees, Will this effect the sake in any way? And if so, in what way will it be effected? Thanks.

Thanks, Taylor, for this great resource. I have a slight problem:

So, this is only my second batch, ever. I've completed the tomezoe and am now letting my fermenter with airlock sit in the cool darkness. Unfortunately, I live in Georgia, USA, so "cool" means 60 degrees, not the desired 45 or so (until Monday when we're supposed to get a cold front).

Anyway, my ferment is so active that the foam at the top worked its way all the way up to the top of my 6.5gal fermenter (the actual mash is just shy of 4gal) and blew the lid and airlock completely off (it seems that the foam clogged the airlock when it reached the top). I wasn't there when it happened, but it was apparently pretty violent, as it cracked my airlock and there is foam on the ceiling. What can I do about this? Do I simply need to cool it down ASAP, or is something else going on?

FYI, I used Eckhardt's shubo method. Many thanks in advance for your advice.

Could you please help me ?
I have found an unopened decanter of store bought sake in my closet from 2 years ago.
Would it still be ok to drink ?

Hi,
In NJ you can get koji at Mitsuwa market in

Here's a link http://shop.mitsuwa.com/eng/egoods/eresult.php?k=koji&x=70&y=14. Price is pretty good too.

Hi Bob,
Please ignore my question regarding the yellow color of my sake. Having done a bit more thorough research this time I see that this is the color sake is supposed to be. Total Newb question on my part.

Thanks for the guide, my sake tastes great!
Jonathan.

Hi Johnathan! I thought I e-mailed you an answer to your question about the yellow color of your sake? Perhaps you didn't receive that e-mail in your Gmail account? Although you've answered your own question, I'll go ahead and repeat the answer (copied from my Sent folder) here:

Unless stripped through a charcoal filter, real sake is always some shade of yellow, even the commercial ginjo grade sake. The yellow color comes from the outer cell layers of the rice grain, chiefly the bran coat and all the protein, lipids, and amino acids it contains. Those compounds also contribute some "grainy" flavors (which I happen to like, actually), which is the primary reason why sake producers mill their rice down so far (<75%).

The more highly milled the rice, the less color there is in the finished sake.

The converse is also true, however, which means that homebrewed sake made with "table rice" is generally bright yellow. I'm not sure which of my photos you're referring to, but here are some other pictures of my homemade sake for comparison:

http://www.taylor-madeak.org/media/blogs/tmblog/DSC01232.jpg
http://www.taylor-madeak.org/media/blogs/tmblog/DSC01245.jpg
http://www.taylor-madeak.org/media/blogs/tmblog/DSC02014.jpg

(You will need to copy & paste the above addresses to view the images.)

That first image might be what threw you off. Just like any other colored liquid, refractive index comes into play here. The more sake you have in your vessel, the more pronounced the color will be. Hence the jar of lemon yellow sake that was sacrificed in the name of homemade rice wine vinegar in that last photo.

I hope this answers your question. Keep spreading the word!

Hello Bob, and thanks for a very informative website!

My question is this;
I found a local store that when I called, said they had koji, but when I got there, had a dry product labeled "enzyme".
The woman at the counter was very kind, but unable to translate the instructions on the package.

Are you at all familiar with a dry, light-brown, granular form of koji? (it looks like finely crushed granola)

The only parts of the label that I can read say '10Lbs' and '86F' and 'Dry Yeast', so I think I'm on the right track, I'd just like to be able to reconcile what they say to do and what I already know.

That's not koji, my friend. What they sold you is a Korean product called "nuruk." It basically amounts to a kind of diastatic granola made from wheat and barley malts, and is used to produce a Korean rice wine called "makkoli," "makgeolli," or sometimes "takju." This is NOT a valid substitute for koji in a recipe for making sake, so please try to find the real thing. If you speak to whoever does the ordering for that shop, you may be able to convince them to start stocking the Cold Mountain Koji product.

Hey made a really nice batch of sake following your recipe and guide... Thanks! Well I think it is great anyway-- never had an actual bottle of store bought sake:) It cleared all by itself and is deceptive in in strength!
Instead of buying new yeast and Koji could I just used some of the left over rice dregs to start another batch? I was think of taking about five pounds of the rice dregs (active with yeast and koji) and adding 10 pounds of rice to it (doubling it) and 2 gallons of water--letting sit for a day at 60F and then adding another 10 pounds of rice (almost doubling it again) and another 2 gallons of water for about a 6 gallon batch, letting it sit for a day at 60F, then dropping to 50F until done fermenting is complete? Could I do that? Thanks a lot! Nora

I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but what you've asked about doing just won't work. Koji does not actively grow, generate enzymes, or reproduce during a sake fermentation in the same manner as yeast, so you can't treat it like a yeast sediment and just use it to make another batch of sake. Each batch of sake really does require a new batch of koji to go into it, there's just no getting around that I'm afraid.

Yeast is a slightly different situation. If any yeast remain viable in your kasu. then you could certainly use it as a source to propagate yeast from by adding a small amount to your next moto. How much? I couldn't say because I've never made sake that way. Any viable yeast that remain in the kasu from a batch of sake are going to be very stressed by the high alcohol environment that they've been in for the last 20 days or so, so I prefer to just buy some new yeast each time I start a new batch of sake.

I'm glad your sake turned out well by following my guide, though! I'm sure it was as great as you think it is, and now that you're spoiled on your own homemade sake you're going to have a tough time finding a store-bought sake that you like. =)

WHEN MAKING MY FIRST BATCH OF MOTO LAST WEEK, I INADVERTENTLY MIXED THREE TIMES THE AMOUNT OF STEAMED RICE WITH THE CORRECT AMOUNT OF LAGER YEAST (OOPS!).
WHEN I GO TO MIX THE RICE, WATER, KOME KOJI AND MOTO NEXT WEEK, SHOULD I USE THE ENTIRE AMOUNT OF MOTO PRODUCED OR JUST ONE THIRD OF IT?

ANY INSIGHTS GRATEFULLY APPRECIATED.

ERIC K COPLAND

Hi Bob, enjoyed reading your guide - I am currently fermenting the yeast mash for a triple (6 gal) batch of doburoku sake using Fred's "new" recipe with the addition of concentrated lactic acid. I have a couple of questions about the process.

First, you recommend "good" water for rice soaking (I use RO with nutrient & salt additions in the yeast mash). Would it not be acceptable to use cold tap water for soaking, since the steaming of the rice would (I think) drive out any impurities? I do of course use RO water for water additions.

Also, do you recommend stirring the rice at any point while it steams? I did not do this for previous batches, and they all came out fine, but as a brewer, it seems to me that the rice would cook much more evenly if it was turned once or twice during the hour-long steam. At any rate, I guess there's no easy way to tell if it makes a difference or not to the finished product, but I thought I'd give it a go this time and stir each steamed rice batch at 20 minute intervals during the hour.

I'm glad there's someone else who likes ultra-dry genshu...Fred seems to think it gets on one's nerves after a while, but I find it far preferable to sweetened jiu!

Oh, and one more thing (sorry): do you see any problem with bulk pasteurizing, cooling and then force-carbonating 5 gallons of genshu in a steel Corny keg? There's just something about the sound of full-strength sparkling draft sake that makes me thirsty...

Any plans for a Taylor-made guide to making koji at home?

Domo,
Amahl Turczyn Scheppach

Hello Amahl! I'm glad you found my guide to be useful. Wow that's a big batch of sake! What on Earth are you going to use for a fermenter that will hold 12 gallons of fermenting moromi? Not to mention steaming 15 pounds of rice for that tomezoe addition.... Oh, you said doburoku. So you're going to cook 30 pounds of rice all at once? Holy mackerel!

As for making koji at home, have you had a look at the links on the right side of this site? Have a look at this:

http://www.taylor-madeak.org/index.php/2008/10/17/growing-koji-for-homebrewing-sake
Let's see if I can answer some of your questions here.

By "good" water, I mean water that is iron and chlorine free. If your tap water smells and tastes okay, then there's absolutely no reason not to use it for soaking your rice. If, however, it smells like a swimming pool, you might want to consider at least running it through a filter that removes chlorine and chloramine.

I don't recommend against stirring your rice while it's steaming, but I really don't view it as being at all necessary - I certainly haven't seen any evidence of professional sake brewers doing such a dangerous act as attempting to stir a couple tons of rice while it's steaming. Rice is buoyed up pretty darn well by the pressure of steam moving upward through it, so even cooking happens pretty much by itself. Of course, the configuration of your steamer has a lot to do with how evenly your rice steams as well, but I've never had any problems when using my plain old bamboo steamer.

Full-strength sparkling sake? Go for it! Yummmm! The only problem I foresee is in pasteurizing that much sake all at once. But, if you happen to have the equipment for it...well, CP fill a bottle and hook me up!

I'll echo everybody else, what an incredible resource you've put together! I wish I'd discovered it before I started my current batch.

Two things. First, I understand that you answer back by email, but for others viewing the comments, we miss the answers. I'd suggest posting ALL answers that aren't inappropriate, to the comments.

Second, the questions on temperature. If you can't hit the 50 degree range, is this process still viable? Do you need to employ any compensations? Personally, I can hit 65-68 degrees easily. I might be able to do 60-62 degrees on the cooler side, but that would be stretching it. I don't have a garage, cellar, etc, mine is being made in a closet.

Hello Paul, I'm glad you find my guide to be helpful!

I understand your concerns about missing answers that have been e-mailed directly to the comment poster, and I do address that. The only answers that do not get repeated here are the ones that are already covered in the FAQ section of the site (see the right pane for a link to that). Those answers are often not posted as a reply comment simply because I try to avoid being redundant on my web site when I can avoid it.

Fermentation temperature is incredibly important to this process. If you ferment your sake at 65-68ºF, it's pretty likely that you won't like the very sour end result. The 60-62ºF temperature range is better, but will still result in pretty harsh sake that may take extended aging before it tones down enough to be drinkable. The closer you can get to 50ºF, the better.

I can't think of anything else to do with this, so I'll post it here. I received this e-mail earlier this evening from "Dan." Dan, I'd love to e-mail you a direct answer to your questions, but the e-mail address you provided when you used the contact form keeps bouncing with an "Invalid recipient" error message from the receiving e-mail server (not my sending server, I double checked). So, I'm going to post your questions and my answers to them here.

Original e-mail:

I'm loving your directions for making Sake. I have the last of my rice steaming as I write.

I do have a couple of questions, though.

First, at the end of the page talking about steaming and then fermentation, you say next is pasteurization.

When you go to the next page, it talks about bottling and "re-pasteurizing" the sake.

When does it get the first pasteurization, and why does it need to be done twice?

Second, I'm doing it with the 60% polished rice. I plan on Bottling one gallon as nigorizake, one as Moroka, and one as seishu.

If I understand right, letting it settle and bottling only the liquid gives you Moroka, and fining with bentonite gives you Seishu- is that correct?

If I use the 60% polished rice, is it still Nigorozake, Moroka Sake, and Seishu Sake, or are they named different? What makes it Ginjo sake?

Thanks for the great guide, and for taking the time to answer questions from Noobs like myself.

My response:

Hey Dan, those are some intelligent questions you've got there! I'll do my best to answer them in the most direct and clear manner possible.

> First, at the end of the page talking about steaming and then fermentation, you say next is pasteurization.
>
> When you go to the next page, it talks about bottling and "re-pasteurizing" the sake.
>
> When does it get the first pasteurization, and why does it need to be done twice?

Almost all commercial sake is double pasteurized, and for very good reasons that I'll explain as I go. Sake is much less robust than beer, and doesn't contain any hops to police the microbiological activity that takes place in the brew. This leads to certain problems that are most easily addressed by pasteurization: The first pasteurization happens immediately after the sake is filtered, and the purpose of this pasteurization is to deactivate enzymes that would have a detrimental effect on the sake as it ages as well as to eliminate any stray bacteria that get into the brew (making sake is not a closed system, so infection is pretty much inevitable).

In our homebrewing case that means the first pasteurization takes place after the sake is fined. You can either pasteurize the sake when you add the finings, or you can do so after you rack the sake off the fining slurry. I recommend doing it immediately after adding the bentonite so that the finings get pasteurized as well - bentonite is clay and as such it's not really possible to guarantee its sterility (unless you want to bake it first, but that may change its fining properties).

The second pasteurization step takes place immediately after bottling, and the purpose of that step is similar to the first one: to eliminate any stray bugs that get in during bottling so that the bottled sake will have a shelf life of more than a month or two. For that reason, I recommend that you do not skip this step! Pasteurization, when done at reasonable temperatures for a reasonable amount of time, does not adversely affect the flavor or aroma of the sake. It does change it a little, but usually for the better.

I recommend that homebrewers double pasteurize their sake so that they won't be surprised by a bottle of sour sake in the back of their brewing closet that they forgot about for a couple of years. If, for some reason, you feel that doing it twice is excessive and you want to skip one of the pasteurization steps, the appropriate step to skip would be the first one immediately after fining. Just adjust your timetable to only allow a week or two for clearing before you bottle it instead of the up to 6 months you could wait if you pasteurized it.

