Filtration

My first batch of sake is finished. Huzzah! But now I need to figure out how to filter this stuff.

Tim and I were talking about this the other day when I told him that fermentation had all but stopped and he had an awesome idea: a charcoal filter. His ideas was that he wants crystal clear sake while I wanted to go with nigori.

My initial thought was to use my French press as a filter to get most of the lees out. So I poured it in, gently pressed on the handle, and noticed it didn't want to budge. The gunk clogged up the screen material so quickly that I wasn't able to get any liquid to strain through at all.

Ok that failed. So now for another idea. I picked up some t-shirt rags the other day for another project of mine. A quick run through the laundry and they were ready to play filter.


Starting with a larger rag in a smaller pot, I poured some of the stuff in to see if it would strain out. Nothing came through. I tried squeezing it. Yeah that didn't work at all either.

At this point I was running out of filters. The texture of the lees was simply too fibrous to filter out in the ways that I thought would work. The stuff also floated in suspension entirely too well to rack it off. Time for a quick trip to Wal*Mart and get a few packs of cheesecloth.

The cheesecloth worked pretty well but still allowed a lot of the particles through. I could either quadruple up the material and allow no liquid through or double the material and let too much kasu through. So I went with quadruple and some "gentle" pressure to filter it out.


Ok so that worked tolerably well. I was able to get most of the sake kasu out and have it in a little tub for later. There are a few recipes I'm dying to add this too. Strangely enough, the stuff was slightly peach colored. I wonder if the batch ended up becoming contaminated with something.

Next came pasteurization. I poured the liquid into a covered pot, cranked up the heat, and took it off when it hit 140 degrees Fahrenheit. The sake was bottled hot, stoppered closed, then set into my fridge to cool down. Sampling would occur the next day after it cooled down.

Excited and slightly nervous, I opened a bottle and poured a small sip into a shot glass. It is definitely thicker than nigori so I still have to filter this stuff better before it's readily drinkable. And now for the first sip.

It smelled sweet, but had a hint of sour to it. It tasted vaguely like something I've had before but with a definite sour bite. Either I didn't properly pasteurize it or the recipe became contaminated. I also later realized that adding lemon juice in the beginning notoriously adds a sour taste to the end product.

So there you have it. The first batch isn't something I would drink. I might be able to cook with it, but it was a great learning experience. With any luck, my second batch will be better. But hey, I learned how to make buttermilk-flavored sake.

Moto Photo

I was going to use "Hello Moto" for the title of this post, but sometimes even my own humor is too much for me... ;)

Here's a shot of the start of my first batch of sake in the moto stage ater 48 hours. The enzymes present in the koji have broken down the rice starches into sugar, and liquified the whole lot as a result. It smells AWESOME, like something sweet you would eat for breakfast.

The next step is to add the yeast to create a yeast starter culture. After the starter is healthy comes more rice and koji. 

Now, I have a question: How should this taste? It's sweet as I expected it to be, however, it does have a slight bit of acidity. I was not expecting that. After more research I probably should have. 

The acidity comes from the action of lactobacillus and will eventually contribute to creating a balanced sake flavor when this batch is finished. The trick now is that my process has to allow for the yeast to take over the moto and everything else to be dormant or as close as I can get.

Tim's First Batch of Sake

Last weekend I finally finished my spring cleaning enough so I was comfortable with potentially making a huge mess of my kitchen. Friday morning I started my first batch of sake! Yeah, historic moment! Woo!

Anyway, today was the day I steamed the rice that I soaked in the refrigerator for 18 hours. I'm quite impressed with the results. The rice wasn't sticky, was translucent instead of solid white, was squishy but not mushy, and it breaks up easily compared to regular cooked rice.

I used the bamboo steamer technique. I didn't have cheesecloth so I used the thinnest cotton kitchen towel I had. It worked perfectly! I wouldn't recommend that for those with significant-others that are sensitive to kitchen towels being used for bizarre grain-cooking rituals, but I can get away with it. ;) Don't ask about the goofy yellow pattern...

