Japanese sake brewing project (3) ~ The first addition (HATSUZOE)

Changed to a larger fermentation bucket (5 gallon)

The first addition (HATSUZOE in Japanese)

On fourth day, the fermentation activity was slowing down.   Bubbles in the air lock was not frequent as the previous days.   It seems that there was not much sugar left in the starter cultures.   According to many articles on the internet, it may take a few weeks.   However, the sample amount of this trial is not much and there might be enough cells in the original yeast pack.   I guess that might be a reason to slow down the fermentation activity.   It seems that the fermentation of the starter has completed.

The smell was also getting more yeast flavor and I think it might be a sign to tell there are a lot of yeasts in the cultures.

Once the starter (SHUBO) is getting ready, the next step is the first addition (HATSUZOE) that means to start actual fermentation process for SAKE.

Need larger fermentation bucket

Based on observation last a few days, the height of the form on the surface of the starter solution reached to the lid of the small fermentation bucket (2 gallon).   It might be a chance to overflow if I add more into the small tank.  To be safe, I decided to use a larger bucket (5 gallon) for beer.

The first addition

 The material is pretty much the same as what we put into the starter (SHUBO) except the yeast.
This time, I added the followings:

•  Rice (3 Japanese cups, that is 540ml volume) 
• Water (1000ml, bottled water or need to boil)
• Dry KOJI (200g / 0.44 lib)

Rice needs to be cooked as "hard mode" with a bit less water.  The water level on my rice cooker is a level of 2 cups of sticky rice.   The cooked rice should not be soft.  The process is a similar as what the starter process does.
Cooling down the cooked rice and mix it with cold water.  Once the temperature becomes below 30 degrees C (86 degrees F), then mix with the dry KOJI.

 Dry KOJI, it may be found in a Japanese grocery store

 Then put the mixed material into the starter.   The next day of the first addition, it will be a process called "ODORI in Japaese" and just wait for one day without adding next material.

The fermentation was getting back to active after a few hours.   The smell is also getting fruity.

(To be continue) 

 

Japanese sake brawing project (2) ~ Started making a starter (SHUBO)

Started making a starter (SHUBO)

The first batch is started!

All materials are ready and I started the first batch of Japanese SAKE based on a traditional process modified for a home brewer.  The first state is making a starter, which is traditionally called SHUBO in Japanese.

The starter consists of some steam rice, some malted rice (KOJI), some water, the yeast, a little citric acid and a little epsom salt.  The followings is ingridents:

•  Steamed rice -- to simplify the process, 2 cups of rice is cooked in rice cooker instead of steaming with a bit less water than a regular cooking.
• Dry KOJI -- 135g
• Bottled water -- 700ml
• Citric Acid -- 1 Tea spoon
• Epsom salt -- a little
•  Sake Yeast -- Wyeast 4134 SAKE #9

A traditional way, the rice should be steamed.  However steaming rice is not really easy process and I am looking for a simple and easy way.   Therefore, I decided to use a rice cooker instead.   To cook the rice, using 360ml of rice with water level 2 cups of OKOWA with a bit hard finish.
Once the cooking has completed, we need to wait for cooling down.  After that adding bottled cold water and mixing with the cooked rice.   Once the temperature is lower than 30 degrees C, adding KOJI and yeast.   Citric Acid is used to minimize the infection with acid (pH 3.6~3.8).  This process is based on "SOKUJO-MOTO" process.  In the traditional process, lactic acid is typically used.  But it is not very common, so that I used citric acid instead.   It is used for wine brewing and you may find it in brewing supply shop in your area.

Dry KOJI can be found in a Japanese grocery store such as Mitsuwa, Nijiya and Marukai in the San Francisco Bay area.   You can also find it on-line.

Fermentator 

 I got a smaller bucket from on-line.  One for beer I am using is for 5 gallon of beer.   It could be too big for Japanese SAKE and I got 2 gallon bucket from online with air-lock.