The only exception to the pasteurization rule, when it comes to sake, is namazake: sake that is entirely unpasteurized. There are certain very delicate floral aromas and flavors that can be destroyed or altered by pasteurization, so some very few sake producers do offer a small portion of their product as namazake. This stuff requires constant refrigeration, and even then is time sensitive and must be consumed very soon after bottling - preferably within a couple weeks. For this reason namazake is often considered not to be worth the trouble and can be pretty rarely seen. I personally have never seen a bottle of namazake, but this isn't really surprising considering I live in Alaska. If you want to make namazake, I say go for it. Just be aware that you'll need to keep it refrigerated at all times and that even then you'll need to drink it within a month or two of bottling.

Wow...that was a long answer to a short question. Let's see if I can do any better for the next one....

> Second, I'm doing it with the 60% polished rice. I plan on Bottling one gallon as nigorizake, one as Moroka, and one as seishu.
>
> If I understand right, letting it settle and bottling only the liquid gives you Moroka, and fining with bentonite gives you Seishu- is that correct?

I think you've got it straight. Bottling the sake immediately after pressing gets you nigorizake. Allowing nigorizake to settle out, then siphoning off the settled sake and bottling it without fining or filtering is called muroka ("murky" sake). Fining or filtering the muroka sake to render it brilliantly clear before bottling produces the refined sake product that is Japan's national drink: seishu.

> If I use the 60% polished rice, is it still Nigorozake, Moroka Sake, and Seishu Sake, or are they named different? What makes it Ginjo sake?
>

There are a so many words describing sake that are foreign to our English language that I just can't blame anyone from getting confused! It's a language barrier, which means that me trying to clear it up is still likely to generate more confusion. But I'll give it a try anyhow.

A lot of these terms can be separated out by which part of the process they refer to. If you start at the production level of the sake making process, you run into ginjo and daiginjo. These words can be translated as "premium" and "super premium," but are actually a reference to the amount of polish (milling) that the rice used in sake production receives. What you might consider bottom-shelf or "table" sake doesn't actually have a descriptive name, but it always uses rice that is polished down to 70-75% of its original weight. If you mill it down further to around 60% you get into ginjo grade sake. If you mill the rice down still farther to 40-50%, the resulting sake is referred to as daiginjo. It's interesting to note that, pound for pound, more highly polished rice will yield less alcohol than less highly polished rice.

If you move a bit further into the process (specifically pressing and post-pressing processing) you run into the terms junmai-shu and honjozo-shu. Junmai simply means "all rice," and it is exactly the equivalent of our "all malt" beers. In the case of sake, however, honjozo never means that the grist has been adulterated by non-rice ingredients (the way that a mash can have non-malt adjuncts), but sake producers can legally add distilled spirits to their sake to increase the alcohol content without spending more money on rice or the electricity to polish it - and the end product reflects this shortcut (usually ends up in the bottle of a sake bomb, I bet). I always look for junmai on the label of any sake that I buy.

Finally, you'll run into words that describe exactly at what point in the filtration process the sake was packaged for sale: nigorizake, muroka, and seishu. Nigorizake is always milky white unfiltered - though still pasteurized! - sake, and is meant to be drunk that way (it usually has a lower SMV rating, too). Settled but unfiltered muroka sake is almost never bottled for sale, usually it's only available on draft at a sake "brewpub" type establishment. The term seishu is actually almost never seen because it usually gets abbreviated to shu (酒), which can also be pronounced saké.

So, following your plan for each of the three gallons that you're planning for, using the rice you ordered from F.H. Steinbart Co, you will have:

One gallon of junmai ginjo nigorizake.
One gallon of junmai ginjo muroka sake.
One gallon of junmai ginjo sake.

Well, looking back at my long response to your very good questions, I bet it's all about as clear as mud now! Feel free to contact me any time you have more questions, Dan, or even if you just want to tell me how your first batch of sake turned out. =)

Bob, saw your comments about Moto-i's use of some very high quality Japanese sake rice. My 6 gallon batch of genshu went great, and it's kegged, pasteurized and carbonated. Very dry, (below 0.995- ran out of marks on the hydrometer), settled but not filtered (muroka) and quite delicious.

I would like to make another batch with a better quality rice (I used Cal Rose short grain). How would Lundberg Organic Sushi rice be? I've read that Lundberg's is a California-grown Akita Komachi. Thanks.

I have obtained some dry Mauriake active dry sake yeast produced by AB Mauri. Would you know how much of this I would use with your recipe?

Woah! This is the first time I've heard of there being a dry sake yeast available! How exciting!

So...you need to know how much to use. Well, most dry beer and wine yeasts are sold in 10-12gm packets, with the intent that this is the appropriate amount to pitch into 19 liters of wort or must. There isn't a lot of detail on the AB|Mauri web site about how their yeast is sold, but from what little I did found I gather it's sold in 25gm packets 500gm blocks.

Well, there's really no such thing as under-pitching a sake since you're performing a moto or shubo yeast starter step. You could attempt to calculate for the 5x10⁶ viable yeast cells that AB|Murai recommends, but I don't usually bother with that sort of thing. My advice would be to sprinkle the usual 10 grams straight on top of the moto, and then leave it undisturbed at 10ºC overnight before stirring the yeast in (this step is important when using dry yeast, so don't skip it!).

Hey Bob, my second 6 gal batch of genshu has just received its third addition, and is bubbling away at a cool 40 degrees F in my chest freezer. I wanted to thank you again for the guide, and mention an odd thing that I observed from the first batch. I used a steel sieve to rack from the 10 gal fermenter to a 5 gal carboy - keeping it just below the surface of the main mash allowed me to keep the end of the siphon hose submerged in sake, while keeping out the lees...but it was tricky towards the end. How do you usually do this?

I hung the lees (kasu) in a nylon bag, and let them drip for 12 hrs, but oddly enough the resulting wine was very sweet, as opposed to the very dry main-mash stuff I siphoned off. Is this because I didn't stir up everything from the bottom well enough? My theory is that the yeast didn't get to all the sugars converted by the koji, so the kasu drippings were under-fermented. Any ideas?

Thanks again - the CP bottled genshu is definitely showing improvement after a few weeks of aging. I'm hoping this next batch, which is fermenting much colder, will be even smoother. Maybe next time I'll try the SakeOne polished rice, but I'm going to see if the organic sushi rice in the current batch makes any difference. Kampai!

I use a small stainless steel wine press and a nylon paint straining bag to separate the liquid portion of the sake from the more solid kasu. I've used the method you've described before I bought the press, and it works about as well.

The reason the last run of sake pressed from the lees tastes sweeter is pretty simple: it's still fermenting! Well, it should be anyway. Your theory is probably pretty close to what's actually going on, I reckon it very likely has something to do with some of the converted sugars getting hung up in the solid part of the lees where the yeast can't get at it, and those sugars end up being liberated by the pressing. That's why my guide says to put the freshly-pressed nigorizake into whatever secondary vessels you're using, close it with an airlock, and allow it to finish fermenting at 50ºF for a week or two.

I'm curious about how the different rice affects the sake as well, so let me know how it turns out. =) The SakeOne polished rice resulted in a smooooooooooth sake like you wouldn't believe! It's a lot like Momokawa, but also very different in its yeast-produced fruit character and such. Just be aware that the 60% polished rice is going to result in a genshu sake of around 16% ABV because of its lower starch:weight ratio.

Would it be possible at the stage of
pasteurization if it were done in Mason jars and then put a canning lid and ring on while they are cooling? This would seal in the pasteurized sake.

Rich

Yep, that would work just fine.

Thanks for this (and the koji) guide. I'm just embarking on my first batch of sake and this is very helpful. Unfortunately, I don't have the control over temperature that I'd need for your method (quite yet...if things go well, I can upgrade), so I'm making the basic koji-and-rice sake that vision sends out with it's koji spores. My question is this:

I've had a Wyeast sake #9 sent to me, which purports to be good for 5 gallons of sake. My recipes is calling for 1500g rice, 400g koji, 4 liters of water. Should I throw the whole yeast pouch in? Is there a danger of over-yeasting? Seems like the little buggers are just going to go crazy multiplying anyway, so a little extra can't hurt? My thinking may be completely incorrect on that. If not the whole pouch, how much should go into that amount of sake?

Thanks again for this great guide.

Just use the whole pouch, there really isn't any danger of over-pitching at the homebrew level.

Alternatively, you could just double your recipe and make more sake. =)

Thanks so much. My koji will be done sometime tonight (I was hoping before bed, but it's looking like it might go until morning). It's looks like we're in for some cooler weather for the next week or so, so I'll go ahead with getting the fermenting on the whole thing going tomorrow.

One more question, as I've never used Wyeast: How obvious should the breakable capsule in the package be? There's maybe something pea-sized in there, but that's even tough to find with all the air that's in the package. Not sure if it was broken in the shipping or not. The FAQ at Wyeast says it's probably not a problem if it was prebroken, that it should still start getting happy as it's getting warm.

Wish me luck on my North Carolina Sake.

If the pack isn't flat and you can't easily feel the bubble of the nutrient pack, then most likely it has already been broken. As WYeast's FAQ points out, this isn't a big deal: just cut open the pack of yeast and use it.

How obvious is it? Well, when you look inside, you'll see a heat-sealed clear plastic pouch about 1.5" on a side that probably still has some juice in it. That's the nutrient pack, and you want to take care not to let it fall into your moto when you pitch the yeast.

Update: I pulled the yeast out of the fridge about 4 hours before I needed to use it today. The time came to use it and it had an unbroken juice pouch inside. I just could not find that thing in there. There was so much air in the pack that it was nearly impossible to squeeze it enough to locate the pouch. So, all that done, the yeast went in without first getting it's little nutrient pouch. Not sure why there was so much air in there, but hopefully everything will work out okay and I'll have some basic sake in a week and a half or so.

It's not uncommon for those smack packs to have more than one nutrient pack in them. If one gets broken and the other doesn't, there will be some fermentation and the pack will inflate.

Either way, you don't NEED to smack that nutrient pack for this application because you're making a yeast starter. Relax, stop stressing, and sip some sake. =)

Oh, there's no stress...just sharing of data. Things are already smelling yummy.

Thanks again for this great repository of sake-brewing info. I'm planning on printing off hard copies in the event that years down the line when I finally end up in a situation where I have more temperature control options I can branch out into the more advanced options you offer here...just in case.

Hi Bob from the UK!

Firstly, great site, Bob. Very useful.

Secondly, I'm on my first batch of sake made with koji-kin from vision brewing - the only way to do it over here, me thinks. Even had to use arborio risotto rice! Hoping to have this batch ready for a Hanami party when the 60' cherry tree in my garden flowers mid April. The advice/reassurance I'm after is to do with the colour of my sake at this stage...

Last night I racked my sake of the kasu (which my chickens seem to love for supper, although they were all a bit subdued by bedtime - hope they wont have hangovers), and tonight I've checked on my sake and even though it's settling nice, is a nasty yellow colour.

Is this normal and will it go away when i fine with bentonite? Any help greatly appreciated...

Cheers

Steve

Hi Steve! Wow, a Hanami party...I haven't been to one of those in 20 years! Sounds like fun, man.

About your sake color: real sake is yellow. Even the commercial stuff, if you buy the good brands that aren't charcoal filtered to death, is a nice golden yellow color. Right now you have your homemade sake in big jugs, so the yellow color looks very dark because of refractive index. Adding bentonite will indeed lighten the color a little bit, but it won't remove it entirely. By the time you're drinking the final clear sake out of a shot glass, however, the yellow color will barely be noticeable (though it will still be very noticeable in a white cup).

Here are some images to illustrate what I'm talking about. The first one is a comparison between my homemade sake using sushi rice (pre-bentonite, so it's still pretty hazy) and my favorite store-bought ginjo sake Momokawa Diamond:

http://s175.photobucket.com/albums/w151/ecator/?action=view&current=DSC01606.jpg

The second is my latest batch of ginjo sake (made from 60% polish rice bought from F.H. Steinbart Co) in a wine glass:

http://s175.photobucket.com/albums/w151/ecator/?action=view&current=DSC03498.jpg

Kasu for chicken feed...talk about a new take on the classic Drunken Chicken dish! Too funny!

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the reassurance on the colour. I've only had shop bought sake a couple of times and it's always been in brown glass and i've served it in small, ceramic sake cups, so i couldn't tell.

If it's supposed to be yellowm then it's not a nasty yellow, it's a beautiful yellow! Perfect.

I'm looking forward to the Hanami party but it rests on 2 inportant factors: 1, the good old british spring weather - you've heard of April Showers, right? and 2, my cherry tree holding off flowering long enough for my sake to be ready - it's warmed up recently and the buds on the tree are getting pretty big!

Hopefully the weather will be nice enough for the Hanami to extend into yozakura with a showing under the tree of a good old Kurosawa film from the projector - Throne of Blood or Seven Samurai, not decided yet!

Thanks again for your help, Bob. You're a real font of sake knowledge!

Keep up the good work.

Steve

I vote for Seven Samurai!

No problem, Steve, glad I could help. If the Hanami party goes through, be sure to take some pics for me. =)

Great guide, Bob!