You want to soak the dry rice in the refrigerator for 18 hours then steam it. Soak with enough water on top of the rice so it won't soak it all up and run out. I initially had about 2.5" of water on top which went down to 1.5" after the rice took up it's share. I vaguely remember something about 6 hours being enough time to soak with 18 being marginally better, but I've slept since then. I soaked it for 18 hours this time.

Today, I steamed it for 45 minutes. Next action on this batch will be Monday afternoon! Stay tuned...

As a side note, as it turns out I didn't get enough homebrewing action today since pretty much all I did was steam some rice and throw it in a bucket with koji and water so I started a batch of semi-dry mead, too. But that, my friends, is a totally different story. 

Dried Koji Experiment

While I was out on the west coast for vacation I made sure to visit Japantown in San Francisco. No visit to Japantown is complete without stopping in a Japanese grocery store. Guess what I found next to the miso in the cooler?

Cold Mountain Dried Koji! Score! (again haha! it was a GREAT vacation)

This stuff is hard (impossible) to find in Dallas and it seems we may have to order it online. Brian snagged a bucket earlier for his 2nd batch of sake but with shipping the $6.99 price for a bucket of koji jumps up past $20. Boo! I bought 2 at the store and brought them back in my suitcase.

I was concerned about the temperature variations on the trip home since these were in the cooler at the store, but they're totally dehydrated and after a quick consultation Brian we decided it would be worth the risk. Needless to say, everything turned out fine. I found that out tonight as you'll see.

Once I got home I had this idea that I wanted to propagate my own koji to make koji-kin (the spores). The idea is that if I could make my own koji-kin I could make any amount of koji I need from it to brew any amount of sake. I wasn't sure if I could do that with what seemed to be freeze-dried koji. Would the koji fungus be ok? Does it die after dehydration? Are there any spores left on the dried koji that would start growing?

All these questions were indirectly answered tonight... when I saw the results of 24 hours of microbiological goodness. Needless to say, there's money riding on this experiment. If it works it means my homebrewed sake can be even less expensive. In today's economy that's a good thing.

The Experiment

Yesterday I took 1 tsp of the dried koji and put it in a small glass with just enough water to cover it. Yes, that's ONE TEASPOON! A seemingly tiny amount in comparison to the bucket-o-koji. My idea was to rehydrate it just to the point where the starches in the kernels of rice would gelatinize again. Then I would let it incubate for a couple days to find out if there was any dormant koji still in there.

After a few hours the dried koji soaked up all the water and was looking about right. I added a tiny bit more water and put the glass with the rehydrated koji on top of some shelves that have a warm plant light in them so it would be slightly above ambient at 80-85 degrees F.

Next time I do this I'll measure everything since I know it works and I'll post more details and instructions for reproducing my results.

Here's what I found an hour ago: koji fur!!

You can see the fur forming at the top of the photo where the rice is becoming white. And now for the money shot:

It looks like this method works! I will let this tiny test batch of rehydrated koji continue on to the next part of the experiment - spores. I have no doubts now that I can buy a bucket of dried koji and eventually end up with my own batch of koji-kin. Hopefully those were the last 2 buckets of koji I will ever have to buy!

I dropped my carboy!

Ok, I'm just kidding.

I came close to dropping a full 5-gallon (glass!) carboy only once before. That was way back when I first started homebrewing mead. What a nightmare that would have been! In fact I remember having moderately disturbing dreams where I was spending hours mopping up the mess. Whew!

I picked up a nice big 20 pound bag of Kokuho Rose rice Sunday night. It ran me right at $20. That's a big improvement compared to buying rice 5 or 6 months ago when it cost more.

I now have everything I need to brew my first batch, except I have a few strains of wine and champagne yeast from brewing mead instead of a sake yeast. Those will work but I might order some sake #9 today for next time.

