Sake - brewing and tasting notes. (original) (raw)
I made one Yamahai, one Shubo, each with koji I hand-made with frozen spores - happy that technique works. I keep a little of each koji batch and some 'master' spores from a batch, for redundancy.
Anyway, the gamey, Yamahai sake as namasake has been fantastic, this week we get to drink it in it's namazume state - single pasteurized as I do. As Namazume-Yamahai it's a fantastic full sake.
I haven't yet pressed the lactic-acid batch: it stayed very cold while I was on vacation, but it is coming along with great smooth taste.
Both are Premier Cuvey, which I still adore!
I've done pretty well with making my own koji, and while I had my doubts at first that the small amount of spore I generate could do the trick, I now have no fears at all!
Koji and spores both can be frozen with no adverse effects, I highly recommend this for spores, so your rice doesn't spoil.
Have noted that some people grind up spored koji, written about, a little bit, in this excellent online book:
Here ya go: http://tinyurl.com/MisoBook
http://shizuokasake.wordpress.com/2007/01/17/17/
Or something like it.
I am using "forbidden rice", and my blender a la "Kimoto", which seems the only reasonable way to go about this.
The peach color of the more delicate varieties is striking.
Because I am drinking my Sake cold, and because I prefer full-bodied sake, I make the Yamahai Method - although I have also blended successfully Yamahai and the more modern Shubo method. (IMHO lol)
The spectrum of bottling, I enjoy. This batch I have created a good lot of Bentonite fined sake as well as sake that is likely just slightly 'Muroka', or imperfect, unfiltered. Below the cut, are bottles siphoned off of quart bottles of settled sake, leaving only maybe 2 and a half bottles of Nigori, the rest much thinner save one odd-ball.
And here are some pictures of various bottles. Enjoy, below the cut!( Sake Spectrum!Collapse )
I am busy making a huge batch of koji.
Hopefully I can take some pictures.
Here ya go!
The incubator - with a heating pad set to low (a 'wet-proof' heating pad, obviously never used). Note that I have the temp. sender into a jar of koji. Inside is a jar of water which remains until I try to get the koji to spore at the end, so that I can make more koji in a few weeks or months.
This was amazing at keeping the temp at almost exactly 96, prime enzyme production.
Here is the koji - best batch yet. Last time I soaked the rice for 18 hours and I'm happy to say that less is more in this case. Much more stable, the grain of rice, with less soaking. I have a portion turning to tane-koji, so I'm looking forward to being able to say that I have mastered this art - in the home anyway!
Excuse the crappy pictures, but here is my koji, above, and my Tane-Koji in the making, below. Note that it is turning green (the photo doesn't do its puke green justice!) and uniformly unphotogenic. I have done well with this batch, the best change being the lower soak time, which equals more solid rice to support the koji fibers.
Maybe you are interested in sake, or brewing. Well, if you want to read my brew notes or ask me any questions, go ahead and join the community. You can post whatever you want here, provided it has something to do with sake, or brewing, or me B) Personally, I just put odds and ends related to sake and tastings, at a note-taking device. So for this reason: It's informality, and to save others from mundanity, it's "Members Only". OKTHKSBYE