I have collected the materials and ingredients needed to make my first batch of sake. One of the ingredients is the big pack of yeast from Wyeast.
I'm not planning to make 5 gallons my first time out -- probably more like 4 mason jars' worth, or so. I read above where you stated that it's OK to just put the whole yeast pack in as it's impossible to use too much yeast.

My question is this: Is there a good way to just use half the package now and store the other half for 6 months or so to use it then in another batch?

Sure, you can do that. But you're taking a risk that opening the yeast pack will allow some wild critters to get in there and compete with the yeasties.

Is there a good way to do this? I honestly have no idea, because it's not something I've ever tried before. Perhaps you could ask WYeast directly?

Good luck with your first batch of sake!

how can i make my own koji there has got to be a way to make it instead of buying spores i am cheap and knowledge is power so if you can email me any info i would really be grateful.

Something like 95% of the other species of mold in the aspergillus genus are toxic to varying degrees, some of them deadly. This means that trying to grow koji from randomly fallen spores in your environment can potentially cause you some serious health problems.

My advice: Don't be cheap. Buy the spores or buy a package of Cold Mountain Koji and use some of it to grow spores as described on the last page of my koji guide. This is the only safe way to make your own koji.

Taylor, do you have an updated PDF?

Also I am having issues with your site not loading or taking extremely long. Do you know if something is wrong?

Thanks

Bob Taylor,

I want to thank you for this article, not only for its precision but in the quality of your entire composition. The article is thorough, precise, and simple to understand. In a single word, "excellent"!

You have completely taken the mystery out of creating a great brew of sake.

Sincerely,

William Hodges

Thank you very much, sir! Compliments like yours make this entire project worthwhile.

hi, i tried to make sake using the following ingredients. The rice i purchase is from Whole Foods. it is an organic sushi rice that expands quiet a bit which forced me to adjust the water amount since going with the ratio of 25:100:160 left the top one and half inches without any water. So far i have made 8 batches of sake that are yielding 10% ABV when done. My latest batch recipe i tried this combination:
3 cups of rice
1.5 cups of Koji
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp of yeast, i use distillers yeast because i also make lightening.
a little pinch of salt
12 cups of water
1/4 cup of sugar
to prepare the rice, i soak it a minimum of 8 hours and steam it for 47 minutes. i actually use a cheese cloth and steam the rice over boiling water. i let this batch ferment for 24 days.
In the previous batches i did not use the sugar. here is an example of another one:
rice 3 cups
koji 1.5 cups
yeast 1/2 tsp- distillers yeast
lemon juice 1 tsp
water 10 cups
finished sake at about 10%ABV

Thank you, i thought i can share my story.

Thank you for sharing, Hooch! If you don't mind a couple bits of advice, I might be able to help you make better sake.

1) You're using way more koji than necessary. That's like 50% of your rice volume for that batch! It doesn't really hurt anything, but you can safely scale it back to 0.75 cup and still get full conversion. Adding more koji than necessary, incidentally, will just add a stronger koji flavor to the sake. That can sometimes get pretty bitter.

2) The above advice will help some with the volume problem that you described, but you still need to cut your water back to 160% of your rice volume (about 4.75 cups, that is) if you want a decent amount of alcohol content to form in the fermenting sake. I know it looks like the top part of the moromi is dry, but what's really going on is that rice - even though it's been soaked and steamed - is soaking up all of your water, which you want to happen because that water is rich with enzymes that are going to break down that rice for your yeast to ferment. In a couple of days the bulk of that rice is going to start to disappear as the starch is degraded with those enzymes, and what looked like not enough water to begin with will turn out to be plenty enough indeed.

But hey, it sounds like you're making decent sake! Good for you!

Bob: Thanks for the great site. I am making my first batch of sake. I have made lots of homebrew and always wanted to attempt sake. I have the same question about mixing the hot rice with cold koji on the first day. I followed the directions and got an initial temp of 120 degrees. I cooled this to 90 in the refrigerator because I was concerned it was too high. I am still in the first few days and wonder if the initial temp was too high. The mix looks the same everyday. Is there some change in condition that should be apparent?

Thanks.

Sounds to me like your initial water addition wasn't quite cold enough. Did you put the koji and water mix in the fridge overnight like the guide recommends? Still, I doubt that 120ºF was enough to completely denature those enzymes, so you should be fine. The following changes should be observed over the first 36 hours:

Day 1: The koji should be mixed with the water and placed in the fridge overnight. The next morning, the water should have a yellowish tinge to it when you mix the hot rice into it.

Day 2: Most of the water will probably have disappeared by now, as it was absorbed by the steamed rice. You might be tempted to freak out, but this is perfectly normal! (PIC: http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w151/ecator/DSC00994.jpg)

Day 3: By the end of this day, the rice will begin to liquefy as the koji enzymes degrade the starch. This is when yeast is added. (PIC: http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w151/ecator/DSC01019.jpg)

I hope this answers your question!

Would something like the Oster food and rice steamers be suitable for preparing rice for sake? What is your favorite way of steaming rice and are there any drawbacks?

A very good question, Jonathan! The answer is nowhere near as simple as the question, but I'll do my best to make it as clear as possible.

The Oster products you're referring to make dandy rice cookers and are worth getting if your household's diet is primarily rice (as in my home and many Asian households), but they're not actually rice steamers (reading the fine print is important here: even the dedicated steamer units just use steam to heat a plastic rice bowl). Yeah, I know, the product blurbs and boxtalk says that they can steam food - and you certainly can use them to steam small amounts of vegetables, dumplings, or some meats - but from what I've seen when looking into them, most of the rice cooker/food steamer products really aren't suitable for steaming the large volumes of rice required for making sake.

To further clarify the above opinion, it's important to remember that there is a difference between cooked rice and steamed rice. Normal dinner rice is prepared by placing the rice and an amount of water (the actual amount differs on the rice variety you're cooking) into a vessel, and then heating it until all of the water is absorbed and the rice is soft and fluffy. This is nice for eating, but not really what we want for making sake and especially not appropriate for making koji. To get the fully gelatinized starches and still retain the firm, non-sticky texture we need for successfully growing koji, steaming is the preparation method of choice.

I've tried several different steamers, and actually own three: two different size of stainless steel steamer that we got for free, and a double-decker bamboo steamer that cost about fifteen bucks at a local Asian market. The one that works the best is that bamboo one. It's large enough to only require two batches to steam the big tomezoe rice addition on day four of the moromi buildup, and yet each layer is shallow enough to allow for even steaming of the rice grains. Yes, having to line it with cheesecloth to steam rice is kind of a pain, and you do have to take care to allow it to dry thoroughly between steaming sessions to prevent it from growing mold; but this cheap bamboo steamer cooks rice faster and more evenly than any more expensive stainless steel model I've ever tried. That's the bottom line that makes me recommend cheesecloth-lined bamboo steamers to every other sake homebrewer out there.

Hey Bob, I just discovered your site tonight---awesome job and thanks for the resource!

I've been brewing my own sake for about 5 years, but I had an unusual experience with my last batch, and I would like to hear your thoughts. I pasteurized my sake at 140 degrees, and bottled it into sanitized one liter grolsch flip-top bottles as usual. I put a couple bottles in the fridge, and enjoyed them over a couple weeks--they tasted fine as always. But, a couple months later, when I went to get one of the other bottles out of the cupboard, where they had been sitting at room temperature (over the winter in New England), I had a surprise. I flipped the top, and it "popped", and it gushed out like champagne. It had gone through a carbonation in the bottle. I tasted it, and while it didn't really taste bad, I threw it out, as I knew something had gone wrong. Out of the 6 bottles, 2 were fine, and 4 went through this carbonation. Now, I know with brewing beer, it's usually a bacterial infection of some sort that causes a second fermentation and the subsequent "gushers". Do you think it was the same problem here? This is the first time I ever had this problem, and I've made about 10-12 batches of sake. I generally maintain very sanitary conditions, but I suspect something contaminated some of my sake between the time I took it off the stove and the time I bottled it.


One other question---any possibility of someone selling dried sake yeast anywhere? I love the flavor of Wyyeast, but I wouldn't mind cutting down the cost of yeast.

Thanks for your response!

Kyle

Hey Kyle! I'm happy to meet another long time sake brewer, and even happier to receive compliments for my work on this web site! =)

It sounds to me like you either got a contaminant between pasteurizing and closing the bottles, or just plain didn't get the bottles hot enough. It's possible that whatever thermometer you're using is faulty. Have you calibrated it against ice water and boiling water to check its accuracy?

Dry sake yeast was brought to my attention some time ago by another reader further up in the comments section, and I added information about it on page 4 of my sake homebrewing guide. An Australian company called AB|Mauri sells dry versions of Japanese sake yeasts #701 and #901, which are low-foaming forms of #7 and #9 respectively. Currently they seem to only targeting commercial operations, however, because I've only seen the yeast being offered for sale in 500 gram blocks through online chemical wholesalers like GW Kent and Pacific Coast Chemicals.

Thanks Bob,

Oh, maybe that's my problem. I didn't pasteurize them IN the bottles---I brought the sake to 140 degrees in a brewpot, and then let it cool and bottled it in the sanitized bottles. That's always worked for me before, but I guess I can now see the logic in pasterizing it right in the bottle.

Yeah, although I've been brewing for a while, I'm kind of a "seat-of-the-pants" brewer, and although I've been quite pleased with my results over the years, I think I've largely just been lucky! I pretty much just followed the simple instructions given by Vision Home Brewing, and adjusted my proportions according to my batch size. But reading your site, I'm understanding more of WHY things are done the way they are.

Just browsing your site quickly, I now understand why you need to add additional koji to the ferment. Like others, I always assumed it was reproducing itself during the fermentation just like the yeast was, and I didn't really know why you needed to add more (although I did it anyways)---I now see that it doesn't reproduce itself.

Thanks for the info about the dried yeast. I wish the homebrew market for sake would grow enough that it would behoove someone to put out a decent, low-priced dried sake yeast for the individual homebrewer. I'm surprised that more people don't homebrew sake in my area. I'm always preachig the gospel, telling people how easy it is and how you can get a great flavor with so few ingredients---and it's fairly inexpensive. I go to one of the oldest, most well-established homebrew suppliers in the metro-Boston area, and I still have to special-order my sake yeast, as I think I'm pretty much the only one of their MANY customers who makes sake!

Talk to you later,

Kyle

I see nothing wrong with doing things by the seat of your pants, actually. If you're happy with the sake you're making, there's no reason (beyond simple curiosity) to change your method. However, you might try pasteurizing the bottled sake next time and see how that works for you. I just put a half dozen filled but still open bottles in my pot at a time, add tepid water from the sink, then heat on medium heat on my stove until the alarm on my thermometer (the probe from which is in the center bottle) tells me that the sake has hit 140ºF. Then I just remove the bottles, close them, and allow them to cool slowly on the counter overnight.

Interest in homebrewing sake is rising, so hang in there! Keep spreading the word to your homebrew buddies, special ordering that yeast (I often have to special order my yeast as well, actually), and sending any questions you can't answer my way. The stronger the interest in the subject gets, the more pressure will be put on suppliers to provide us with the high quality or inexpensive ingredients we want.

Hi Bob,
Thank you for all this info. My question is: Do you think a pressure cooker be used to steam the rice?
Thanks,
Hypha

I don't own a pressure cooker, Hypha, so I can't knowledgeably answer that question. Sorry.

Hey Bob!

So I am almost ready to strain a batch made with the dry sake yeast from mauravin. It does what they say it does; low foaming. That allowed me to increase the batch by 50% to 6 gallons(that is the limit of my rice prepping utensils). It has a great taste also. I sampled a few ounces after a quick pasteurization and I noticed the flavor was way less yeasty than the Wyeast.

By the way I found that a ten gallon food grade plastic container just fits into a GE mini-fridge saving about $40.00 on electricity it takes to run a standard size fridge for the same length of brewing time.

Good to hear, Marc. Keep me updated!

Hi again Bob,
I've just done the final addition to my current batch and about 3 hours later it foamed.. a lot, to the point it's coming out of the blowout. Is there some way of keeping the foam down? I've got to go away for the weekend and am worried it might blow the top like my last batch did. Did I not add something, or add too much of something?

There's 6 and a half cups of koji, about 11 pounds of rice, and 2 and a half gallons of water (this is approximate, I can't find the paper with my actual measurements). It comes out to 4 and a half gallons total.

I noticed that the yeast bag says it inoculates 5 gallons, though. Could that be it?

Sounds to me like your fermenter is too full, too warm, or both. You're doing a 1.5x batch, correct? That's what it looks like from the ingredient amounts you listed. If you're using a 6 gallon bucket as a fermenter, having 5 gallons of moromi in there won't leave much room to contain the foam.

And foam it will, there's really no way to stop that. You can, however, minimize it by keeping the temperature down around 50-52ºF. If it's still foaming too much after that, your only option is to contain the mess with a blowoff tube.

To answer your final question: the amount of yeast you pitched has nothing to do with the foaming. Indeed, I always pitch the whole pack when I make a batch of sake. Yeast just foams during active fermentation, that's all.

Dear author,

I think you have your terms mixed up when you say that "Beer always contains hops, some kind of grain, and usually some amount of carbonation."

