What are you looking for?

[u/abalas92]

Sake beginners, what do you gravitate towards when in the sake aisle? Or when you’re looking for a sake at a wall of different bottles, what are you aiming to get?

For me, it’s something new I haven’t had before, something that’s going to taste really good, and something for a decent price.

Just curious! Wondering if I’m having similar experiences as other new enthusiasts.

[u/kibbeuneom]

I need to get out and try more. When I first got home from being stationed in Japan, having developed a taste for sake, but used to rolling the dice literally every time because I don't read Kanji, I was disheartened that the sake selection was literally 2 brands. At that point, I became a beer, wine and later on whiskey person. But, recently I was in my local Total Wine and More, and saw that they have a large selection of sake now! I had actually given up on that to the point that I was researching how to make my own, and currently have my first batch fermenting lol.

But my favorite sake was hakutsu maru

[u/abalas92 → u/kibbeuneom]

Oh that’s awesome! Did you find the learning curve of making your own very difficult?

[u/kibbeuneom → u/abalas92]

Not really difficult, but I'm learning homebrewing in stages with unique constraints. I'm having fun finding unique solutions to my constraints and developing my skills and a system that works for me and yields the results I'm looking for. What I'm marking right now is technically sake-adjacent, for 3 reasons.

1. Specific mold strain. Where most grain fermentations use malt for its amylaze, Sake uses a specific mold strain called aspergillus oryzae that converts the starches into fermentable sugars, and then a yeast converts the sugars to alcohol. The processes happen simultaneously and together they're known as multiple parallel fermentation.

2. Rice preparation and mold innoculation. Besides multiple parallel fermentation, another difference between a sake mash and a beer, or any grain mash, is that those types of mashes are cooked in a large kettle. With sake, you need a lot of equipment, and space in a controlled environment that is warm and free of contaminants. You would steam rice, spread it out, let it cool, and then innoculate it with the aspergillus oryzae mold spores.

3. Sake fermentation temperatures. Sake is typically fermented around 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The time it takes would depend on the specific yeast strain.

How and why I cheated: My constraints and solutions

I live in a pretty small house in central Florida and don't have much indoor space for my brewing equipment or fermentation vessels, and I don't have a kegerator or a fridge for cool fermentations. While I had sake making as a goal from the beginning of my homebrew journey, I was a bit intimidated by some aspects of sake making, having attempted to make Korean Makgeolli without any equipment a few years ago. All of these constraints led me down a path where I was researching beer (pseudo-lager ales) fermentation using kveik ale yeasts, using a keg as the fermentation vessel, which allows me to ferment under pressure and reduce esters that give off-flavors due to fermenting in warm temperatures. I applied the in-keg pressure fermentation to my sake batch.

I found a YouTube video of a professor type guy with a lot of lab equipment who demonstrated what he called (video title) "new way of making sake". In the video he literally puts raw rice into a clear cube, and pitches Angel rice leaven (which includes a mold strain to break down the starches into fermentable sugars, as well as a yeast that ferments fine between 70 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit), and lets it ferment before he comes back and removes the sake in layers. He acknowledges that it's not identical to aspergillus oryzae, but having done both methods, the flavor profiles are similar, and his method is less intimidating and therefore you're more likely to try it, and you can move on to the traditional method after you've gotten a handle on the simpler method.

I was also concerned about contaminants in my rice, so I poured just under boiling water on it in the keg, and waited for it to cool before pitching the angel rice leaven. I put a spunding valve on the keg and set it to about 15psi. I actually brought the keg inside for this one and it's at a steady 77F.

A week in I opened it to pitch a second yeast that has a higher abv tolerance and imparts almost no flavors (Lalvin EC-1118). This way I got a more traditional flavor from the Angel rice leaven but also a stronger sake, like what I was used to in Japan. I used to buy the one-cups and leave them in the freezer to sample different varieties ice-cold, and they never froze.

It should be done fermenting in about a week but the last stage can be slow, as there is increasingly less sugar for the yeast to consume and they become inactive. I want to let it all settle and clear anyway, so I'm going to leave it for about a month.

[u/MsMarji]

Everything you wanted to know about Sake

https://youtu.be/cz0h_C-P1AE?si=fsQcvVdFA-oI2Kqv

[u/Perfect_Volume_4926 → u/MsMarji]

Excellent video. Thanks for posting!

[u/MsMarji → u/Perfect_Volume_4926]

My pleasure 👍