Hi everyone,
I have been thinking about trying out sake brewing once again, but the complexity of setting up a proper brewing environment is offputting. So I wish to start a discussion: do you believe that the sake brewing process can be made more simple and how so? I will list some of the more cumbersome steps and possible optimizations/circumventions. Your thoughts would be much appreciated.
1. Buying milled rice is troublesome in europe and investing 160£ in a rice miller is a large investment
Use normal polished rice (preferably of a proper sort)
2. Steaming rice many times during build-up is troublesome
Steam rice once and keep sealed inside refrigerator
3. Koji-kin incubation seems like the most difficult step to optimize without building an incubator. I previously used the towels + hot water bottle method, which is a near full-time job for 48 - 72 hours. Suggestions are most welcome.
My suggestion: Build a simple incubator by putting a thermostat controlled heating pad and a glass of water into a cardboard box.
4. Accurate temperature control of fermentation broth requires a large setup (a large freezer hooked up to a thermostat).
Only brew in a season that allows for the broth to be cooled by the environment. Suggestions are most welcome.
5. High investment cost of materials
Brew smaller batches in smaller fermentors. I noticed that most recipes are for larger batch sizes (~15L of finished sake). I reckon that many people would be more than happy to end up with just 3 - 5 L as a beginning experiment.
Those were my immediate troubles and suggestions. Do you see any problems or opportunities?
P.S. I noticed that there are not a lot of posts anymore at NB. Did the discussion move or did the community as a whole just die?