Wasabi
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Guys,
What do you all know about Sake? Some people say it goes in the wine category, others say beer.
Its made from grain, so to me its closer to beer that wine.
I have had two attempts at making this beast, one successful (ie drinkable) the other not so. There seems to be very little info out there on brewing Sake (as opposed to rice wine which contain raisins), and the recipes I have found call for the use of something call Koje.
Apparently the problem is that the starch is so resilient, the sugars can't be broken down properly, this Koje stuff helps in the process. I found something that I think was Koje in a Japanese shop in Cremorne, but as it was all in Japanese and the little old lady who sold it to me spoke no english, I'm not sure. I just remember using the word Sake and her suggesting that this is what I needed.
The first batch I made, I used a normal ale yeast and that addative you put in your beer to make it extra dry. It seemed to ferment out in about 5 weeks. As I wasn't 100% sure what I was doing I decided not to use the hideously expensive polished rice, but perhaps in hindsight, jasmine rice wasn't really a suitable alternative.
As I said it was drinkable (and came in at around 11%) but it had a marzipan aftertaste.
Anyone else ever tried this? Now that my glass carboys are free again I thinking of giving it another whirl.
What do you all know about Sake? Some people say it goes in the wine category, others say beer.
Its made from grain, so to me its closer to beer that wine.
I have had two attempts at making this beast, one successful (ie drinkable) the other not so. There seems to be very little info out there on brewing Sake (as opposed to rice wine which contain raisins), and the recipes I have found call for the use of something call Koje.
Apparently the problem is that the starch is so resilient, the sugars can't be broken down properly, this Koje stuff helps in the process. I found something that I think was Koje in a Japanese shop in Cremorne, but as it was all in Japanese and the little old lady who sold it to me spoke no english, I'm not sure. I just remember using the word Sake and her suggesting that this is what I needed.
The first batch I made, I used a normal ale yeast and that addative you put in your beer to make it extra dry. It seemed to ferment out in about 5 weeks. As I wasn't 100% sure what I was doing I decided not to use the hideously expensive polished rice, but perhaps in hindsight, jasmine rice wasn't really a suitable alternative.
As I said it was drinkable (and came in at around 11%) but it had a marzipan aftertaste.
Anyone else ever tried this? Now that my glass carboys are free again I thinking of giving it another whirl.