Sake - Make it at home.

[Jinmyo]

Koji is made with koji spores, used to innoculate rice, wheat, barley or soybeans to make a basis from which fermented foods and beverages, such as miso, pickles, shoyu (soy sauce), mirin or saké can be made. It takes 48 hours to make koji and it's quite involved. It can be purchased ready-made in some areas, but I was interested in the process of growing it, so I ordered koji spores and made my own (one of my journeys into food chemistry). I'm not seriously suggesting you try making this. It is labour-intensive. But I decided to write it up as a node for the ages because people have made koji for centuries. This "recipe" will make enough koji to ferment ten gallons of saké.

You will need the following items to begin making your own koji:

Koji spores (one supplier mentioned below)

Japanese short-grain white rice

Distilled or spring water

A small insulated picnic cooler

Two hot water bottles

An accurate thermometer. I used a dairy thermometer because they're large, won't get lost in the rice and are easy to read.They also float, so they're good for making saké.

A spray bottle filled with ethyl alcohol for sterilizing dishes and utensils - very important. Koji will not incubate properly if it is contaminated. Rinse well after sterilizing equipment.

Two eight or ten inch glass baking dishes.

A plastic container with a lid large enough to hold the baking dishes.

Supplier:

Koji spores can be ordered from G.E.M. Cultures, 30301 Sherwood Road, Fort Bragg, CA 95437 U.S.A. (707) 964-2922. I ordered a 40 gram package of miso koji starter to make saké. A little koji spore goes a long way and it can be tricky to measure. The innoculant ratio is one gram of spore innoculant to eleven pounds of koji substrate. But if you mix the koji spores with rice flour to increase the volume, it's much easier to measure. The innoculant ratio is one gram of spore-flour innoculant to one pound of koji substrate.

To prepare koji spores for use:

Lightly toast two and a half cups of rice flour in a skillet to sterilize it.

Cool to room temperature and pour it into a very clean, dry, wide-mouth jar.

Tap the koji spore package to move contents to one end.

Cut the edge of the package open.

With your nose and mouth covered (I used a scarf) pour the koji spores into the jar very slowly, very carefully. Koji spores are very fine and definitely should not be inhaled, so any time you are handling the powder, you should cover your nose and mouth with cloth. Otherwise, you'll be growing mushrooms in your lungs. They are a deep vivid green and pour like smoke. Once the powder is mixed with rice, you won't need to worry about inhaling the spores.

Cap the jar and rotate it until the contents are completely mixed and uniform in colour.

Label the jar with the date and the type of spores it contains.

Measure out the amount of spore mixture needed and replace the cap. Please store the unused portion of the spore mixture in a cool, dry, dark place, such as a refrigerator or air-cooled pantry away from heat sources. Stored in this manner it will maintain full potency for six months or more.

*Note: If you do not own an accurate scale, measuring cups and measuring spoons will suffice. Purchase or grind some slightly course white rice flour which will not pack down and therefore will make measuring more consistent.

To make koji starter (the first twenty-four hours):

Wash six cups of a good quality short-grain Japanese white rice, removing as much of the surface starch as is possible. The starch will cause the rice to lump and this is not conducive to growing koji.

Soak the rice in twelve cups of distilled or spring water (must be chlorine-free) for six hours.

Steam the rice for fifty minutes. You can use the soaking water and just add more water to the pot.

While the rice is steaming, sterilize the picnic cooler and the hot water bottles and then, using a thermometer, fill the picnic cooler with water to warm it. The water will need to be 35 degrees centigrade.

Just before the rice has finished cooking, fill the hot water bottles with 35 degree centigrade water.

Spread a small clean towel on the work surface.

Lay a square of unbleached cotton on top of that, large enough to hold the rice.

Empty the rice onto the unbleached cotton square, spreading it to an inch in thickness.

Check the temperature of the rice. It needs to cool to about 45 degrees centigrade.

Cover your nose and mouth with a scarf and sprinkle one teaspoon of the koji/rice flour mixture over the rice.

Mix it into the rice well.

Spread the rice to a thickness of one inch again. Sprinkle a second teaspoon of the koji/rice flour mixure over it and mix well.

