JAPANESE BEERS - ANY RECIPES ?

[mishimaken]

I have made some ALL GRAIN - Japanese clone recipes - Asahi - Sapporo - but not convinced they are the best recipe's
Anyone with a good Recipe ? would like to share , Cheers.

 

[MHB]

Tempted to ask why!
But that’s personal taste. This might head you in the right direction

Domo Arigato (Hoppy Japanese-style Rice Lager)​

You might want to read the style guide and wind the hops back if you are looking for a classic Japanese Lager.
If you don’t want to use Flaked Rice, you can boil the same mass of cooked white rice with about 10% of your grist (100g grist/kg of rice). If you aren’t familiar with this process it might be worth reading this link Heineken. It covers how to process raw grain.
I would strongly recomend that you ferment cool (~8oC), double up your yeast, 34/70 works well.
Mark

 

[An Ankoù]

The trouble is that the two market leaders are both brewed locally and I suspect they taste little like the originals.
I made up Greg Hughes' Japanese Rice Lager a year or so ago and enjoyed it much more than the mass produced stuff.

23 litres OG 1052 IBUs 25 (He reckons FG 1013, but I like mine drier than that so I mash for longer)
Pilsner malt (Bestmalz Heidelberg is articularly light and a great choice) 4.7 Kg
Flaked Rice 500g
Mash at 65C for an hour (mine is 64C for 4 hours or overnight)
75 min boil
FWH Sorachi Ace @14.9% alpha acid 13g
15 minutes Sorachi Ace 5g + pprotofloc
Flameout Saaz 5g

Ferment at 12 C
Hughes' recommends Wyeast 2278 Czech Pils (I think I used an MJ equivalent)

 

[mishimaken]

Tempted to ask why!
But that’s personal taste. This might head you in the right direction

Domo Arigato (Hoppy Japanese-style Rice Lager)​

You might want to read the style guide and wind the hops back if you are looking for a classic Japanese Lager.
If you don’t want to use Flaked Rice, you can boil the same mass of cooked white rice with about 10% of your grist (100g grist/kg of rice). If you aren’t familiar with this process it might be worth reading this link Heineken. It covers how to process raw grain.
I would strongly recomend that you ferment cool (~8oC), double up your yeast, 34/70 works well.
Mark

Thanks Mark, yes, I've already done 2 from that site, Using Flaked Rice and 34/70 Yeast, Domo Arigato, a supposedly Asahi Clone, so now I'm making a Sapporo Ale / Lager. Found a recipe, but not a vast difference to the Asahi recipe.
The Japanese recipes are all very similar, so I was searching out for something new. Cheers. Tim

 

[MHB]

Problem I have with all the mainstream Japanese Lagers is that they do all pretty much taste the same.

In part this is because they imported their post war brewing technology from the US and their taste for fizzy yellow beer.
They were using 6-row barley with rice adjunct to dilute the protein and to keep the cost down. So most of the big brewers are using 20-40% rice and you will need to do a cereal cook to get close.
Using 2-Row malt you won’t need the adjunct for dilution but it will have a big effect on the taste. I would be looking at something like 25-30% rice in a home brewed version.
To the best of my ability to judge the bitterness is very low 15-20 IBU and there is no discernible hop flavour or aroma; so just bittering hops. Most of the non malt flavours are from the yeast used.

Good to see a bit of a craft brewing movement kicking off in Japan, but you can keep the big brewers.
Mark

PS
Sorachi Ace isn’t a Japanese hop! There is some wild Japanese hop in its ancestry but it was developed in the US.
Using it as a flavour hop in a Japanese lager will take you even further away from the nearly neutral flavour these beers are noted for (sic-total lack of flavour).
M

 

[Tom42]

Late last year I brewed a "Japanese Rice Lager" following the Brulosophy recipe -> Brü It Yourself | Japanese Rice Lager
The cereal mash was a real PITA - but the beer came out fantastic and was liked by all that tasted it,

 

[An Ankoù]

Problem I have with all the mainstream Japanese Lagers is that they do all pretty much taste the same.

In part this is because they imported their post war brewing technology from the US and their taste for fizzy yellow beer.
They were using 6-row barley with rice adjunct to dilute the protein and to keep the cost down. So most of the big brewers are using 20-40% rice and you will need to do a cereal cook to get close.
Using 2-Row malt you won’t need the adjunct for dilution but it will have a big effect on the taste. I would be looking at something like 25-30% rice in a home brewed version.
To the best of my ability to judge the bitterness is very low 15-20 IBU and there is no discernible hop flavour or aroma; so just bittering hops. Most of the non malt flavours are from the yeast used.
Good to see a bit of a craft brewing movement kicking off in Japan, but you can keep the big brewers.
Mark

PS
Sorachi Ace isn’t a Japanese hop! There is some wild Japanese hop in its ancestry but it was developed in the US.
Using it as a flavour hop in a Japanese lager will take you even further away from the nearly neutral flavour these beers are noted for (sic-total lack of flavour).
M

The problem I have with them is that they're too sweet in spite of the "super dry" description. But I'm not sure they're authentic as they're brewed "under licence" in various European countries.