Beer does not have to contain hops, hops were not cultivated until late 8th century and their first use in beer is recorded somewhere around early 11th century. But that is not to be mistaken that from that point on beer was always brewed with hops, traditionally beer was flavored with a variety of spices, berries, sometimes fruit and more exotic flavorings, usually local (mix of which is called gruit), and it is likely that more traditional beer did not resemble what we tend to drink today. Mainstream use of hops in beer as basically the only spice did not happen until England lifted their ban on hops in early 16th century.

Also beer does not have to be carbonated, though even in early days, through natural processes, beer would be lightly carbonated, not unlike wine though, but while to wine-makers carbonation is something they try to get out of their beverage (unless ofcourse they are making sparkling wine), for beer in barrels it is something that would be sought.

In all, Sake, by all means is a beer, noone should inflict pain on you to accept that. And actually early early beers, 5000 to maybe 7000BC and earlier would probably have been achieved mashing not unlike sake. Just hypothesize for a second here; mixed grains in a bag could have gotten wet, huts were not waterproof or anything, a fungi that would infect one or more of the grain types could in turn start converting starches into sugars, maybe the ancients would notice that and throw the infected grain in a vessel of some kind, maybe there would be more water there, where from exposure to air the now slightly sweet "wart" could pick up more wild fungi and start fermenting, perhaps a lid would be thrown on top to keep the smells out, and eventually when all bubbling and frothing would go away someone would drink the beverage... Now if you think about experimenting, maybe some bad fruit would be added to this mix, and we know that ale yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae same fungus used in baking bread) is a fungus isolated from grape skins, a fruit that grows in exactly the same temperature regions where most humans were found at the time, so wild grapes are not unlikely fruit that could have been added to this "brew"... and there you have it, a sort of beer brewed in a style not dissimilar to the beverage you are describing here.

Great article, by the way :)

Alex:

Thank you for the long and detailed comment. However, I'm not as misinformed as you think I am. =)

On the subject of hops: It is also known that in 15th Century England - when the first hops gardens were being planted on the island - English brewers and drinkers alike began to differentiate between traditional ale brewed without hops and the new style of ale being brewed with hops: they called hopped ale "beer." A century later, the words' meaning evolved again: "ale" was used to refer to any strong beer, because the traditional unhopped ales were no longer being made.

Modern commercial beer is always flavored with hops. Sure, there are the oddball examples of historical ales made by homebrewers and archaeologists (think "Tutankhamun Ale," which is brewed in the Cambridge laboratory), but commercial breweries who want to sell their beer in quantity all use hops.

Carbonation: The only modern beers that aren't carbonated are barleywines that are too strong to allow for natural carbonation via bottle conditioning. Judging from your comment, I think you'd agree that these aren't your normal beers and therefore can be considered to be the exception that proved the rule.

Hi Bob,
My brew is currently at shubo day 3 and at exactly 70F. I have questions concerning Eckhardt's recomended temp range during the shubo and the “build up” (Moromi and Odori). I understand keeping the temp close to 70F during shubo; however, what is your opinion as to the temp. fluxuations during buildup -1 through Moromi day 1? I have the ability to keep the ferment at 45F (in dedicated fridge) during that time but I’m not sure whether I should. I cut and paste what is listed in Fred’s guide so you can see what I am talking about. Ultimately my question is: when should I get the ferment down to 45F?

Shubo day 1:
Check the temperature of the mix, which should still be around 59-64F/15-18C.
Do what you can to get the temperature to 70F/21C as soon as possible
Shubo day 2:
gradually raise the temperature from 70F/21C to 73F/23C, and maintain that temperature as best you
can.
Shubo day 3-4:
Continue to maintain the above temperature (73F)
Buildup -1:
Lower the mash temperature to 59F/15C
Buildup day 1:
cool the mash to 50F/10C
Cover the fermenter with a
plastic sheet and cool to 55F/13C. Do what you can to get the
temperature to 55F/13C as soon as possible
Build up day 2:
Lower the mash temperature to
59-68F/15-20C (the lower temperature is much better)
Build up day 3:
Lower the temperature to 48-60F/9-20C as quickly as you
can. Keep the temperature 48-60F/9-20C. Lower temperatures are always
better.
Maintain the mash temperature at 50-68F/9-20C (lower temperature is much better)
Build up day 4:
Cool to and keep the temperature at 45-65F/10-18C, and remember cooler is better.
Moromi day 1:
Lower the temperature to below 60F/15.5C, if you have
not already managed that. It could be cooler, as low as 45F/7C. Keep the fermenter covered and cool, this should be a long slow ferment.

Etc…

Thank you for your opinion on this matter.
-Ryan

Those kind of fluctuations are probably pretty common at the professional sake brewer level, but Fred would know better than I do. Personally, I think those temperature fluctuations are more complex than required at the homebrew level, and that is reflected in the temperatures recommended in my guide.

The magic numbers are "room temperature" and 50F (10C). The higher temperature is only needed during moto/shubo for proper biological acidification of the starter and quick completion of the starter's fermentation. The same goes for the higher temperature at the beginning of the moromi buildup: it's only needed to get the yeast revved up and really interested in doing the job. As long as you can maintain at or below 55F (13C) for the primary fermentation, you're going to end up with good sake no matter which starter method you use. =)

I don't know that I would recommend as low as 45F (7C), though. Sure, the yeast will still work that cool, but the lower your fermentation temperature, the less character the yeast will impart to the finished sake. I ferment my sake right smack on 52F (11C) because I really like the vanilla-strawberry aroma the yeast gives my sake at that temperature.

Hey!
I'm just curious... you say at the top that all measures of volume are for UNCOOKED rice... is this also true for weight?
Can you please clarify a ratio, once and for all, for uncooked Rice Koji, Uncooked Rice for ferment, and water?
Also a trick from a mead maker - a few raisins blended up in a blender will also provide nutrient, enough for ferment.
THANKS for this, it's exactly what I needed, I'm off to order spores!
James

Yea my comment still stands... also in this recipe I ask for, please indicate how much sake it will make!

I'm hoping to have a big party at the end of the summer, so I'm learning to make sushi too...
Thanks again,
James

Hey James, thanks for the comment and questions! I thought I stated the ratio pretty clearly on page 3 of this guide:

"The ratio of the main ingredients in this recipe follows the traditional ratios that tojis have been using for centuries: koji:rice:water ratio of 25:100:160. That is 2.5 pounds of koji to 10 pounds of dry rice to 16 pounds of water. You can change the unit types (pounds, kilograms, whatever) to whatever you like, as long as you maintain that ratio."

The recipe I use, which is the same as the recipe in this guide, makes 2.5-3.0 gallons of finished sake. The variation depends on the efficiency of your joso (pressing) step. The recipe scales well, too, so you can expand it to meet your requirements. Just make sure you have an appropriately sized fermenter before you do!

That's a good tip about the raisins, by the way. Maybe it will help other new sake brewers. As for myself, I'm actually the only person in my household who even likes raisins, so we never have any on-hand. But I always have yeast nutrient on-hand, so I use that for making both mead and sake. Also, being something of a traditionalist, adding blended raisins to sake just doesn't sound good to me - I'd rather just stick to the 4 basic ingredients, and I don't want to contribute to the "rice + raisins + sugar = sake" farce that already exists - but if you're just talking about half a dozen golden raisins, it probably wouldn't impact the finished product any.

Hey there, thanks for helping me!

I feel a little stupid, but with all these ratio and units going around, would you care (PLEEEEEZE?) to go over my recipe to see if it makes sense? I am making 10 liters.

(My koji-kin seeds just arrived today! I hope to start this on Monday morning, if possible!):

Make Komi kogi, by taking 400g of uncooked rice, steaming it and innoculating it with the seeds, as per the instructions.

Take 1500g uncooked rice, steam it.

Take all of the above, put it in my fermenter, add yeast, nutrient of some sort, and let it all ferment for 14 days, or more.

Siphon off of the solids, and keep cold until my party guests drink it!

Sounds ok? I REALLY appreciate it! I will be taking pictures and will happily sent them on to you!

My best,
James

Ooops...
The above recipe is for FOUR (4) liters, not 10... sorry for the confusion!

I don't wish to sound rude, James, but the lack of step-up additions and cool fermentation temperatures makes that look an awful lot like the very same unpleasant doburoku recipe that's been floating around other sites on the Internet for the past few years. If that is indeed the case, I can only recommend that you take some time to actually read the guide to which you have just posted a comment.

If you wish to make only 4 to 6 liters of sake, simply halve the amounts called for in my recipe and all of the steps in the method that I describe in this guide.

Hey Bob -
It's not rude - it's honest!
I understand that to make good sake, one needs to make step additions, that's not the problem. The problem for me was that I wanted to make kome-koji from dry rice, and not make more than I needed. I wanted the dry rice measurement for the kome-koji. While your measurements above are clearly for dry rice, for the step additions of RICE, the measurements for the kome-koji are obviously for kome-koji, not dry rice or the dry rice needed to make the accurate amount of kome-koji. This is confusing, hopefully for obvious reasons.
To state it again, it would have helped me, personally, if you indicated how much DRY rice you needed to make kome-koji out of, for the recipe above. Not sure if you had considered that, or if you indeed have a straight answer for this question.

My own, personal reasons: Though I am an experienced brewer of all-grain beer and wine (more than 20 years!), I am not living at home, and was hoping to limit equipment outlay - like buying a digital scale for the home, etc. Also, I don't really need to make extra Kome-Koji, just to leave in my host's freezer. In the end, I have a 10 liter fermenter and I would just like to make about 8 or so liters to allow room for the ferment-head and have enough for my party :D
Good luck with that, and if you now know why I was confused, I hope it helps others. I have made the kome-koji (almost done!) from a 1 kilo bag of rice, at this point, so I guess I have plenty. I might just steal a scale from a neighbor - if only I knew how to speak Swiss-German enough to ask!
James

Ah, I see your question now. I apologize for the misunderstanding, and I do indeed have a straight answer for you:

My method for making sake calls for a traditional 25:100:160 ratio of koji:rice:water. So for my normal recipe using 10 pounds of rice, an additional 2.5 pounds would be needed to make koji. Of course, in each step of my process the amounts are measured in volumetric units (which is also in keeping with tradition): it works out to about 6 cups of koji for a normal batch. As a general rule rice doubles in volume after soaking and steaming, so you would have to start with 3.5 to 4 cups of dry rice to end up with enough finished koji to do the job.

Since you only want to end up with about a gallon of sake, using a whole kilogram of rice to make koji is about twice as much as you actually need.

Hey THANKS, Bob, your help is invaluable - I'm so glad I found it, and now have a handle on things!

Hey again, Bob... quick question:

My understanding is that the kome-koji has enzymes that help break down the rice.

Is it acceptable to pasteurize the kome-koji prior to mixing it with the rice, and putting it into the fermenter?

I have been super care-full with sanitation, due to my prior homebrewing experiences, so I am curious about taking this step, which would really be a nice way for me to have a clean slate of ingredients prior to pitching yeast.

THANKS AGAIN! The Kome-Koji came out pretty well, so far so good! Certainly learning a lot!

Kome-koji supplies all of the alpha amylase that your sake will ever see, that's its primary purpose in your sake: to convert gelatinized rice starches to simple sugars that yeast can metabolize.

Alpha amylase starts to denature at around 150ºF. Most micro-organisms are killed at 140ºF. That gives you a 10º window within which you could conceivably pasteurize your koji.

Why you would want to do so, or how you would manage it without immersing the kome-koji in water (probably not a good idea, enzymes survive better with less water around), are both completely beyond me.

Think about that for a moment. What would you really be accomplishing? You're going to be opening that fermenter and stirring its contents multiple times a day - for a few minutes at a time - for most of the first three weeks of the process. Three weeks later, you'll have to open the fermenter again and ladle the moromi out so that you can press it, a process that takes an hour or two during which the fermenter is open the entire time.

I'm an all-grain beer brewer and occasional mead maker, too, so I sympathize with how the whole open fermenter concept makes your hair stand up. But I gotta tell ya: my first batch of sake was the only one that ever went bad on me, and that was entirely my own fault for attempting to shortcut the process by skipping the moromi buildup and not trying to cool the fermentation in any way. So, not only do I think pasteurizing the koji is unnecessary, it's also counterproductive in that it adds an extra step whose possible benefit is completely reversed by later steps.

Hell, I don't even spray the spoon I use to stir the moto/moromi with sanitizer, I just wash it off with dish soap and hot water before and after use. =)

I came across a really old recipe for sake and it call for and i ill put it in text

1 Gal Sugar
1 Gal Grown Rice ( use in coffee grinder)
4 gal Spring water

Then it said to add it together and let it sit for eleven days then filter then allow two more days before bottling.
Im not sure if the would be one other way to cold brew sake, so i wanted to be sure im doing things right so i don't blow up the house or something. Anyways if you have anything to advise me of please email and put " Sake recipe" In the subject bar. thanks.
Also if my email doesn't show up its reko_remaru@yahoo.com

That's not the first time I've seen a variant of that recipe, Heath. =) Call it whatever you want, but any time you have sugar and water making up 2/3 of the recipe (and all of the fermentables in this case, but I'm getting ahead of myself), what you have is a country wine...not sake. That recipe will certainly ferment and produce something alcoholic, but it won't taste anything like sake.