Mound the rice in the centre of the cloth to form a ball.

Place the thermometer in the ball of rice, top extending so that you will be able to withdraw it to take readings.

Wrap the cloth around the ball and then wrap the towel around that.

Empty and dry the picnic cooler.

Put one of the filled hot water bottles on the bottom of the picnic cooler and then place the wrapped rice ball on top of it.

Put the second hot water bottle on top of, or partially covering, the wrapped ball and close the cooler.

You now have a baby koji and you can't leave it unattended. You will need to check its temperature with the thermometer every three hours for the next twenty-four and replace the water in the hot water bottles with 35 degree C. water when the temperature drops. The margin is 25 to 40 degrees centigrade. A caution concerning overheating, also - koji produces its own heat, particularly in the last eight hours.

The second twenty-four hours:

When you unwrap the ball, it will have a sweet, sporey smell. Quite wonderful, actually. The grains should be more or less covered with white powder and flake apart. If this is not the case, you will need to repeat the above, taking care to sterilize utensils etc., as contamination is probably the reason it did not incubate. For the next phase, you will need to:

Sterilize two (eight to ten inch) square or rectangular glass dishes baking dishes.

Divide the ball of rice evenly in two and spread it in an even layer in each dish.

Cut furrows one inch deep and two inches apart. This is done because the spores will be producing their own heat and the furrows prevent the rice from becoming too warm.

Cover the bottom of the plastic container with an inch of water.

Place the trays in the container, put the lid on it and then cover it with a towel.

Check it every four hours for the next twenty-four to make sure that the temperature doesn't go above 45 degrees centigrade. The margin is now a little wider (25 to 40 degrees is best). If it goes too high or too low, you can regulate it by placing it in another location in your home that is warmer or cooler, or by putting a warmer or cooler hot water bottle underneath the dish inside the container.

After twenty-four hours, have a look. The rice should be covered with a white fuzzy mould, not just on top but throughout, pushing the grains apart. It will look rather like white velvet. You can now use it to make saké, miso, shoyu, pickles, or whatever you wish. It can be refrigerated for about two weeks.

[Katherine]

Can you really use that much koji in two weeks, or are you going to try and freeze it?

"...saké, miso, shoyu, pickles, or whatever you wish."

I'm a person who has had minimal exposure to the uses of koji. (OK, none) What might be the other things I'd wish to use koji for if I was in the know?

[Jinmyo]

Katherine, it's not that much if you are trying to make a reasonable amount of saké . Or pickles (since the pickles keep well for about six months.) With the number of things I've listed that koji can be used for, I can't think of anything to add except to list vegetables you could pickle. But then just about anything would work (except mushrooms).

[Katherine]

How would you make sake with the koji? Or pickles?

At this point I'm just curious, so I'm only looking for the general techniques.

Pickles sounds more workable for me, but does the homemade sake you make come out similar to a purchased sake, or is it a very different product? How much do you end up with? Is the process similar to beermaking?

[Jinmyo]

Katherine, sorry for the tardiness of my reply but this is one of the few boards I don't look on very often.

Yes, pickles are much easier. As I remember, I got 16 1.5 litre bottles of sake. They were uneven. Some I made into a kind of vinegar, the others were fine but not great. Or even good if I applied the standards I would bring to sake made by someone else. ;)

[Kuma]

Hello all !

For those of you who don't know me, and that should be most of you, my name is Robert and I am an Australian in Sydney who is in love with Japan.

I spent 5 weeks there in 2005, and will be going back for another 7 weeks in March 2007.

"Where's the Sake", I hear you cry?

Well, in preparation for my trip, my flatmate and I decided we would have a go at Sake-brewing at home. The average bottle of Gekkaikan retails for about $24 per bottle, as does the Australian Go-shu brand (anout $20) and so we thought that doing it ourself would be a lot cheaper (and it is).

We looked at all sorts of recipes for Dobroku and Sake, and finally realised we'd have to get some Koji-Kin first. This is the "mould spore" you inoculate the rice with in order to make it sweet enough to ferment.

The progress went like this:

1) Steam Rice

2) Make kome-koji (sweet rice) by inoculating rice with koji-kin and keeping it warm for 3 days or so.