Not sure what you're telling us though, @MHB, it sounds as if you reckon they're not worth bothering with?

I thought I had some of an earlier brew left and I've just found three bottles I was saving that are just over a year old. I mashed low and long so they've come out at 6.3% instead of the 5.3% suggested by the recipe. I'll give one of the a taste tonight and, if it's still good, I'll post the full recipe for @mishimaken . It contains about 10% flaked rice.

 

[An Ankoù]

And here it is. It's crystal clear with condensation on the glass. Slightly fragrant, which carries through into the flavour. It doesn't taste like 6.3% until it starts warming your stomach. A full bodied beer and it comes across as very slightly sweet in spite of the low FG, but the finish is dry. This is lovely beer and the fragrance lasts all the way down. Far too easy to drink for it's strength. I'm going to make some more of this. It tastes like no other lager I've ever tasted. Recipe to follow.

 

[An Ankoù]

I'm unhumbly proud of this one. Here's my brewing page with today's tasting note added. The recipe come from Greg Hughes' book, Home Brew Beer.
Note that I increased the late hops a bit and used Diamond yeast. 15 litre batch and FG was 1003.

4

 

[Paddy]

I brewed this one a few week back turned out a nice lager -
https://hoppydaysbrewingsupplies.com.au/product/rice-crispy/

 

[stevonz]

Problem I have with all the mainstream Japanese Lagers is that they do all pretty much taste the same.

In part this is because they imported their post war brewing technology from the US and their taste for fizzy yellow beer.
They were using 6-row barley with rice adjunct to dilute the protein and to keep the cost down. So most of the big brewers are using 20-40% rice and you will need to do a cereal cook to get close.
Using 2-Row malt you won’t need the adjunct for dilution but it will have a big effect on the taste. I would be looking at something like 25-30% rice in a home brewed version.
To the best of my ability to judge the bitterness is very low 15-20 IBU and there is no discernible hop flavour or aroma; so just bittering hops. Most of the non malt flavours are from the yeast used.

Good to see a bit of a craft brewing movement kicking off in Japan, but you can keep the big brewers.
Mark

PS
Sorachi Ace isn’t a Japanese hop! There is some wild Japanese hop in its ancestry but it was developed in the US.
Using it as a flavour hop in a Japanese lager will take you even further away from the nearly neutral flavour these beers are noted for (sic-total lack of flavour).
M

There’s a Japanese restaurant I got to in BNE that has a Japanese Pale Ale… brewed on the GC

 

[KegLand-com-au]

This is an area that I have been experimenting with recently. I followed this recipe here:

60L batch
6.3kg Pilsner (Weyermann)
3.6kg Jasmine rice from Aldi
60min - Sorachi Ace 30grams
10min - Sorachi Ace 20grams
0min - Sorachi Ace 50grams

I had a large pot and used some of the pilsner malt and all of the rice and converted these separately overnight in the BZ 100L with the pump re-circulating for the whole night as I just wanted to be sure it would convert.

When I boiled I had a huge amount of hot break. I pumped the whole lot into the fermenter and then fermented with Novalager yeast and then cleared this using the Biofine A3. (NOTE: i forgot to add the whirlfloc tablet too.)

It was fun to use the rice but in retrospect I think I lost about 15L of beer due to the huge hot break sludge that was left behind. I generally do not get this when using flaked rice and maybe converting overnight released more fine rice material than it should have. I probably would not use rice again as the cost of the losses and my time were much greater than the savings not using the flaked rice. With that said it was fun to use the raw jasmine rice as I have not done this for a long time so it was interesting to give it a go.

I totally would recommend the Novalager for this batch as even small amounts of sulfur are noticeable in this beer style. I previously used to use the Diamond yeast for this beer style but the novalager is cleaner and saves time.

If you are feeling a bit lazy I have also done this pilsner fresh wort kit which is made from 20% rice so you will get similar results however I think in comparison my recipe with the jasmine rice was slightly lighter in colour and slightly lighter in flavour but very much comparable.

 

[Panania Jim]

Super Dry Rice Lager.
This was delicious.
Tastes as good as it looks

 

[KegLand-com-au]

Super Dry Rice Lager.
This was delicious.
Tastes as good as it looks

This is a recipe that I would recommend. The flaked rice is the way to go for sure.

If you are doing this type of recipe inside the 65L or 100L BZ and not filling the malt pipe more than half way you can also get away without using the rice hulls in my experience as the malt pipe ratio of width to height is better. If you use the BZ 35L then the rice hulls are required.

 

[Hangover68]

I have a rice lager in the FV now , previously used Saaz but had some HT on hand.

pale malt 3.4kg
vienna 0.6kg
jasmine rice 0.75kg

hallertau traditional 40g @ 60mins

nova lager yeast