As the photo on the top of this article, it started.   According to a typical process, it may take a several days to move to the next steps that is adding additional rice/KOJI and water.


(To be continue)

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) 

 

Home Brewed Beer Project ~ complete the first steps

Boiling water with Malt

A few years ago, my neighbor gave us home brewed beer and it was very tasty.  I wanted to make beer some day.   However, I did not have a chance to do it.   Especially, we moved last summer and it was very busy and I did not have time at all.

This year, we settle in the current place and finally, I have a time to try own beer.

Got starting kit from a local store, HopTech

I got a starter kit from a local store in Dublin / CA, USA, HopTech. This is a shop the neighbor recommended to me to get the kit and ingredients.   It is very close to where I live.  However, I did not have any chance to stop by before.
During July 4th weekend, I decided to try this and I finally stopped by on the way back to home from a park.   There were many brewing equipments and ingredients.  Also, people in the shop is very friendly.   When I told them, this is my first time, then they explained what I need / how I can make beer.   I felt it was much better to get a starter kit from online shop like Amazon.

I got a starter kit and 30 qt boiling kettle.  I also asked an easy recipe and got "Golden Ale" ingredient kit, that includes "ready to use Malt", "hops", "dry yeast" and "priming sugar".

You may get them from on-line as well.   I think their quality is very good.

Preparation

 Last night, I read all instructions coming with the kit as well as the recipe.   Also, I did a "dry-run" with just a water to under stand how to transfer the contents one to the other during the process.

Getting started!

Then, I went through a whole process for fermenting beer.  It took about 6 hours including preparation and cleaning up after the process.   The kettle with water that is about 4 ~ 5 Gallons might be too heavy to use kitchen stove.  So that I used a camping stove in my back yard to boil the water and the malt.   I guess it might be a good idea.

The process was simple enough, just following the recipe instructions.   Boiling water, added malt, adding hops, then cooling down the liquid and settled.  The finally moved to the fermenting bucket with the yeast!

It was fun and I could not wait for it is ready to drink!!

Based on the instruction, the fermenting may take a few weeks.  Then, bottling and wait for another a week to get it ready!   I just checked the bucket and it seems to be good!

I have not drunk the first beer, but I started looking for the next batch!!  It is so fun and excited to make own beer at home.   The smell during the process is very very good!!!!

Anthony Lake Chabot Regonal Park ~ much less water due to drought this year.....

Due to drought, the water level was externally low!!

Anthony Lake Chabot Regonal Park

Anthony Lake Chabot Reagonal Park is located near Castro Valley in Almeda county in California.  It is about 30~40 minutes from San Francisco International Airport.   This is called "Lake" in the park name, but it is actually a reservoir.

In the park, there are many trails around the reservoir, picnic area and camping grounds.   This week is a part of a long weekend, 4th of July weekend, in the US and it was very crowded today.

There is a parking lot after the toll gate.  However, many people parked on Lake Chabot Rd.   Since the street is almost full and I had to walk long way to get to the park.  I decided to park Nike Classroom Parking lot on a hill.  This parking lot is also free but we need to walk down a hill about 30 minutes.

No thing on the hill!

A last a few days, San Francisco bay area was hot more than 85F in daytime.  Even if it was early in the morning around 9am, the temperature is over 80F.   Around the parking lot, there is no shade and it was very hot and almost no wind.

 Near Nike Classroom parking lot, no shade!

 We walked down from Ten Hills Trail to Cameron Loop Trail toward the east end of the reservoir.  It takes about 30 minutes to reach a trail around the reservoir.  At the east end, there is a small bridge, but there is no water or water stream under the bridge.  It was dried out.

 Good thing was, once walked down from the top of the hill, there is a shade and there was wind on trails around the reservoir.   It was not too bad to hike in such hot day.   There were many people walk around.   On the other hand, there was no people except us on top of the hills.  It was obviously too hot to walk.    It might be better to park near the reservoir even if we need to pay some parking fee!!

