June
05
Sake stuff Friday: simplified homebrewing
There are many methods detailed online and in books showing you how to make Sake at home. Almost all of them attempt to replicate large scale Japanese brewing on a very small scale. However, much like baking, brewing doesn’t always scale exactly as batches get much larger. A tank in a small scale brewery in Japan is around 1500 liters but single homebrewing bucket holds only 1/60th of that volume. It turns out that you don’t need to follow the larger method to brew good Sake.
Judging from the information that we have collected from dozens of these small batches that we occasionally make to test ingredients or a change to a process, you can brew delicious Sake at home using much simpler method.
The video below talks about a simple homebrewing recipe for Sake that really works – below I have detailed the ingredients.
VIDEO:
for 25 Liters of Sake: (please use a bucket larger than 25 liters!)
Total Rice (60% milled) – 8.35Kg
Koji – 20%-30% of the above amount. For example for 25% Koji, you will need 2.08 Kg of Koji and 6.27 Kg of steamed rice.
Water -12.5 Liters
Lactic Acid (88%) – 2ml
White Labs Sake Yeast (1 tube)
Day 1 : add 6.25 L of water and half the Koji, 2 ml of lactic acid to a sterile bucket and stir well. Wash, soak, and steam half the rice and cool. Add to bucket and stir well. Place lid on bucket and hold at 10C in a fridge.
Day 2 : in the morning add the second half of the water (6.25 L), second half of the Koji and the yeast – stir well. Wash, soak, and steam the second half of the rice and cool. Add to bucket and stir well.
Day 3 – Day 20 : maintain a temperature of 12C – 15C for the duration of fermentation. Stir every 3 days.
you can buy rice and Koji at:
https://www.fhsteinbart.com/products/index.php
BostonSake 
Thanks very much for the instructions and video. With the rice you are adding, are you messing it dry, or after it has been soaked and steamed?
I utilized your method with great results; thank you for some good sake. A question… why two steps as opposed to just adding all ingredients at once like kobo jikomi? Especially since the last step is where yeast is added, when the major reason for traditionally using 3 steps (with yeast starter at the beginning) is to allow for yeast to populate proportionately? Have you attempted adding all ingredients at once?