Off to go wash and sanitize everything... I love being on vacation!

It's Alive!!!!

So today was the momentous occasion of cooking 3 batches of rice, cooling them, adding them to the koji, then dumping that into the carboy.

Within 20 minutes of this new addition the mash began to bubble.



The only problem is that I now have to figure out how to triple the amount of remaining kome-koji before I add the next batch of rice. So I somehow need to condense 40 hours of koji incubating without risking contaminating it down to about a 24 hour period. I have an idea though. I'll let you guys know how it goes tomorrow or Monday.

My Kung-Fu is Strong

Tonight marks the point where I wash 6 cups of rice and soak for 18 hours to add to the mash. Some sites list mixing the rice with the koji as the worst part. I enjoy that. Washing the rice is the part that makes me wish I was born a llama instead of human.


Behold! 6 cups of rice being washed in my sink. After spending about 45 minutes I decided that tonight might be a good time to practice my kung-fu. I noticed after about 15 minutes of washing that my hand was being held in a rather unique way. I was forming a sort of eagle-claw grip with each finger hooked a bit while pointing slightly forward. This was my sole source of entertianment for the next 30 minutes while washing this stuff until the water ran clear.

I was back in China, shirtless, wearing beige pants and being beaten by sticks. During this time I was forced to focus on my eagle claw technique. If I did not strike the rice precisely, then I was beaten by bamboo sticks. If my strike was true, then I managed to avoid their painful strikes until my next attempt.

45 minutes later I realized that my kung-fu was strong when the water ran clear and I was ready to walk away.

The interesting thing is that 6 cups of dry rice becomes 8.5 cups of rice after washing. I think I need a bigger rice cooker. This batch after soaking for the next 18 hours will result in 3 45-minute long cooking sessions.


And for those keeping up with my first batch... this is what it looks like tonight, 2 hours after stirring it again. I had initially hoped to start bottling it this weekend. It looks like I have at least a few more days remaining.

Shaken, not Stirred Moneypenny

It's been a few days since I've stirred my first batch. I've simply been swirling the jug. part of it is because I've been interested to see if I can get the floaty stuff to come up just by swirling it, part of it is because I've been too lazy to wash my dishes, including my stir sticks.

Last night I stirred up that first batch again and this morning I had a much larger layer of floaty stuff than the last few times I've stirred it. So maybe it's because I waited a few days since I last stirred it, maybe it's something else.

But one thing is definitely certain, my next batch after finishing this first one will be two identical one-gallon jugs. Everything will be the same with them except for the way I agitate them. one will be shaken, the other stirred. If there is this big of a difference in the appearance alone, I am really excited to see if there is a difference in flavor.

Back from Vacation

Wow! Like so many previous vacations, I find that I need at least a couple days of down-time following a significant leisure trip out of town. I just returned from a trip to Napa and the bay area. Awesome. Just awesome. Yes, I bought wine.

The hotel was literally next door to the oldest World Market location (according to the cashier who seemed to have been there long enough to know, if you get my drift). My own local World Market has always been a great source of wine. They usually have a small, limited selection of sake but they usually carry good brands - except for ShoChikuBai, which, you will eventually learn, is my least favorite sake EVER. I would rather choke on a chicken bone. Ok, maybe not, but it's pretty foul.

On the first trip to their store I spotted Momokawa Diamond FOR $10. Deal! It's not quite that cheap where I live.

I've had this sake before and loved it, but after recently learning that SakeOne sells their 60% polished rice to homebrewers through F. H. Steinbart I needed a new perspective. This is the same rice that they use to create Diamond. (Tip: Search for product #1195 on F.H. Steinbart's site.) There was even talk about homebrewed sake tasting similar to Diamond on the Northern Brewer forums by using that rice.