We can walk to the islands

The right side of the islands is dried out!

Since it was really hot day, we decided to rent a row boat instead of walking around the like.  Walking around the lake is about 13~14 mils (about 20+km).  So we walked to the visitor center on the south west side of the park.
The rental fee is USD$20 / hour, $28 for 2 hours and $40 / day.  Not much different more than 2 hours.  So if people stay longer or do fishing, it is worth to pay some extra dollars.   We just rented for 2 hours and ate our lunch on the boat!!

Even if there is no shade on the lake, it was not too bad.   Duo to nice wind on the lake, it is nice to stay on the lake.

 Friendly ducks!

Ducks were very friendly and they came very close to our boat and kids were so happy many ducks around our boat.   I was with 2 kids, therefore, we did not have an options to rent kayak.  But renting kayaks would be another good option to enjoy the lake. 

Since we parked on top of a hill, we had to climb the hill after that..... It was too hot and we talked that we would park near the visitor center next time!

But it is a fun park near tri-valley in summer time!

Villa Montalvo Arboretum County Park (Saratoga CA) ~ Short Hiking Trail in shades

Villa

Trail in a shade

This time of a year, most of trails on hills on the east side of San Francisco Bay are getting brown and almost no shade.   It is hard to enjoy hiking in summer time.  It might be too hot!!

Villa Montalvo Arboretum County Park is one of good trails in summer time in the bay area.  Most of trail in this park is under shades.

Nice trail under shades

I went hiking this park today.  Even it was very hot today, it was about over 85F in a town.  However, there was a nice wind and it was really nice hiking in the park.   There is a nice vista point in the end of a trail.   That is only part where does not have a shade.   The view is nice, we can see entire the bay area and hills on the east side of the bay.

Nice view from the vista point

The trails are short, there are some combinations of trails.  However, the total distance could be around a few miles and a few hours are good enough.   Many people on the trails are chatting and enjoy hiking.  

This is really easy hiking course in a spare time!!

Hidden Beach / Aptos CA near Santa Cruz ~ A quiet beach!

Entrance to a trail toward a beach

No hiking this weekend!

Due to a rest day today, I did not go hiking as usual weekends while kids in a Japanese school.
The Japanese school in San Jose and it is just less than 1 hour away from Santa Cruz beach.  I drove to Santa Cruz with my wife this weekend.

After dropped kids, it was around 9am, we filled gas and went to Aptos where is close to Santa Cruz / Capitola.   My wife knows a quiet beach near Capitola.

The beach called "Hidden Beach".  We took Rio Del Mar Blvd exit on CA-1 and made left at Summer Ave.   We parked on the street and just took a walk to the beach.   There is a small parking lot at the trail head, just need to drive a litter far on Rio Del Mar and making right at Townsend Dr.  Then after residence area, you can drive to the parking lot.  However, the parking lot is small and we only saw one empty parking spot on the parking lot in the morning around 10am.

Wooden structure of a bridge for a real load

From Summer Ave, there is a rail load and going through under a bridge of a rail load.  The structure is made by wood.    Then we can reach the parking lot at the trail head.   From the trail head to the beach, it is only 5 minutes walking.  There is a residence area on the left and a small park.

A small park next to the trail head

After the park, you can see the beach.   In summer time, Capitola is usually busy in weekends, but this beach is less people can quiet.

Benches ~ you can sit and view ocean

 View from the benches

It was cloudy in the morning and getting better close to noon.  However to pick up the kids from the school, we need to leave around noon time.   There are some people on the beach.  I think the most of people on the beach were the local people, some of them were taking a walk and some of them were running on the beach.

In summer time, Capitola is usually busy and noisy during weekends.  So that it might be a good place just to enjoy the beach.   You might need to carry some stuff to the beach from your car.  However, you can have more private time on the beach.

It was cloudy, but not many people there

(I thought I published this last week, but it seems that I did not.  This was last week activity on June 7th, 2014)