Category: Sake
02/29/08
Introduction
If you Google for “homebrew sake” or “make sake at home,” you’ll get a few hits. But they’re all really the same poorly written guide. I’ve been homebrewing my own sake for years, and I’m really dissatisfied with the quality of the online homebrewing sake guides, whose process turns out a product that is vastly inferior to commercially made sakes and even my own home-made product.
I’m hoping to change that. This guide will teach you how to make authentic seishu (清酒) - refined Japanese sake - at home, using the kan-zukuri (寒作り) [cold-brewed] method. While I’m at it, I hope to educate you, at least a little bit, about different varieties of sake and maybe even different methods for making it. I don’t intend for this to be the be-all end-all guide to sake, but I do hope it will generate some interest in making it at home from ingredients and equipment that are quite readily available. This is a long guide, with many pages, but hopefully taking the time to write all those pages will shed some light on a process that appears to be very complicated on the surface, but really is quite simple at its heart.
This guide is aimed at moderately experienced homebrewers. If you’re not a homebrewer, some terms will be a little unfamiliar to you. A quick Google search will usually define those words for you, but feel free to post questions in the form of comments on this guide. I’ll be more than happy to answer them for you.
This guide contains quite a few Japanese characters, which won’t display correctly if you don’t have the Japanese language pack for your OS installed. If 清酒 looks like a couple empty boxes and that bothers you, then set your browser encoding to Japanese (Shift-JIS) and follow the prompts to install the Japanese language pack. If it doesn’t bother you to have empty boxes in place of certain characters, then carry on!
Finally, to give credit where it’s due, everything I know about making sake, I learned from the book Sake (U.S.A) by Fred Eckhardt. I don’t want to duplicate his work in its entirety here, but the recipe and method presented here are entirely his work. I heartily recommend adding his book to your library if you find this guide to be at all helpful.
Shall we get on with it? Use the table of contents below or the page numbers at the bottom of this post to navigate the guide.
Table of Contents
Page 2: About Sake and How Sake is Made
Page 8: Secondary Fermentation
Page 9: Maturation and Bottling
03/07/08
Appendix C: Glossary of Terms
Since my guide uses a lot of Japanese and other uncommon words that many readers may be unfamiliar with, I've decided to add a glossary. This list is intended to supplement the guide and not to be comprehensive. I tried to avoid defining terms that I have already defined in the guide (though there are some obvious duplications that I felt were important), but please feel free to refer to it as often as necessary.
B
bentonite - A type of sodium-silicate clay that white wine vintners use to clarify their wine and must.
D
doburoku (濁り酒) - Traditional Japanese homebrew sake. It is not filtered (at all), unpasteurized, and often fermented at room temperature - all of which often results in a pretty sour product. I often refer to this as the Japanese equivalent of our American heritage of Blue Ribbon homebrew of 50 or 60 years ago. Homebrewing is illegal in Japan, so quality ingredients and education regarding process just aren't available to would-be homebrewers in that country.
E
enzyme - Nothing more than a specially-shaped protein that happens to be good at certain tasks. The task in question depends on the shape of the protein, but when we apply it to sake making we're talking about enzymes that are good at chopping up starch molecules to produce sugar.
F
fermentation - The anaerobic process by which certain single-celled organisms (like yeast) consume sugar to produce energy for themselves. Alcohol and carbon dioxide are the fortuitous (for us) waste products of this process.
fining - The process of adding clarifying agents like bentonite to a liquid in order to reduce or remove haze-causing particles.
G
genshu (原酒) - "Undiluted" or "full-strength" sake, to which no water has been added to decrease its alcoholic strength.
ginjo (吟醸酒) - This word translates to "premium," and means any sake made with rice that has been polished down to no more than 60% of its original weight.
H
hatsuzoe (初添) - "First addition." This refers to the first addition of rice and koji to the main sake fermentation.
J
junmai (純米酒) - "Pure" or "all-rice" sake. This refers to sake that has been made with only water, rice, koji, and yeast. No additives like the distilled spirits that are commonly used in the industry.
K
kan-zukuri (寒作り) - The traditional "cold brewing" method of making sake. "Cold brewing" refers to keeping the fermentation in the low 50ºF range - either by brewing only in the cold time of year, or through means of refrigeration - resulting in a smoother, better quality sake.
kasu (粕) - Sake lees. The bits of rice that the koji couldn't break down, which are separated from the sake through pressing. Kasu is used to make tsukemono (pickles), shōchū, and is even eaten by people and livestock.
koji-kin (麹菌) - Aspergillus oryzae mold spores.
kome-koji (麹) - Rice that has been incubated with koji-kin, and is now coated in a nice fuzzy white coat of mold. Enzyme rich and ready to be used to make sake.
M
masu (枡) - Traditional square wooden cups from which chilled sake is drunk. They hold six ounces and are now often seen made of lacquerware or even ABS plastic.
mirin (味醂) - A very sweet condiment used in Japanese cooking that can be made from the same process by which sake is made.
moromi (諸味) - The sake's primary fermentation mash.
moto (元) - The yeast starter step in making sake, also called shubo.
muroka (無濾過) - "Unfiltered sake." Sake that has been separated from the nigori by decanting, but has not undergone the usual charcoal filtration (or bentonite fining in the case of my homebrew). It's hazy, but not milky white like nigorizake.