It's best to view such recipes with a critical eye. The reasoning goes like this: without being gelatinized (cooked), and without having some kind of enzyme additive to break the gelatinized starches down into fermentable sugars, what exactly is the rice adding to this recipe? The answer is "zilch." Well, maybe some starch haze that will settle out or contribute to souring infections, but that's about it. Almost no flavor, and certainly nothing in the way of fermentable carbohydrates.

If you're okay with making a country wine using refined sugar as the bulk of your fermentables, then go ahead and use the recipe you're asking about. If, however, you want to make sake, I not-so-humbly suggest that you use my recipe. =)

Hi Toji san,
My sake was started using the shubo method and is now at day 15 (at exactly 50F) of the secondary ferment. I thought that the residual ferment would be over by this point but low and behold its still producing bubbles. My concern is that the bubbles are coming from a contaminant (i.e. heterofermentative lactic acid bacteria) and not from the yeast. Is it normal for the ferment to carry on past the two weeks described in your recipe? Should I bottle and pasteurize the sake now or wait until the bubbles stop? Any opinions on this matter would be greatly appreciated.
-Ryan

My first question would be about the frequency of those bubbles. If they're very rapid, then there's probably still some kind of fermentation going on. However, if the bubbles in your airlock are pretty slow, then it's more likely that the sake is just out-gassing the dissolved CO2 from fermentation. Cold liquid can absorb more gas than warm liquid, so out-gassing takes longer at lower temperatures.

Either way, a more definite answer is to be found in the specific gravity. If it's at or below 0.995 (SMV ~+6), it's pretty safe to assume that fermentation is either finished or pretty nearly so. In that case, you're probably seeing out-gassing if the bubbles are slow. If the SG is above 1.000 (SMV 0), then there's still some fermentation taking place. If that's the case, I would taste the sake and decide whether or not to stop the fermentation by racking, fining, and pasteurizing.

Hey!
Well, well, i'm well on my way, but I do question my so-far results... Having not seen actual pictures of the brewing, I am not sure what to expect so far as texture is concerned. It has turned soupy but not really separated with clarity, and I'm not sure how long the separation of solids and liquids will take in this particular batch... One question is: how much separate liquid should I expect? If the total volume is, say, 10 liters, with koji, rice, and water, how much easily siphoned sake will there be, and how much stuff I will have to press?
In any case, the stuff smells amazing and have attached an air lock that allows me to to take small samples: yum!
Any advise, however, on the progress of the mushy fermenting stuff, would be really comforting :D
Thanks again for this great guide, this certainly won't be my only attempt :D
James

I'll make myself a note to update that part of the guide later, you're not the first to ask this question. =)

The answer is: it depends. The amount of rice solids that float to the top and forms a cap over the liquid sake varies from batch to batch even in my own sake. Sometimes I can siphon most of the liquid out from under the floating rice, sometimes I can't.

Honestly, I don't bother with trying to siphon any more. I take a page from the more traditional of the Japanese sake brewers and use a sanitized one-quart stainless steel sauce pan to dip the moromi out of the fermenter and deposit into my nylon pressing bag. Then I press the whole thing as normal.

Hope that helps you out. =)

Oh once again, you're the best!

Yea some pictures of the actual 3 weeks or so of fermenting texture would just ease my mind, but it seems you have done some for that cause already!

My best to you!

Thanks for the good read, not bad imo

Well today I took a tablespoon with a sip stealer, and my fears are gone!

I think it was this thread over on northerbrewer that told me more about what to expect, texture-wise. Lost of good pictures and comments:

http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=50409&sid=bb987bf21b05ebf0de950a5c5a8b85d7

Anyway, it just took me a little faith to watch it turn very... Thick (like, rice-ish, almost) to now having clear stuff you would recognize as sake. The brew is beginning to clarify and it has a really nice acidic balance - really tasty! It's a bit like curds and whey - in how it settles out. Very fun to see.

Hopefully the link above helps someone!

Hey again!
I am curious - this round I will use the heat method of sanitizing, as you suggest, but is there anything saying you shouldn't use campden, etc?
Now I just need to find a thermometer in this crazy country...
Thanks Again!

For sanitizing your equipment? Use whatever you like. I sanitize my fermenter with Star-San before starting moto in it, but other than that I just use anti-bacterial soap and hot water to wash my spoon before and after stirring.

It should go without saying that your steamer doesn't really need to be sanitized, but it wouldn't hurt anything to sanitize any intermediary vessels used to store water and cooled rice between steamer and fermenter.

Hey -
No, I meant when you sanitize the sake... could one use campden tablets rather than heating the finished product to 140, etc... as one would use meta-bi sulphites for wine?

You could, if bacterial infection and yeast activity were the only concerns. But they're not: there are also the koji protease enzymes to deal with. If those aren't inactivated, they'll continue to break residual rice protein down into amino acids, which will accumulate to darken the sake's color and produce off flavors.

Bob,

Great site. I am working on finishing my first batch made from your recipe. It is looking really good. I can't wait to taste it.

Have you tried using other fining agents than bentonite? Perhaps Super-Kleer or gelatin.

Thanks,

Mark

Hi Mark! I'm glad to hear that your first batch is coming along well.

Gelatin works decently to clear yeast haze, but it has very little effect on colloidal haze. That makes it a pretty unsuitable fining agent for sake.

Super-Kleer K.C. would probably work, but I've never used it because it contains Chitosan. This is a personal choice, however, because some of the people who drink my sake have shellfish allergies.

Feel free to experiment, and if you find something that works as well as bentonite, I'd love to hear about it. =)

Dear Sir,
I am from the Philippines and I enjoyed reading your article and very much interested to work on my first sake. Is it possible ask for a pdf copy? thanks very much.
Raul

Hello Raul, visitor from the Phillipines! A slightly out-of-date PDF version of this guide is available from the Sake Homebrewing Guide - Appendix A: Downloads post on this site.

I have been thinking of brewing my own sake for a LONG time, have read this site, the instructions etc several times.

Now the koji-kin is there, self gathered hops (from Sweden) are dry and my mind is set.

Reading the instructions once again, translating the stuff into Finnish as I go, to make sure I can refer to the process later if something goes wrong -and perhaps help somebody in Finland to follow my steps.

I love the site and the trouble you have gone through. Dedication!

My hat is off for you!

Shall post again when something is brewing.

Hey!

So... really this is the same poster, above, as Jim_Teacher, but... in honor of my recent success...

Well, I successfully made NigoriSake, and yes we drank it all in one go at our blow-out "Summer is over, Fall is here" party. It was not hard to blow through! Yum!

Because I was out of my country, a few changes were made in the recipe. Sake yeast seemed impossible to get, however I brought with me two packets of yeast: Premier Cuvee and Cote des Blancs. This yeast blend is by far my favorite mix for mead, so I figured - why not! I like the esters Cote des Blancs gives off, and yes I was pleased by the blend in my Sake. When compared to commercial examples, mine was a bit milder and less sour, a bit more fruity.

Another change from your recipe is that I was super-careful about 'sanitation' during the whole process: while makeing koji from spores, all the way to the end. Rather than mix by hand, as you recommend, I used a sanitized (read: boiled) dough-hook in a sanitized steel bowl. I also used a closed fermenter with an air-lock. I believe this absolutely reduced sour-ness. Also, I was able to keep temperatures fairly low, but my ice-changing schedule was not perfect, which was another reason to be very careful about sanitation.

Lastly, I made yeast nutrient from boiling old yeast trub and a few bended up boiled raisins. Worked out fine!

Now I'm home, and I have already received my Cold Mountain Koji, so soon enough I will be brewing Sake again... I have Sake #9 yeast, but I'm tempted to make two small batches right off, one with Cote-des-Blancs exclusively. Or perhaps some blend, yet again, perhaps even blend the final products, as I do so often with other brews.

Well, just wanted to report back, especially as people above asked about alternative yeast strains... also wanted to pass on my notes.

My best to you, and thanks again!

Bob,

Thanks for the great documentation of the sake homebrew process. I followed your directions meticulously in January of 2008 and made a batch (I even asked you a question above). The batch turned out well and I have been slowly enjoying it since then. A homebrew beer contest I was entering this year accepted sake entries so I submitted mine. Even at 20 months old my two submissions took the top two spots (http://www.theschooner.org/). I couldn't have done it without your help. Thanks.

Hi Bob.
Im in Vancouver, Canada and cant seem to get Komi Koji except as a bag of frozen rice, so basically its frozen KK. I didnt see this question asked so thought I would ask it ... anyone or yourself know if this is ok to use?

thanks
-BB

My sake had been resting for 3 months and had settled out. I shook one of the bottles up thinking it was the nigori and realized it wasn't. a week and a half later and it's settled again, but it's slightly hazy still. Was shaking it a bad thing?

fined with bentonite, so time patience and low temps? I have plenty! ha!

BTW, if anyone is curious, 5 pounds of rice is about 11 1/2 cups....

My second batch is going well...

just started my first batch.. was using the easy recipe that came with my 'sake-kit' and then stumbled on to your pdf. going to read through yours and try it instead. have my kome koji in the freezer now waiting.

have you tried adding fruit extracts common to wine making?

No, I generally prefer my sake straight-up, so I've never used any of the fruit extracts. I'd be interested in hearing your results if you try it, though. =)

will do. i have to pickup a few things at the brew store. i had planned on 3 mini sake batches uses different yeast with each one. maybe ill through some fruit in one.

Hi Bob,my roomy and I are newbie brewers (about 8mos or so,)and long time "do-it-yourselfers." We have a firm understanding of the fermentation process and procedures. I love the guide and all of its educational info, but I do have one very simple question on procedure that may clarify a very simple process: in transfering the moromi to secondary fermentation, you mention laddling the moromi into a joso bag in a bottling bucket for pressing. Does the sediment get transfered too or left behind such as in transfering beer wort off of the spent yeast bodies? or can the whole mix be "dumped" into my oversized straining bag and left to get racked off of the sediment after fining? Quite simply put: are you laddling because of a small straining bag or is there some bennefit or procedure such as leaving the dead yeast behind? I'm assuming that it's safe to dump the whole mix right through my bag in one shot. Please correct me if I am wrong. Thanx for everything, and happy brewing!

Sorry that I forgot to mention a potentially impotant factor in the equation: I am using a dry champaign yeast temporarily in absence of a locally obtainable sake yeast. Thanx again!

Hey, it's another Bob! If you have your first batch of sake already under way, you will soon discover the reason for ladling instead of siphoning for yourself: the moromi doesn't really separate into a liquid portion on top of sedimented yeast at any point in its fermentation. It's for this reason that joso (pressing) is necessary to separate the liquid sake from the solid remains of the rice. Its only after pressing that a sediment will form as the ori settles out of the nigorizake.

That brings me to the reason for ladling. There are all kinds of reasons for ladling instead of just dumping the moromi into a large joso bag, but the two big reasons why I recommend doing it that way in my guide boil down to: minimizing oxygen pickup and minimizing the amount of mess that is made. With that in mind, it's your sake. If you want to pick up a bucket with four gallons of moromi and pour it into another vessel for pressing, more power to ya!

I nearly opened my comment with "hello fellow Bob!" so it's funny you should say the same! I fully understand your methods and wish to thank you for your timely response and this very informational guide. You are apparently a man who engages his endeavors with great passion. I follow the same narrow path and greatly appreciate such input from someone who has blazed a trail. It takes alot of guess work out of the equation and allows for a better understanding and for my time to be spent on fine tuning instead of trial and error in the learning stages. I have already made a batch of the doburoku (beginner style at vision brewing,) and simultaneousely a batch with your guide that is about to go into secondary fermentation.

Also for those finding temperature control an issue, a space heater (with thermostat) in a closet or make shift room (tarps) is great for making koji rice. Also, a dorm refridgerator with the door removed and affixed to a box or old cabinet (set very low) hit a perfect 50 degrees F. Ideal for fermentation and aging!!! Maybe I could E-mail you some pics and descriptions of my home made fridge, as it seems there are alot of questions on temperature control. You're an inspiration Bob and thanx for everything!!!

You're very welcome, Bob! As always, all questions are welcome and my e-mail inbox is always open to inquiries. =)

Hi Again!
So it is 16 days from Tomezoe, or day 21, and I have kept the brew at 50 degrees - give or take 2 degrees due to the fridge cycling.

My calendar says it should be ready to press, but for some reason there are still bubbles coming from the airlock.

Is this just in-suspension co2? Or should I wait longer? It seems I'm at the end of page 7 in the process, but I'm afraid to proceed.... I'm hoping for a nice health nigorizake batch for half of the brew, as well as some sake finished off in secondary fermentation for another few weeks...

HALP! and THANKS!

You don't want it to be completely done fermenting before you press it. Having some fermentation still going on will help protect your sake from being damaged by any oxygen picked up during pressing.

Hi Bob! I have come to a situation where I need advice again and since it's an important topic, I thought I would bring it here for others to view as well. INFECTION: How do I know if my sake is infected? I am insane about good sanitation practices but at the end of my secondary, there seems to be what appears like a few small drops of mold floating. Uh oh! Is it ruined?

