Brewing Japanese-SAKE Winter 2017/2017 (2) ~ plan to start brewing soon

   Now, it is already mid-December, it is really getting cold in northern California.   It is a time to start brewing Japanese-sake this winter.  I already placed an order for the material.
   As I mentioned in previous posts, I published a Kindle book to share my brewing experience in Japanese, unfortunately, I do not have English edition at this moment.  Although I have a couple items I want to try to see if there is any other improvement or not, I decides I will just try to do the same process / recipe this year to make sure the process / recipe is repeatable.   The reason is one of major items I want to try is how I can process the rice.   As you probably know, I am using a regular rice cooker to process the like instead of “steaming” which is a traditional way to process the rice for SAKE.   Based on the experience last winter, it seems that the rice with a regular rice cooker is too soft if the rice is milled up to 60%.  This is a different result to use a regular rice for a meal.   On the other hand, steaming is a little complicate process and it is not easy to do in a regular kitchen.  Therefore, I postponed this experiment in the future and try to make sure the process is repeatable.

   Thus, the basic direction is the same recipe and materials:

• ·         Rice milled up to 60%
• ·         Raw rice malt (Koji)
• ·         Yeast is #9

·         Recipe is exactly the same as last year’s I have been waiting for the material I ordered and I will start brewing as soon as I get them.  I am expecting to start it before Christmas.   Let’s see how it goes!

Brewing Sake 2017-2018 (1) ~ Start preparing ....

Home brew Sake!

It's getting cold ....

November is coming.   There were some warm days in October, however, it is getting chilly in the morning and the evening last a several days.   There is still some time to start brewing Japanese sake this winter.  I plan to start sometime around Christmas time.  So, it is time to start preparing now.

Brewing last season
It's been 4th years and I got some tips from my past experiences.   Last year, I used rice up to 60 % milled which is Ginjo-class and raw Koji.  As a result, I think it was the best one in last three years.

The plan for this season, I probably want to try a similar condition to re-produce a similar result.   There is an option to "steam" rice instead of cooking by rice-cooker.   The process is a little more effort for me and I am thinking to stay "rice cooker" method this year.


First of all ....
The first thing I need to do is to get all material for brewing, which is Koji and yeast.
We can purchase them from "Home Brew Sake"
Koji (40 oz.) USD$11 and Yeast #9  USD$6.5.   I also plan to use Koji for other purpose, therefore I might want to buy some extra amounts.  You can also get a special rice milled up to 60% from the site.  The price is 10 lbs USD$24.
Also, it is very good site for the process of brewing and recipe.

The plan is starting around Christmas, therefore I probably need to place order some time in the end of October.   I will post my progress this year.