Japaese sake brewing project (1) ~ Intoroduction

Nigori-Sake (before filter)

Brewing Beer

This summer, I started brewing beer at home.   So far I have done 6 batches, each batch is around 5 gallon of beer.   I tried Golden Ale, Pale Ale, IPA and Summer Pal Ale.  Some of them are twice.  Each batch takes about 4~6 weeks to be ready to drink.  Overall, the taste and smell (aroma) are very good and I stopped buying a commercial beer after that.

Once I understand the process, it is not so difficult and pretty easy to brew beer.   The first day, I need to spend a half day to finish the initial process, but after that it is easy and not taking a lot of time.  This is a good thing of this year.

While I had a chance to drink a home brewed Japanese SAKE in a party.   It was not too bad, actually it is very good.   So that I am also interested in brewing Japanese SAKE.   During summer / autumn, it had been hot and beer is better than SAKE for a while.   However, once it is getting chilly, Japnese SAKE would be preferable drink.

Some experiments

Starting late October, it was getting chilly and I had a chance to do some experiments to brew a sort of SAKE, which is typically called as "DOBROKU" in Japan.  It looks like milk before filtering it to be a SAKE.   It is usually using a simplify version of Japnese SAKE brewing process.

Nowadays, if people search on the internet, they can  find a lot of information how to brew.  Although the brewing more than 1% alcohol by volume is illegal, there is a lot of information on the internet.  Based on the recipe on the internet, I have done experimental brewing twice.  The first time, I used a yeast for beer brewing and used a yeast for bread baking.   The both experiments were successful and they were not bad at all.   However, using beer yeast would be a better taste and smell.

With the experiments, I have a better idea for brewing SAKE and I am ready to go to the next step.  The next step is to try a bit larger batch something around 1 gallon of Japanese SAKE.

I have not established my own process of brewing Japanese SAKE yet.   This is a project to brew a good Japanese SAKE at home.  Based on my beer experiments, it could be better result with very careful execution for a small amount.   I am expecting something better than what we can get in the US with a reasonable price.

As a project, I will report the progress!  I will try to establish a reasonably simple process to brewing Japanese SAKE at home.   Let's see what will happen!

(To be continue)