Hey Bob! In a quasi-open fermentation like what we're doing with sake in this technique, it's pretty much a guarantee that the moromi is going to have what most modern homebrewers would consider "an infection." We're using a tamed mold and, in the yamahai moto technique that I describe in the guide, wild lactobacillus or related critters to achieve the desired results.

So...mold on your sake. What color is it? If it's white, then chances are you probably wouldn't have noticed it. If it's green like bread mold, then probably you're seeing a common penicillium variant - looks gross, but otherwise harmless. Just scrape it off with a sanitized spoon, then give the moromi a taste. If it tastes okay, then I would keep an eye on it but otherwise wouldn't worry.

I may give a go at brewing sake, but have a question about the yeast. I can't see anywhere that you make a yeast starter. One 50 billion cell activator pack would be woefully inadequate for a lager beer fermentation. Do the multiple addition stages of the moromi provide for yeast growth, and should you try to introduce some air into the mash to help that? Is there any advantage to making up a big healthy yeast slurry like one would for a beer?Thanks for all of your work on behalf of sake!

The moto step is a yeast starter. I mentioned that on page 2 of the guide, you just missed is all. =)

I know that part of the answer to my question is "drink what you enjoy" however I do have a question about style and such...

First of all, with Nigori, how much 'white stuff' is really appropriate to have in the bottle? I am bottling in 16 oz mason jars and 7oz bottle-capped bottles. I have just been bottling Nigori bottle at the end of the pressing and let it all settle - in a 16 oz mason jar, there is maybe a thumb height full of 'stuff' at the bottom. Is this too much?

Secondly, in my attempts to make 'muroka' I fail to keep 'all' the 'lees' out of the bottle - there is an inevitable dusting on the bottom. If I decant, I can pour the sake more-or-less clear, and indeed, the sake stays very clear if I don't transport it very far, for example, and quickly decant. However, what is the 'standard' for muroka? I feel as if I'm not quite making muroka, not quite Nigori - can you weigh in on this?

Lastly, I LOVE what I am brewing, however it seems more 'sour' than standard sake, in a nice way. Actually, it is the most lovely flavor! However, is there a commercial sake that is brewed more or less in the way you describe, say, available fresh in California? I would like to compare a little bit and expand my knowledge.

Thanks always!

I think I just answered my last question with SakeOne - however any chain stores you know of sell it? I guess I'll just buy a bit on-line...

Welcome back, Little Grasshopper! Some mighty good questions you have there, let's see if I can help you sort some of 'em out. =)

Nigorizake is generally bottled straight out of joso (pressing). How much ori is appropriate? However much your pressing method ends up letting through. Having a "thumb height" of settled ori on the bottom of a bottle of nigorizake isn't unusual, even in commercial examples.

There isn't really a "standard" amount of haziness that is considered appropriate for muroka sake. Why? Because muroka (hazy) is generally not regarded as an appropriate state of being for sake! The term muroka is actually used to describe a flaw or transitional stage in an example of sake, just as "hazy" is considered to be a flaw or transitional stage (before lagering) in a pilsner style beer. As far as the pros and judges are concerned, sake only has two appropriate states of clarity: completely opaque milky white nigorizake, or brilliantly clear seishu. Haziness is never acceptable in a finished sake.

That's not to say you can't do it at the homebrew level, though. If you don't filter or fine your sake, by definition you have muroka, and that means that like any other bottled beer you're going to have some amount of that haziness settle out over time, leaving a layer of sediment on the bottom of the bottle. There's nothing wrong with that...just don't expect to win any competitions with it. =)

The sourness you're talking about comes from the yamahai moto style of starter that you are (and I am!) using to get your sake going. How long you let that starter go before refrigerating or moving on to the moromi additions is one of the variables that brewers using that ancient starter method can play with to adjust their sake's final flavor profile. The result, like any other change in the method, is a sake that is totally unique to that toji or kura. As for commercial versions that are more sour than usual...I suggest you consult John Gautner over at www.esake.com or www.sake-world.com (both linked on the right side of this site under "External Links") for brand names to look for.

Generally speaking, brewers reserve the labor-intensive yamahai moto technique for batches of their most prized ginjo and daiginjo sakes, and they almost never use that technique in this country (as far as I know, SakeOne uses the shubo technique for all of their brands). Expect to pay a pretty penny for an import.

Are you sure I can't ferment at warmer temps if I use a high gravity ale yeast, or something like EC-1118?

It's your sake, you can do what you like. But you might want to be aware that the low temperature isn't really for the yeast's benefit, it's to retard the activity of lactobacillus and other spoilage organisms. Some sourness in sake is desirable, but if you ferment at too warm of a temperature, you're more likely to end up with something that tastes more like vinegar than sake.

Hi Bob,
I am brewing my first batch of sake using your wonderful instructions. Thank you! I studied your guide thoroughly, and, to make sure I understood all of the steps, I put them into an Excel spreadsheet. With the spreadsheet, I can enter a starting date and then see on which dates the various stages fall. I found this useful, as I wanted to make sure the labor-intensive tomezoe stage fell on a weekend day. I would be happy to share this spreadsheet with you and others. Let me know if you'd like a copy.
I'm in day two of the moromi -- wish me luck!

If you'd like me to add your spreadsheet to my downloads post, I'd be happy to do so. However, I don't actually own a copy of Microsoft Office (I prefer to use the free open source software OpenOffice.org instead), so I probably won't be able to open it. That's okay, though, I use my own checklist. =)

I have been getting a banana aroma from my process since about day 2 or 3. Is this common ? Will this come through in the finished product ? How much will the taste change over the procdess of fermentation ? Ihave just finished adding all the rice.

Thans

you mentioned (I think....) the adding of Hops to the brew? I have a supply of mugwort that I'm looking to use (it can be used in place of hops) but I can't seem to find where the hops are added in the process?

thanks!

Merry Christmas, all!

@louis: All kinds of different fruit aromas are common from a sake fermentation, especially with the Sake #9 yeast. What aromas are dominant is largely a factor of fermentation temperature, and whether or not they carry through to the finished product depends on how volatile the compounds responsible for the aroma is.

My sake, for example, ferments at just about precisely 52ºF and smells very strongly of strawberries and vanilla during that time. The strawberry aroma is very volatile and is usually not detectable in the finished sake, but I've been asked by many people whether or not I add vanilla to my sake even after double pasteurizing. =)

So...look to your fermentation temperature first. Banana aromas usually mean you're pretty high. Want to tell me what your sake is fermenting at right now?

@Jeff: I never mention or advocate the addition of hops to sake. They're just not necessary and stylistically (for traditional sake) undesireable. I have, however, compared the flavor that koji imparts to sake to the bitter flavor that hops give to beer. They're very similar, once the sake has been pasteurized (that removes the "fresh" koji flavors and aromas that nama sake is prized for).

That's not to say you can't add bitter herbs, spices, fruit, or even vegetables to your sake if you really want to. When the Japanese add herbs and spices to their sake, they call it toso and usually drink it to celebrate the New Year. Here in America, infused sake is becoming all the rage, with many bars and restaurants concocting their own versions to serve alongside their haute cuisine. If this is what you're after, the time to add it is well after the end of the brewing process. In other words, infused sake starts with finished sake, to which you add whatever herbs or other flavorings you which to infuse the sake with.

I hope this answers your questions. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Excellent site and info! Thanks.

Hey!
I'm wondering about Yodan: I want to make this batch slightly sweeter. If I add, say, 3/4 or 1 cup of rice, or whatever I decide, how long should I wait for it to break-down and sweeten the sake? How long should I wait to press it?
Thanks!
B)

I made my own sake, without koji we call this "tape" in indonesia.

ingredient:
500 grams glutinous rice
5 pills yeast

cooking rice, then let it about 2 hours so self rice temperature reach about 28-30 Celcius, mix powdered yeast pills stir it troughly until all rice look pale. Put those rice in a container, in 2 days you will get your "tape".

That is not sake, it's glutinous rice wine or huang jiu. I'll be doing an article on that myself in the near future. =)

The differences are the rice still retained on its fermented water and alcohol precentage, i think , :)

The difference is quite a bit more significant than that, my friend. For example, huang jiu (what you call "tape") is very sweet. Sake is not.

Hi!
I have a question about styles and rice variety...
Certainly my recent sake is/was 'spicy' and great for big foods. However, as a nigori it's too much so, really unpleasant. On the flip side, some nigori I have tasted tastes great, but if I let it settle and drink as unfiltered clear-ish sake, I'm more easily turned off....
I'm wondering if you have any comments about varieties, or sources for lots of info.
Thanks!

Hi, again, Bob, from the UK!

Steve here.

After last years Hanami success (sorry but i was busy with hosting, tofu soup, teriyaki, tofu stew, setting up the projector - Throne of Blood won out due to the temperature an shorter duration! - so i didn't get to take any pictures!), I'm back for year 2 and once again will be following your sake brewing bible.

I've got last years left over koji-kin to use - will it still work?

As a note to any other would-be-sake-brewers in the UK, i used Sainsbury's (supermarket) Arborio risotto rice (derived from the Japonica short grain rice apparently). it worked a treat and is 50p ($0.75) cheaper than 'sushi' rice. i might try 'pudding' rice this year, which is even cheaper! or possibly a batch of each. just need the temperature to come up a bit so my cellar is around 10 degrees C again...

Good lucj everyone...

Steve

Hi. Thanks for putting together this amazing site. I have looked all over Montreal for koji, and I can't find it anywhere except for one place, where it costs at least twice what it did in the US. I don't want to start making my own just yet either.

My question is, Is it possible to reduce the amount of koji used in the process? [More than you say in your 4/18/09 @ 16:22 comment.] (Perhaps by grinding it before adding?) Many an enzyme molecule can activate a reaction millions of times before it is spent, so perhaps one could still get full conversion with an order of magnitude less koji if conditions are kept right (or would it take 10 times as long?)

I have done a few preliminary experiments with a tablespoon or so of koji and a cup of rice, and it did gain a nice sweetness. Leads to another question: Is there a way to measure the amount of conversion?

You're welcome to try whatever methods your imagination can come up with - it is, after all, your homebrew! There are a couple things to consider, however. The first thing is the ratio of koji to rice the recipe is already using: 25:100. So we're already only using a fifth of our total rice volume to supply the enzymes that will convert the rest of the rice. That's not very much, but still enough to fully convert the supplied rice starch for the yeast to consume. If you were to scale that back by an order of magnitude (2% instead of 20%), you probably wouldn't reach anywhere near full conversion.

The second thing to consider is tradition. The ratio I quote all through this site (25:100:160) was arrived at through centuries of trial-and-error by Japanese sake brewers. Ask any modern sake brewer (if you can find one that is willing to share his "secrets" with you) about their ratio of koji to rice to water, and you're not very likely to get a number that strays very far from the one in my recipe. Why do you suppose that is?

You're correct that enzymes can catalyze a reaction millions of times before they are denatured by the work, but you're leaving out the idea of enzyme density. Koji produces a lot of alpha amylase (way more than, say, 6-row pilsener malt), so much so that you can use a relatively small amount to do a very big job like making sake. But koji is not so enzyme dense that you can use a truly minuscule amount to do the same job. My recommendation would be to just make less sake (a half batch) rather than try to use less koji to do the job.

Hi Bob

I can't seem to find a place where you address water but I may have missed it. My tap water is unusable for beer, wine, mead, etc so it seems reasonable that it would make terrible sake. How do you feel about using distilled or spring water? Is one better than the other for making sake? Distilled does not have the minerals that spring water has but I don't know if that is important for sake. Would love to get your thoughts.

Another question entered my mind as I was reading through the above comments. How sensitive is sake to oxidizing? As a brewer, the thought of ladling anything fermented gives me shivers. I understand that it may be necessary but how careful does one have to be?

Sorry! After reading the ingredient list more carefully, I found the section on water. Doh!

Double sorry for taking up you comment space. After reading through the guide again I realized I had accidentally skipped a couple pages. :-( All is cleared up now.

I'm a winemaker by trade, homebrewer for fun. Your site is a lifesaver. Awesome stuff.
As a winemaker I have a comment regarding bentonite. Generally any addition of bentonite strips certain aromas and flavors. We use it to remove protein (bontonite is positively charged... proteins are negatively charged... bentonite settles to the bottom and takes the protein with it) but we ALWAYS ALWAYS do fining trials before making any addition of bentonite. Too much and you can turn an otherwise delicious and interesting beverage into just another bland alcohol delivery vehicle. We usually do a trial of 1, 2, 3 & 4 lbs per thousand gallons, and then taste that to see what the effect is. Then we run heat stabilization tests to see if it develops a protein haze aned then use the smallest addition possible to achieve a stable wine. All of this is relatively time consuming, but important so we don't just throw clay in the wine and ruin all our hard work. Remember, the bentonite will only remove proteins and any resultant protein haze... as well as aroma and flavor... so in that sense it only affects the appearance of your wine (or in this case sake).

Point being, if you're a home brewer making sake and you're okay with the possibility of a little haze (usually only if the bottle has spent some time at extreme heat...like the trunk of a car) then skip the bentonite. What you stand to lose far outweighs the possibility of a little cosmetic blip.

