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Sake/Rice wine

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J

JoeM

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Jan 9, 2004
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Anyone out there in mead land have any good tips for making sake or other types or rice wine? What type of yeast would you suggest? And is there a particular type of koji that you would recommend over another?
 
…in addition does anyone have a good source for koji? I cant really seem to find one, all of the homebrew supply stores seem to carry sake yeast but none of them have koji. Which is interesting considering that its essential for sake production!
 
Soy sauce is made with koji, im not sure if there’s any spores left in it. Keeping the koji and yeast in the fridge is a good idea as well, for a period of time. The low temperatures are good for getting the culture going.

Koji kin can be bought here to
http://www.tibbs-vision.com/sake/

Also your meant to be able to use low % yeast to get high % sake, for instance a lager yeast.

There some Sake recipes here to

http://www.tibbs-vision.com/sake/moto2.html

Enjoy! ;D

Mu.
 
Thank you all for your posts, very helpful. I also found out some interesting info on my own. If I used my brain for like 10 seconds before I started this post I might have solved the problem myself haha. I asked my girlfriend (who happens to be Chinese) if any of her relatives make rice wine. I hadn’t asked her earlier because I just assumed she wouldn’t know anything about the process. Little did I know that not only does an Uncle of hers make rice wine, but when she was a kid she used to go to the store in china town to buy the koji for him. So not only does she know the process, she also knows where to get the koji for about $3. That will teach me to underestimate her!
 
Care to share? Id love to know were I could pick up Koji for $3, Melbourne has a good China town, perhaps in there…. :-\

Mu.
 
Hmm well I was referring to china town NYC, I assume that you're referring to Melbourne Australia? But I'll definitely ask her what type of store she used to get it in and maybe you can find a similar type of store by you.
 
That would be very helpful. Id just like to know what type of shop, im thinking green grocer. :-\

Mu.
 
The best answer i could get out of my girlfriend was "A chinese supermarket". Sorry i cant offer something more useful...but one of these days i'll get her to take me to the place and maybe then i can give you a better description.
 
Sake is brewed like beer, using a mash of rice instead of barley or other grains.The rice is “polished” and the better the quality of sake the more polishing the rice has had.The polishing of rice is done to remove the layers of oil and protein in the rice grain.The core of the rice is mostly starch and produces the best sake.The cheaper varieties have less polishing and more protein and oils that add off flavours to the sake.This may explain why sake does not produce much,if any, head when poured.The oils and proteins in the beer brewing process account for head formation in beer.
 
The sake process is not exactly like beer. The koji cultures provide the enzymes instead of the rice itself.

Neat info on the polishing though, I always wondered what they were doing with that.
 
I have made sake in the past (way long past...) and I still have a vial of koji-kin somewhere in my stash of "stuff." I have no idea if it still has viable spores in it, as it is over 20 years old at this point.

Now, (and how's this for a segue, folks? ;) ) something else that is really old, is the thread that you've replied to. The most recent posting prior to yesterday's is over a year old, and the bulk of the earlier postings are nearly 4 years old.

We ask, when you find something of interest in one of the older, archived message threads, that instead of posting to the older thread (where you may never get an answer from any of the original posters - many folks join Gotmead for a year or two and then disappear into the ether, never to be heard from again), instead please raise the point in a new thread that you initiate. That helps to keep all the discussions current, and keeps from generating threads that carry along lots of no longer relevant, outdated info.

Thanks! ;D
 
I am looking at a recipe for char siu (chinese BBQ pork) that calls for rice wine or sake. I have in my pantry a bottle of shao hsing rice cooking wine. Could I use this instead? I have my doubts.
 
Anything labeled "cooking...wine, sherry, sake etc." has salt added to it or in the case of some of the oriental wines, soy sauce (which is still salt).
Some of the Thai-style cooking wines are seasoned by steeping with fermented, brine shrimp before bottling. This provides that distinctive bouquet of cat food and gym socks...but in a good way.

Cooking wines are the lowest quality or what's left in the bottom of the barrel and that really doesn't matter one bit, since they are going to be seasoned and salted anyhow.

Steer clear of "cooking wines" especially if you have already salted your dish.
 
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