N
nakazoe (仲添) - "Second addition." This refers to the second addition of rice and koji to the main sake fermentation.
nigorizake (濁り酒) - "Cloudy sake." Sake that has been pressed from the kasu lees, but not separated from the finer rice particles and yeast. It's milky white and has a fuller body and sweeter flavor than muroka or filtered sake.
O
ochoko - The diminutive cups that sake, hot or cold, is served in. Usually accompanied by a tokkuri as part of a matched set.
odori (踊) - "The dancing ferment." This refers to the very fizzy nature of the sake's primary fermentation.
S
sake - Japanese rice wine. You know what this is or you wouldn't be here, right? Right?
sanitizer - A homebrewing term that refers to any chemical agent used to eliminate most of any spoilage microorganisms that may be residing on homebrewing equipment.
seishu (清酒) - The "official" Japanese name for sake, mostly for tax purposes I'm told.
shubo (酒母) - The yeast starter stage in the sake brewing process. Also called moto.
Sparkolloid - Another fining agent often used to clarify sake. Works much slower than bentonite, but creates a lot less sediment, allowing more sake to be recovered.
T
tomezoe (留添) - "Final addition." This refers to the third and final addition of rice and koji to the sake's primary fermentation.
Y
yeast - Any of several microorganisms of the genus Saccharomyces, used in brewing alcoholic beverages, as a leaven in baking breads, and in pharmacology as a source of vitamins and proteins.
yodan (四段) - "Stabilizing addition." The step following moromi in which water or koji and rice can be added to sake to adjust its final alcohol content and flavor profile.
03/21/08
So...you've made your fist batch of sake. You've pressed your lees and now you've got about three pounds of pasty kasu. I know what you're thinking: what the heck do I do with this stuff? I get asked this question pretty often, actually, often enough to make this post. The answer to your question is: lotsa stuff! Sake kasu has almost as many uses as miso, but it's not quite so popular in this country because of its rarity. The Japanese find it very useful, however.
In Japan, fresh kasu becomes available in Spring as all the sake kuras press their sake. They then sell their kasu to grocers for public consumption or to farmers for use as livestock feed. In America, we don't have quite the same heritage with sake as the Japanese do, so kasu generally isn't easily found in our markets. But we're homebrewers, right? We make our own kasu!
By the way: now that you have some kasu, the best way to store it until you use it all is in your freezer. Just break it up into what you feel are useful portions and store in zip-top freezer bags. It'll keep this way for up to 6 months.
So, to give you guys some ideas on what to do with your kasu, here are a few of the super-secret (okay, not any more...) Taylor-MadeAK kasu recipes:
Kasu-zuke Tsukemono: Kasu Pickles!
Cucumbers in this recipe are just an example, this method can be used with just about any kind of hard vegetable.5.00 ea (1 lb) Cucumbers 1.66 tb Salt 0.25 c Water 10.0 oz Kasu 1-2 tb Sugar 1.33 ts Salt Dash of shochu or sake to soften kasu if necessarySalt-pickle the cucumbers by sprinkling whole cucumbers with salt and then adding 1/4 cup of water to help build a brine. Add a weight on top and let stand overnight to dehydrate. The next day, mix the kasu, sugar, and salt in a small bowl (add some shochu or sake if you're using dry kasu, it'll help soften it). Set aside while you go check on the pickles. If the cucumbers are limp, they're ready - just pat dry with a paper towel, then clean out the container you used to salt them in and re-use it for the next step. Now, add half of the kasu into the bottom of the container, put the cucumbers on top, then spoon the rest of the kasu over top and spread it around to cover the cucumbers. Put a weight back on top of the pickles and wait 3 to 5 days before serving.
Kasu Marinated Halibut
Just about any fish can be used here, and so can pork!1.00 c Sake kasu 0.50 c Sugar 1.50 c Mirin 2.00 lb Halibut fillets, cut into half-pound servings 4.00 tb Ginger (grated)In a food processor combine kasu, ginger, and sugar; process until well-blended. Add mirin and process to a paste. In a large nonreactive baking dish spread half of kasu paste and top with halibut fillets in a single layer. Rub remaining mixture over fish. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. The next day, heat a griddle or large nonstick skillet over high heat. Remove fish from marinade, rinse quickly under running water and pat dry. Sear fish, turning once, about 4 minutes on each side and serve immediately garnished with tsukemono.
Kasu-Jiru - Sake Lees Soup
Trust me, tastes way better than it sounds!2.00 oz Daikon (peeled & sliced) 1.00 ea Carrot (peeled & sliced) 1.00 ea Potato (peeled & cubed) 1.00 ea Kamaboko fish cake (sliced into half-circles) 3.00 oz Konnyaku (cubed) 1.00 ea Aburage fried tofu (cubed) 4.00 oz Kasu 4.00 c Dashi broth (make it yourself or use powdered) 0.50 tsp Salt 0.25 c Scallion (chopped)Bring dashi to a simmer while you prepare your other ingredients. Once it's simmering, add the carrots, daikon, potato, konnyaku, kamaboko, and aburage; simmer for 10 minutes. Season with salt, then whisk some of the hot broth into the kasu to thin it out. Add the thinned kasu to the soup, return to a simmer, and cook for 3 minutes. Ladle into bowls and garnish with chopped scallion.
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