Unlike wine, the haze in unfined sake is completely unrelated to heat exposure (remember: up to this point, the sake hasn't really seen anything above 60ºF, and it's about to be pasteurized). It's a colloidal protein haze to be sure, but there is a lot more of it than you would find in a typical wine, and it never really settles out on its own. Hence, the bentonite. Yes, bentonite strips color, aroma, and flavor...but in the case of sake, this is actually desirable because what little flavor and color is removed is actually undesirable in the finished product. Keep in mind that any "delicate" aromas and flavors present in the nama sake are about to be destroyed by pasteurization, so you're not really going to lose much to the fining agent.

I'm not talking about a lot of bentonite here, either: one half teaspoon per gallon of sake. You can leave it out if you like, it's completely up to you.

My bentonite concern arose because half a teaspoon (doesn't seem like a lot) of bentonite is still about 2.4 grams. And usually making wine I'd add at the most between 1-4 grams per thousand gallons of wine. In homebrewing it's more like 10 or 20 gallons at most. So 1/4 teaspoon in 10 gallons is an awful lot where I come from. I guess that's what caught my attention.

This kind of bentonite addition is about 100 times more intense than the lowest addition I would make in wine.

I aknowledge taht sake is very differnt than wine. I mean no disrespect... just curiosity and surprise. This is my first batch of sake (it's cruising through fermentation at 45F) but I worry about people dumbing down with clay in the name of clarity.

Is there another reason for bentonite besides heat stabilization and protein haze? You mentioned it removes undesirable aromas. Is still true for 60% polish? Or is bentonite and/or sparkaloid (and sparkaloid is a totally different ball of wax... good luck ever getting that completely out of your sake) fining only necessary for less polished rice?

(for the record... I know that Email can lose a lot of tone and context. I'm really just super curious and grateful for your site. I hope I don't come across as a pain in the ass. Thanks for everything!)

I didn't take any offense to your questions, Carey. =) I was just trying to set you straight about sake and bentonite. I've tried it with less bentonite in the interest of finding the smallest amount that's effective, but the result was always less than sparkling clear sake. You're right, when talking about wine this is a lot of bentonite. But you will soon see that unfined sake has a lot of haze, and unlike wine it's not a heat stability issue. The difference bentonite fining makes is pretty striking.

I find also that the fining and especially the pasteurizing removes the "cheesy" koji aroma from the sake, which I personally find undesirable. It's less of a problem if you're using the freeze-dried koji made by Cold Mountain, but if you're using homemade koji the aroma is quite pungent. That aroma doesn't come from the rice at all, mind you, it comes from the mold.

You're welcome to try different fining agents, you're the winemaker and you very likely know more about them than I do. If you find one that is as effective at removing the haze from muroka sake (that has been settled, but not otherwise filtered) without the negative effects of bentonite, do please let me know so I can try it myself. I personally haven't used anything other than bentonite because in my research I haven't found one that has the same properties. I don't have wine filtering equipment, so things like kieselgür are out.

I've heard good things about Chitosan, but I haven't yet tried it.

When you're talking about sake, clarity is pretty important especially to judges. Sake should be milky white opaque or brilliantly clear. In-between hazy states are considered unacceptable, and it's that tradition I'm trying to adhere to in my sake making guides. =) This is not meant to sound caustic in any way, I'm just trying to give you an idea where I'm coming from. If you personally are okay with hazy sake, that is completely up to you.

Oops...

My tail is officially between my legs... bentonite additions are POUNDS per thousand gallons, not grams. Point being that your suggested additions are still a lot (about twice as much as I would use for wine), but not nearly as much (100 times)as I was freaking out about anyway.

Still, my conversion error led to a lot of good information. Thanks.

Hi again Bob!

Samples will go off in the mail shortly! I hope they keep you warm...

I have a question for ya:
A while back I took a gallon of finished (though not pasteurized) sake and used THAT as my moto. I used some unusual kind of rice, and my process was pretty simple: Take the sake 'starter' (finished sake) and doubled it, then doubled THAT... so sort of ammended.

The stuff came out 'ok' but it's tough to sort out rice (some wild rice, say, 20%) from process in this case. My question is: do you know of anyone (or yourself?) who has played with this type of process? I really appreciate your thoughts...

No, I can't say that I have tried this myself or know anyone who has, but the idea has crossed my mind a time or two. The territory you're getting into there is known as kijōshu ("precious-brewed sake"), a style where in around half of the water used in brewing is replaced with finished sake. The higher beginning alcohol content results in a very sweet finished sake that is usually matured for several years before sale or consumption.

One of these days I'll try my hand at making a batch of this style sake, and I'll certainly write a guide about it when I'm done. The hard part is parting with the finished homebrewed sake that the batch would require. =)

Mr. Taylor:

Would you be so kind to advice as to where I can purchase SAKE yeast #901, dry, foamless. Provide email and telephone number, if possible. WYEASTLAB does not carry that yeast.

Best regards,
Paul Morel

When fining with Bentonite, is it recommended to get the bentonite sediment out of the sake` as soon as possible, or is it perfectly fine to leave it in the sake` during the maturation period?

I tried leaving it in during the maturation and noticed there's a strange astringent taste to the sake. I'm wondering if this is because I didn't add water and the alcohol level is higher than I'm expecting, or if it was because I didn't take the liquid off the bentonite for 6 months?

It's more of a feeling I get on my tongue than a taste, which amkes me wonder if it's just that the alcohol level is higher than I'm expecting for sake`.

Bentonite is essentially a rock. Well, it's a clay composed of certain alkaline volcanic ash...but still, it's a mineral and largely insoluble in water or alcohol. I've left sake on the bentonite lees for up to two or three months and have never noticed an off flavor from it.

If this is your first batch and first taste of homebrew sake, I would suggest that it's more likely that the astringency you're tasting is coming from the rice itself. White rice intended for eating has more of the lipids and amino acids left behind from the light polishing that removed the bran coat than rice that has been more heavily milled for sake brewing. These compounds will darken the color and contribute to harsh flavors in the finished sake. The harsh flavor does largely age out, but it never completely goes away.

Or you could be right and it's the higher alcohol content that you're tasting. Alcohol doesn't taste astringent to me, but everyone's palate is different. My point is simply that it's unlikely to be the bentonite that's causing it.

It was my second batch. I found an asian market down the street that sold Sho Chiku Bai sushi rice and used that and some Nishiki sushi rice... perhaps I should go and get some actual sake rice? I'd have assumed that as SCB makes Sake the rice I got wouldn't have been much off from what they used for their own sake...

The first batch I made used purely Nishiki and it did not have this flavor in it... Perhaps it is the rice? I found another brand "Koshuku" that I'm going to mix in with the other two this time. I'm wondering if it wouldn't behoove me to try seven batches (one with each brand, three of two of the brands each, and one with all three brands...) and see what results from that. hmmmm... That's a lot of sake...

The Sho Chiku Bai brand of rice may be the same variety that Takara uses to brew their sake, but the true difference between dinner rice and sake rice (outside of Japan, at least) is the degree of polishing that the rice receives.

The white rice you eat in your sushi has only had the outer 10% of its mass removed, leaving 90% of the grain behind - including many of the inner cells from the bran coat that contribute to harsh flavors and darker color in sake. The rice for even the cheapest of sake has the outer 30% removed (referred to as 70% polish), minimum. The rice for ginjo sake is milled down even further (60% polish or more), and it's this milling that removes the lipids and amino acids that give homebrewed sake it's harsh, ricey flavor (I've actually acquired a taste for that ricey flavor, and I find I miss it when I drink commercial sake).

If you want to get some "actual" sake rice, you can order it from the HomeBrewSake.com and F. H. Steinbart Co. links I have on the right side of my site, near the top under "External Links." It's not terribly expensive, and you'll actually be able to make ginjo grade sake on your own with it. =)

Well, then I need to find somehting to do with 5 pounds of SCB rice heh. I'm definitely convinced *that* is where the weird flavor is coming from afterlooking at it and noticing that it is more opaque (it's totally white) than the translucent rice the other two brands are. I'm assuming this would lend itself to more starch in the rice and/or a different flavor.

I'm considering buying the kit off of homebrewsake that has the koji, rice, and yeast next time...

As always, thanks!

I'm thinking of what to do with the SCB rice I'm not going to use... Would using the SCB rice as the koji impart any sort of flavor similar to what I experienced before from using it, where there would be far less (probably about a pound or so compared to the five I used last time)? I'd prefer to not have to make 5 pounds of rice worth of sushi, granted I do like me some sushi....

Hoi again, Bob!
I have a question about pasteurization. When I can, or stabilize vinegar, etc (admittedly strong buggers) most people recommend, obviously, over-pasteurization. A lot of people say vinegar should be at 160 or so for 30 minutes. I find all this stuff silly - if you hit 160, even for a very short period (assuming you shake the bottle, etc, when it's 'capped') shouldn't everything be killed?

And in this case, sake, our refined commonality: Is pasteurization at 140 the reason why 'repackaging' or whatever you say, should be done at the 6 month mark of aging, if pasteurized at 140? I realize that 6 months is a sort of average freshness peak of sake, however how does pasteruization temp vary taste, also? I think of this because in my canning rig, the various bottle obviously get slightly different temps and I try to pull them out in order (it helps to put them in with a few minutes between bottles and using the same size mason jars). Obviously there are variations in my process, so I'm looking at them and wanting to learn more.
Thanks, always!

Thanks for clearing that up, Bob (non pun intended).

My question is then: what about the initial nigori bottling, that may be only single-pasteurized. I have gotten into bottling in these litto cute 7 and 8oz bottles - I get em to 140 and have been capping them, submurging the capped neck in the hot water and then remove. Am I risking 'The Precious' because of not hitting the temp long enough?

To be fair, these bottle go up in temp pretty quickly, and often reach 150 quickly before I cap them, however I want to understand what I am doing and do it properly. With vinegar, it's not nearly as precious, for example: big huge flavors and besides I always have lots of fresh stuff around anyhow. (I swear some day I'll keg vinegar.)

I'm going for it without the lactic acid. In the first two days of moto, should the bucket be covered or uncovered? Are we trying to capture a few lactobacilli?
24 hours into moto, still covered....
Thanks for your commitment to good sake!

Keep it covered. Trust me, you've already captured all the lactobacilli you need. =)

Great Site so i'd like to add:

My Home made incubator system for:
rice koji to moto-tomezoe.

-cooler (lg)
-fish tank water heater(get 60-95 deg)
-bucket/lid
--place in bucket of water fish tank heater, fill with water
--place in cooler,
--set temp on heater, enjoy perfect humidity and consistent brewing temps!


Thank you for the great sake!!!

Thanks for sharing, FermenterMan!

Curious, why does the directions for making Amazake included with the tub of Koji say to incubate the mixture at 131 - 140 F for 10 to 14 hours, yet your directions seem to be incubating around 70F for 48 hours?

I am following your directions :), just curious.

http://www.koreanfarm.com/ItemPictures/Rice/Page1/01015D.JPG

I found this rice at my local Asian grocer, it seems to be quite polished. Do you think it would work?

Because when you make amazake, you're just using the enzymes in the koji to break down the rice starches with the ultimate goal of producing a sweet liquid to drink. In that case, it's much like a standard beer mash. In my sake recipe, not only are you waiting for the koji enzymes to break down the rice starches, you're also encouraging microbial growth - be it wild or inoculated. If you were to heat that up in order to speed up the process, you would stress or otherwise damage those microbes.

Did you notice the "sweet rice" label on that bag? That means it's glutinous rice, which is the wrong kind of rice to use for sake. It contains a lot of amylopectin, which the alpha amylase produced by the koji cannot degrade. If you use that rice, the result will be very sweet Chinese style rice wine, not sake.

Thanks for the great website Bob. I just went into secondary fermentation stage. After you get your nigorizake into the gallon jugs, do you pasteurize it then (before secondary fermentation), age for two more weeks with airlocks at 50 degrees then pasteurize again?

Thanks,
Alan

The only time I pasteurize a nigorizake is when I intend to drink it in that state and don't want the residual sweetness to ferment out. When I want to finish with clear sake, the nigorizake that results from joso is allowed to finish fermenting (at 50ºF) and settling out under an airlock for a couple weeks. Only after racking the settled sake off of the ori and addingbentonite does the sake get pasteurized.

Hi Bob,

I tried to read all the posts of your site and hardly tried to find Cold Moutain Rice in my Country Brazil, but could not find anything else than Brazilian rices that are long grain polished rices and some Japanese rices like Momiji, Yanage, Sasanishiki and Moti that I believe are used to make sushi.
Anyway I can find some arborio and whole grain Brazilian rices, but neither Sakamai I could find.
I was thinking about grinding the one of the above rices in a coffee mill before making the Koji recipe and using it in the Sake recipe too.
Do you believe it is going to work?
I bought Koji-Kin and White wine yeast in the USA, as per your recipe, but Rice is more difficult to find for me.
I know Sao Paulo City has the second or the third biggest Japanese Communities Population in the World, but even looking at Japanese products stores I could find any Sakamai or Cold Mountain Rice!
What can I do to solve it?
If I make my Sake with available types of rice I can find in Brazil will I lose my time?