So the bottom line after tasting it again armed with my newly acquired knowledge? If I can homebrew a ginjoshu sake using their polished rice and have it come out even in the same ballpark as Momokawa Diamond, I will be EXTREMELY happy.

Second batch started

Last week Tim sent me the link to what appears to be THE definitive homebrew sake recipe. Since I'm just playing the waiting game for my first batch, I figured now would be a good time to start my second one.

http://www.taylor-madeak.org/ is the site and from what I can tell, Bob Taylor has become my new sherpa. I printed his PDF out and have it in my kitchen next to my new 5 gallon carboy. His PDF has effectively become my kitchen bible.

His recipe is a bit different than the other ones I've seen online. The procedure is a little different as are the ingredients. I'll let you guys go to his site and read it yourselves. It's worth the read.

Steamed rice to mix with the koji.

Cold Mountain Koji soaking in water, waiting to be mixed with the freshly steamed rice.

Koji and steamed rice mixed together.

I have a bad habit of never buying funnels. As a result, I contantly need to make my own from soda bottles. This is from a 3 liter bottle of Coke. I spooned in the koji mix and pushed it into the carboy with the spoon.

This is the final part of the first step. The kome koji now gets to mature in the carboy for the next couple of days. It will get stirred periodically and then left alone.

On a side note, my first batch is nearly completed and should be getting filtered and pasturized Thursday or Friday.

Something odd...

So I noticed an interesting development last night. More precisely, I noticed a pattern that was verified last night.

When I stir the sake, a layer of foamy rice forms at the top of the batch within a few hours. When I just swirl it by swirling the entire jug (it's only a 1 gallon jug), none of that stuff floats to the surface. My next one will consist of two identical batches, one will be stirred and one will be swirled. I am really curious if that affects anything.


We are now 8 days in and the stuff is developing a really great sake aroma. I can't wait to start sampling it.

Day 6, a calendar of images

Tim is out in San Francisco right now eating dim sum, sushi, clam chowder in bread bowls, and generally enjoying not being in Dallas. I just finished retouching some images for my website, playing a few video games (Fallout 3... buy it, don't ask why, then kiss sunlight goodbye) and figured it would be a good time to upload some of these images I've been taking as a sort of calendar of what I've seen so far. Let's hope I wrote the dates down correctly as I shot them.

This is day 4 in the morning. Some rice has risen back to the top. The smell has remained unchanged since yesterday.

Here is a closeup of the floaty bits before I stirred them up.

Day 6 AM prior to stirring again. The floaty bits are definitely getting smaller and the alcohol smell has started to really ramp up. It's starting to smell like a very mild nigori (no cheese smell at all at this point, only alcohol with a mildly sweet aroma lingering afterward.

Developments

One of the reasons Tim and I started this blog is because there really isn't a lot of variety in the online world of homebrew sake. If memory serves me... and a mildly hungover one at that today... I can only remember finding one or two actual recipes for making sake in the home. And those are constantly recycled, reprinted, hotlinked, with very little clarification about the process and what can be expected.

My first attempt at making kome-koji was a little weird. The recipes don't give a lot of detail about what to expect, how damp of an environment the keep the rice, how to break up the rice, what happens if the rice starts to turn soupy (as was the case with mine), etc. There just wasn't that much good information available. So mine started out a little weird. The koji started to break down the rice and make it look a bit soupy. There wasn't that much water in the container I was using so stirring up the rice as it turned into a liquid was kinda strange. It continued to develop the cheese like smell that is referenced everywhere, but the texture really began to change in an unexpected way. I simply never got those little white hair on the rice kernels. I would guess that the koji started to break down the rice instead of simply growing on it. It could have been due to the temperature of the room I kept it in. My current theory is that I kept the rice too damp. There will be another batch started tomorrow night so I'll let you guys know how it goes. I'll also do a better job of posting images.

This is the current batch on day 3 in the morning. It has begun to settle a bit and has started to develop a mild alcohol smell.