3) add kome-koji to more steamed rice.

4) add clean water.

5) add Yeast

6) allow to ferment about 3 weeks

7) decant and bottle.

I am not at home at present, so I don't have the exact recipe - I will post it as soon as I can, for all you sake-lovers.

It's really good, but watch out - sometimes it can go a bit sour, but the sour one's still good for cooking or pickling !!

Oops, just found one of the recipe's I use. Have a look at This Web-site (It's where I order my koji-kin from)

Kampai !!

Rob. )

[jayt90]

Thanks for this, Rob.

I'll defintely try making some this spring, in central Canada.

But I am wondering what the best Japanese sake may have to make it superior? I'm sure there is a long tradition that I might be blissfully ignoring, and probably unable to duplicate.

[Sencha]

I have some questions, since your list is brief.

Did you soak the rice beforehand? The rice is usually soaked before steaming. The time depends on various factors, including the type of rice, amount of milling done to the rice, as well as quality of the rice.

Which type of yeast did you use? Did you buy one specifically used in sake production, and if so, which variety? If you haven't tried yeasts specifically used for sake production, you may want to try different varieties out, since each offers differences in the finished product.

Do you leave your sake as namazake (raw sake) or pasteurize it afterwards?

Also, have you tried to use the sakekasu (sake lees) in cooking? If not, you may want to look for some recipes which use them, so that you may enjoy your product even more!

And as for jayt90's question: "But I am wondering what the best Japanese sake may have to make it superior?"

There are various reasons why certain Japanese sake are superior (to foreign-made, as well as Japanese-made). Here are some I can think of at the moment:

-- There are different varieties of rice which are used for sake, and which are

specifically grown for sake.

-- There are also a variety of strains of yeast used in sake production.

--Water. Good clean water is key to making good sake.

-- An experienced head brewer (touji) who can make the best out of the resources he

has, and knows when to adjust certain things in the production.

-- Preference of the taster. After all, not everyone likes the same type of sake.

[Kuma]

jayt90, I can think of another thing that makes the best sake "Superior" - The rice they used is polished down until only the very heart of the greain remains. This makes a better sake - unfortunately I don't know how to achieve this at home, short of shaving down each individual grain of rice with a knife

To answer Sencha's questions:

I don't soak the rice before steaming, but I don't know why this didn't occur to me before - I will try this next time and see what happens. The rice still reaches a porridge-like consistancy during fermentation, but now that I think of it, it does swell up and take up a lot more liquid than it should. Thank you for the tip !

Yeast - my local brewer's supplier doesn't stock any sake yeasts, so I use the low-temperature lager yeast. I am going to try the round yeast-balls sold at the local asian grocer next time, as I think they might work a little better.

Pasteurisation - yes, I do this, simply because I don't think I can drink the sake as fast as I can make it Does it make a big difference in the taste?

I did think to keep some of the lees for use in pickling, but when I last checked them, they had developed some bacterial infection due to being left out of the fridge a bit too long, and had turned a delightful shade of pink . I have since disposed of them.

[_john]

does anyone know if you can buy koji-kin in stores in Japan or do you have to use mail order? I would like to try making sake at home but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

This website inspired me to try making it at home:

Mutsuo Hoshido's Homepage

This site has information on:

　　　　How to homebrew Sake　　　

　　　　How to make your Kome-koji.　　　

　　　　How to homebrew Natto　　　　

　　　　How to homebrew Miso　　　

　　　　How to make Mirin　　　

Lot's of good info and pictures.

[Hiroyuki]

http://www.ajiwai.com/otoko/make/kouji.htm...#33740;）

Scroll all the way down and read under *1.

It says that you can purchase tane kouji at a kouji ya (shop), and kouji ya are listed under "こうじ" (kouji in Hiragana) in NTT's Town Page (telephone directory). It also says that not all kouji ya seem to sell you tane kouji, so you should contact them by telephone first. Listed there are two examples that will sell you tane kouji, one in Toyohashi city, Aichi prefecture and another in Chiba city, Chiba prefecture.