Thanks very much and congratulations for your efforts in placing the recipe and helping everyone interested!

Paulo

Hi again Bob,
quick question - how quickly after pasteurization can you cork the bottles? Do you let them cool and then cork or can you cork pretty much right after pulling them out of the water?
Thanks,
Alan

Hi Bob,

Thanks very much for your answer!
Just on more question. I was not clear in my last post. In Brazil I can find the following Japanese rices: Momiji, Yanage, Sasanishiki and Moti.
What would be the best for my first Sake experience?
I will try to find Koji at Japanese stores in Brazil.

Best Regards,

Paulo.

Thank You Very much for making this guide. I started home brewing a few months ago and Sake is on my list of things I Must Do. While it is still pretty confusing, this has helped me understand it Lot more. Another read thru or 2 and I may have it.
Danny

Hello Bob!

GREAT SITE & GUIDE! Buddy & I have made our first batch, 3 weeks ago. Instead of using the 3 1-gallon jugs, we went straight to bottling in 12oz beer bottles [skipping the settlement step] since it was cloudy at first, thought that was what we wanted, a sweeter sake. Now we have 20+ bottles with 1" or so sediment. We figured we could pop the tops, siphon off the clear sake into a sterile carboy & send the sediment down the drain. We also figured this would be the time to pasteurize b/c we've been too busy to enjoy our sake. Have a few questions for you at this point.

1) is this OK??
2) if we waited 3 weeks to pasteurize, is this OK?
3) what are the ill effects [besides taste] that we could run into? We don't want to get anyone sick from drinking our non-pasteurized sake. Will we be OK?
4) what course of action would you recommend?

Thanks so much for making this guide & hope to hear some advice, & that it hasn't been a total waste!
Thanks very much,
Mike

Hey Bob-
Microwave Pasteurization: Yay or Nay?
LG

Bob -
Well, I gave it a shot, and this is why and what I found out:
I packaged a lot of nigori, single pasteurized, into quart jars, as well as several one gallon jars, crystal clear. Now very close to clear, it's great to break them apart into 8 and 12 oz clear sake jars.
Using the microwave neatly gives me a way to do 4 or less single serving bottles at a time.
Basically I like to share samples, and this is the easiest way to do this. (yes, some is actually coming your way!)
I have been all over the country and returned to my forbidden rice sake and it's slightly peach and the division of it with more (say, upwards of 10%) is much more estery, that's for sure! Not much peach color, though, and I would do it differently next time....

Well I have some experience to report: I have been pasteurizing about a third of my current batch with the microwave, with the rest in the canner. Anyway, it actually... is pretty darn predictable, especially as the volume of the brew goes up: times become much slower.

No idea the affect on the taste, but I will update. I am enjoying the speed it gives me and, if I'm careful, a quick, easy way to do different sized bottles one at a time, which in a canner sometimes makes for awkward, if doable, situations....

The forbidden rice as Namasake is slightly peach, very fruit/creamy, I'm excited to see it clear...

hi
how much sake dose this recipe make, around abouts?

Somewhere between 2.5 and 3.25 U.S. gallons, depending on how efficient your pressing method is and whether or not you decide to dilute the genshu sake down to a lower alcohol content with water.

Bob: how long will Koji last in the fridge before it's time to pitch it and order new?

Good guide!

Dried v. Fresh Koji..
I have read that when making miso, and using koji...
Fresh koji requires a lot less water (60%!) in the recipe v. dried koji.
Any thoughts on this?
Source:
The book of miso: savory, high-protein seasoning
By William Shurtleff, Akiko Aoyagi
See:
"tiny url.com/MisoBook"
Any thoughts on this, re sake?

Hi Bob, i going to do my own sake fermentation bu i don't sure about the amounts of the ingredients. This is the recipe (i follow the ratio that appears in your guide):
- 412.5 gr. koji.
- 1650 gr. rice.
- 2640 gr. water.
but my question about this is, how much sake i will produce and what volume of moromi correspond with this amounts?
PS: sorry for my bad english, but i don't speak it

¡Hola Alejandro! You are essentially using only 1/3 of the ingredients listed in my recipe, so your moromi volume will be somewhere around 6 liters and your yield will be about 3.5 liters.

Hi Bob

First of all, thanks a lot for your awesome guide.
I never did any kind of brewing before and had most probably made all mistakes you can make.
But with your help I was able to check every step and to smooth away difficulties :)

I just have one question.
What exactly do you mean by "A warm sake fermentation can lead to some funky flavors."?
Which flavors?

My fermentation was quite warm (between 16 and 19ºC) and I used a wine yeast instead a sake yeast.

The result tastes much like sake but it has some funky flavors too.
Now I would like to find out if the warm temperature or the wine yeast was the culprit :)

I'm glad I was able to help you be successful in your first batch, Dodo! That's what I'm here for. =)

Mostly what happens when your sake fermentation is too warm is you get an overactive or runaway lactic fermentation, which leads to sour sake. Other microbes like wild yeast can get in there too, and they're known to produce the kind of funky flavors referred to by lambic lovers as "barnyard." Those are complex flavors and aromas that are reminiscent of horses, goats, and leather. Warm fermentation temperatures can also cause normal yeast to produce strange flavors, but that's not common among wine yeast (mostly you see it in Belgian and German ale strains) because most wines are fermented at around 70ºF anyway.

What kind of funky flavors have you found in your sake? Maybe with a few details I can help you narrow it down to a likely culprit.

Bob, do you know a store where buy koji and send it out of the US? (to my country) xD
PS: i don't find you email to send you the pictures. where is it?
thanks for your help

I want to get into sake brewing at home, and make money from it if possible. I live in NJ and I'm sure sake isn't very popular here, but I'm willing to give it a try. I have no idea where to start....any tips??? They would be much appreciated Thank You!!!

Sawce

Yeah, it was quite sour. Way too sour for a nigorizake I think.

Hmm... I would describe the taste as mushroom-like. Like eating raw shiitake or champignon mushrooms, but way stronger. And somehow towards lamb/mutton...
Aaah, I'm really bad at describing tastes ^^

Anyhow, I've ordered sake yeast and will check the temperature in the basement, so hopefully the next batch will get better ^_^

Wow. I've never had or heard of those kind of earthy or meaty flavors cropping up in a sake. It sounds like you had one heck of a wild yeast infection in that batch. Clean and sanitize your equipment thoroughly before you try again. =)

Hello Bob,

We're on to our third batch of Sake by your recipe. The Seward Malt Marathon Home Brew Club would like to thank you for your work in putting this together. If your headed down south to do some fishing please let us know and we can have a tasting. This batch is in the fridge and should be ready middle of July.

Paul

Bob,
My Sake turned out great. I filtered it yesterday with my plate beer filter and it came out crystal clear and very tasty. Can't wait to make some more.

Thank you very much for the incredible material on how to make sake. I want to try it, but I'm wondering ... isn't there a simpler way?

Seems to me that all this stuff with koji and rice and whatnot is the equivalent to advanced homebrewing, where you mash the grain to get your wort. But you can also make beer with malt extract and avoid all that.

So is there a beginner's version of sake production, where you simply purchase rice syrup solids (http://www.mdhb.com/product_info.php?products_id=3263), mix it with the appropriate amount of water and ferment with a sake yeast?

Yes, the process of using koji to convert rice for subsequent yeast fermentation is analogous to mashing malt for beer. But there are differences, and it's those differences that make it so that there is no possibility for an "extract saké" shortcut. Not that people haven't tried to shortcut the process, but I can tell you from experience that the results of such shortcuts are not saké. Typically the beverage you end up with afterward is the sour, low alcohol doburoku.

People who make doburoku as their first attempt as saké rarely ever do it a second time. In fact, they often don't attempt to make saké a second time.

Rice syrup, by the way, is made from brown rice. Brown rice contains lipids and amino acids that produce harsh flavors and can lead to eventual spoilage problems in saké, which is why it is almost never used. Rice syrup solids produced from brown rice syrup still contain those problematic compounds.

Hi Bob, me again >.>

Sorry for the spam, but but but...
I bought makgeolli today. Do you know it? It's Korean rice wine.
You can compare it to nigorizake. They just use a different kind of "koji".
However..

It has the same weird taste as my home made sake had, so it wasn't weird at all just unpleasant for me xD
(I think the taste + the sourness made it so unenjoyable)

That means, on the next batch I just need to get rid of the sourness.
I'll try again when it gets a bit colder here.

Thanks again for your help.
You should write a book. I would definitely buy it :D

Oh wait.
Makgeolli is made like doburoku.
Is it possible I ended up with doburoku although I followed your instruction?

I didn't add any minerals, but used mineral water from the store.
Could this be the reason that something went wrong with the yeast?

Sorry for being such a pain in the neck -_-

Hey Dodo! Long time no hear! I see you're still perplexed by that last batch of sour sake...and you got your hands on some Korean farmhouse grog! Let's see if I can help clear up some of your questions. =)

Makgeolli is quite sour and funky tasting because the nuruk (really just a kind of biscuit made from wheat malt and flour) they use to catalyze the fermentation is not made under the most sanitary of conditions (I've read forum posts from people who have reported insect larvae in their fermenting makgeolli). There's plenty of wild yeast and bacteria in that stuff, so makgeolli always turns out sour. For this reason it is usually sweetened with sugar before being consumed.

With that in mind, if the makgeolli you drank reminded you of your first batch of sake, then it would be perfectly reasonable to draw the conclusion that your problem was related to bacterial contamination. Now, in a semi-open fermentation like what we're doing with sake, contamination is unavoidable (in fact, we depend on it to sour the moto), but it needs to be kept under some kind of control. That's the reason for a very low temperature during fermentation: to retard lactobacillus activity while the yeast do their thing.

That brings us to the question of doburoku. If you did, indeed, follow my instructions about steaming your rice, adding rice and koji in stages, and fermenting at a low temperature; then no it's not possible that you made doburoku. The hallmark of doburoku is that it is made using the opposite of the techniques I just described, not just that it's sour. It is sour, but that's a result of the warm fermentation temperature that encourages spoilage critters to do their thing.

You also didn't make makgeolli, because that requires nuruk. You just had some bad luck with the critters in your batch of sake, that's all. Next time you'll focus a little harder on your sanitation practices and temperature control and everything will come out peaches. =)

Haha, yeah.
I never cared of the whole microorganism world and being thrown into it now is all kind of confusing.

Maybe I should use the time in the hot summer months to study some brewing forums.

I'll be back :D

Hello. Do you have a copy of the former recipe that you had on this site. If I remember correctly it had a slightly different procedure for making your moto mash. It followed the addition of the lactic acid, but I also thought that it had water additions to the moto when the koji was added. I also thought that the addition of yeast took place on the same day you add the rice to the water. Will just have to play around a bit. If you have a copy of the old recipe, would appreciate a copy. Thanks for the great information and your efforts to share it.

I'm sorry, Andy, but I'm afraid you are mistaken. There is no "former" recipe from this site, it's always been the same method just with added refinements to the text for clarification over time. For example, my original text didn't have any option for adding lactic acid because I don't personally use the shubo method of sake starter. The method described in this guide has always been the yamahai moto technique, but after a while I did add a blockquote on page 7 describing how to add lactic acid for a shubo style starter if one desires to do so.

The same applies to the other questions you mentioned: no water is added with the koji (the water addition is always added with the steamed rice the day after adding the koji) and the moto is always allowed 48 hours for the koji enzymes and lactobacillus critters to go to work before adding the yeast.

Perhaps you have this site confused with someone else's guide? Either way, if you want to have a look at some snapshots of older versions of this guide, there are a couple of PDF files available for download in the Appendix A post.

Hello. Thank you for the reply. Yes indeed I was confused. I had been looking at Fred Eckhardt's recipe where he does use the lactic acid. I had been using a site where his link and your link were right next to each other and I just got them mixed up. I thank you again for your wealth of information and your response. Happy brewing.

Hi Bob, thanks for the great guide. A couple of questions though!

1) How sour should the moto end up being before the Moromi step?

2) How much rice would you expect there to be in the fermentation bucket 5 days after the big addition in Tomezoe? I have a large amount of rice still in the bucket, and I'm worried it's because I did not steam the rice well enough for the Koji to break it down...

Thank you!
Jordan

Hi Bob -
Thanks again for the guide. I'm just finishing up a double batch and I'm thinking forward to the bottling stage. I'm trying to bottle economically and I have a few questions. Where do you get your bottles? Do you use screw caps? Why are wine corks not acceptable? Do you have any tips on what kind of bottles to use and how to seal them?

Thanks!
Alan

Hi Alan! All of the bottles I use for sake are either recycled 16 oz Grolsch bottles or new 16 oz EZ-Cap bottles. I use those instead of my other crown-capped beer bottles for the convenience of being able to re-close the bottle between drinking sessions (there's no way I'm going to drink 16 ounces of 20% ABV sake in a sitting!). Screw-cap wine bottles of any volume would also be perfectly acceptable, but corked bottles are not. The reason that corks aren't good to use for sake is oxygen permeability. Oxidation does really awful things to sake (turns it brown, alters the flavor), and this must be kept in mind when choosing bottles for sake.