How to Homebrew Sake

by Mutsuo Hoshido

Homebrew Sake is very easy to brew using your simple cooking tools and you can enjoy Sake taste.

Homebrew Sake, we call 'doburoku', rather haze Sake, had been a culture of Japan and even under the previously strict control of Liquor Tax law, some Buddhist temples or Shinto Shrines have been brewing their own 'doburoku' to serve their festival or ceremony.

Following is one of the simple Sake brewing procedures to enjoy Sake taste.

Materials: For 23 Litres

7.5 Kg.(16.5 lb) rice
2.2 Kg.(5 lb) Kome-koji,
5 teaspoons Citric acid
Water
Wyeast # 3134 Sake Yeast
3 teaspoons Wyeast Yeast Nutrient

Equipment:

Electric rice cooker (steam cooker is better).
Basket to cut water.
30 liter or Larger Primary Fermenter
23 Litre Glass Carboy and Airlock and Bung
Stirring Spoon
Syphoning Equipment

Procedure:

1.Wash and soak the rice for about five hours and then put the rice in a basket for at least 20 min. to cut water.
2.Cook the rice with 9 Litres of water using the rice cooker. Steam cooking is recommendable for better taste. I used a pressure cooker to steam cook rice using a stainless steel basket suspended in it.
3.After cooking the rice, cool down the rice to 30deg C(86deg F).
4.Dissolve the citric acid with 2.4liter(0.5gal) water in the Primary Fermenter.
5.Add the koji and dissolve it by agitating with the big spoon.
6.In thirty minuets, add the cooled cooked rice and mix well by agitating with the big spoon.
7.Pitch the yeast and cover the Fermenter. Keep at room temperature. Lower temperature will cause slower and longer fermentation and will result in better taste. Wyeast Sake Yeast can ferment down to 15° Celcius
8.Stir it at least once a day. In two or three days you will notice a very nice Sake aroma.
9.In two weeks fermentation will seem to end.
10.Filter the sludge using a sterilized basket or cheese cloth.
11.Enjoy the filtered Sake. Do not drink too much. Alcohol content is two to three times more than beer. Cooling the filtered Sake is the best way to taste. If you want crystal clear Sake, transfer to carboy to settle. Fine with Sparkolloid™.
12.Remaining sludge can be used to cook vegetable pickles in a refrigerator. A cucumber is the most suitable vegetable. Of course you can put white fish meat and then grill them.

How to make Kome-koji from Koji or Koji-kin.

1.Wash and soak the for about five hours and then put the rice in a basket for at least 20 min. to cut water.
2.Steam cook the rice. Steam cooked rice looks slightly transparent, not white.
3.Cool down the cooked rice to 30deg C(86deg F). Put the rice into an enamel or stainless steel thin container and add 2 to 3g of Koji or Koji-kin and well mix them. Cover the container with water moistened cheese cloth or cotton cloth to prevent drying.
4.Put the container in a picnic ice box together with 35deg C(95deg F) warm water bottles to keep the inside at 30deg C(86deg F) for 40 hours. The amount of the warm water will preferably be at least 8 litters(2 gal). If necessary, change the warm water to keep the temperature constant. In 10 hours, mix again the mixture of the cooked rice and Koji using a cooking spatula. Already you can notice the whitened rice and get good aroma. I used a digital thermometer to measure the temperature inside. Very useful.
5.Further keep the mixture at 30deg C(86deg F) for 30 hours.
6.You can get white colored Kome-koji covered with white fungus.

If real "Amasake" is available (sake sludge mixed with sugar is not real amasake), directly pitch dry yeast in a bottle. You can brew Sake.

In Japan, at present, fermenting more than 1% alcohol without license is illegal. Before world war one, I heard that every family had been enjoying home brewing Sake. It was the Japanese culture. But the war destroyed the culture too. At present, members of " Homebrew News Letter" is only around 300. It is supposed that about ten thousand home brewers exist in Japan. We do not only homebrew beers but also homebrew Sake.

In 1992, the minimum amount of licensed beer production was reduced from 2000kl/year to 60kl/year by the pressure from the USA. It was the dawn of local micro beer brewers. We, most of Japanese home brewers, are wanting more pressure from the USA for free homebrew and for free trade to get cheaper homebrew ingredients.

Commercial Sake brewers use very expensive materials such as 50% polished special kind of rice, which looks very small crystal beads because of the excessive polishing process. And the special rice kinds grown only for Sake are called Yamadanishiki, Miyamanishiki, Reihou, Gyokuei and so on. We never eat such a rice, we usually eat slightly polished normal kinds of rice grown only for eating. When I visited a Sake brewer near my house, the manager told me that he tried to eat that sake rice but that it was not tasty.

Homebrew Sake is very simple to make and satisfactorily tasty if you do not compare with commercial high class pure rice Sake. I heard that US Sake brewers have to produce only pure rice Sake because of US tax law. Pure Rice Sake means Sake only from rice. In Japan, tax law allows mixture of so called industrial ethyl alcohol into Sake within a certain percentage. Pure rice sake (Junmaishu) is very expensive.

I hope you enjoy homebrew Sake.

Mutsuo Hoshido