Also listed there are two overases suppliers:

http://www.kagi.com/vision/sake/default.html

http://www.northernbrewer.com/wine-yeast.html

I found this company, located in Osaka city, but judging from the scale of the company, I don't think that they will sell their tane kouji to individuals.

WARNING: AS YOU ALREADY KNOW, homebrewing is illegal in Japan.

[_john]

thank you for your research Hiroyuki.

While I was out today I stopped into the large supermarket and just happened to find koujikome in the same section as the nuka (rice bran for pickling) which I was looking for.

Here is a picture of the front, as well as the instructions for making amazake (sweet sake, also known as half sake) from the kouji on the back.

This is rice that is already inoculated with kouji-kin. I have not translated the instructions yet but if you were to make sake from this koji, which as Hiroyuki pointed out is illegal in Japan, it seems fairly straight forward.

On the front of the package it notes that you can also make miso and sake kasu tsukemono (sake lees pickles) with this kouji, both of which are legal

[Hiroyuki]

Well, as I suggested somewhere else, amazake usually has an alcohol content of less than 1%, and it's not illegal to make amazake.

[Kuma]

Interesting ! I assume to make sake kasu tsukemono you would need to have sake lees lying around, therefore you would have needed to make sake to get them

I'm glad we're allowed to make home brew here in Australia !! (Although I'm not sure about Distilling...)

I forgot about making Miso, but as we can get it so cheaply here I don't see a big need to make my own, we don't use it EVERY day (although it does taste similar to Vegemite (Aussie yeast spread) when spread on toast.)

[Kiem Hwa]

Wow, homebrewing Sake looks fun! I will try it too as soon as I get the chance!

I have never made any alcohol myself before, but my parents used to make wine with random fruits when they were my age.

Well, as I suggested somewhere else, amazake usually has an alcohol content of less than 1%, and it's not illegal to make amazake.

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Why is brewing illegal in Japan??

[Pan]

Is home brewing legal in California?

[torakris]

Interesting !  I assume to make sake kasu tsukemono you would need to have sake lees lying around, therefore you would have needed to make sake to get them 

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Actually sake lees are available in almost any supermarket, so you don't have to worry about making your own.

I know there is a discussion about illegality of home brewing in Japan around here somewhere....

[Hiroyuki]

Why is brewing illegal in Japan??

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In the early Meiji period, there were two million farmer households that produced "doburoku" (white cloudy sake), but the Meiji government started to restrict homebrewing because liquor tax revenues were a large source of income for the government. Eventually, the government totally banned homebrewing in 1899. That year, the government succeeded in raising the liquor tax revenues to about 30% of the total revenues. Today, liquor tax revenues accounts for only 2-3% (according to one source) or 5% (according to another) of the total revenues, but the government has no intention to change the obsolete Liqour Tax Law.

In the famous "Doburoku" case in 1989, the Supreme Court ruled that the law banning homebrewing was constitutional and the defendant, Toshihiko Maeda, the author of the book titled "Doburoku wo Tukurou" (Let's Make Doburoku), was guilty.

As part of the structural reform program, the Koizumi government has approved several doburoku tokku (special zones for doburoku), but this does not mean that everyone in the tokku is permited to homebrew. It's only that a farmer or an agricultural group who runs an inn (minshuku) or restaurant is allowed to produce doburoku, subject to severe restrictions, such as the need to use self-made rice.

[Hiroyuki]

In today's edition of Shin Nippon Tankentai, aired from 6:30 to 6:45 a.m. on channel four (NTV), I saw a farmer making doburoku. He runs a minshuku (a type of inn) and serves his doburoku to his guests.

He says he abandoned eating natto since he started to make doburoku althogh he likes it. This is true of professional sake brewers.

[Sencha]

He says he abandoned eating natto since he started to make doburoku althogh he likes it.  This is true of professional sake brewers.

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Oh, I think of heard about this of practice. It's to avoid contamination in the sake, isn't it?

[Hiroyuki]

He says he abandoned eating natto since he started to make doburoku althogh he likes it.  This is true of professional sake brewers.

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Oh, I think of heard about this of practice. It's to avoid contamination in the sake, isn't it?

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The farmer says that natto-kin (bacillus natto?) is so strong that it kills all the yeast in the taru (barrel).