Realism of making Sake

Wanted an opinion on general impressions.

Commercial Beer: You bet home made beer can be made, its great and it has inspired professional aspirations. Home brew can actually be world class.

Commercial Wine: It can happen, but you need good grapes and making it at home can make really good wine, but can it be as good as professional production?

Commercial Sake: No way, you don’t have heavenly blessed water, meticulous standards, and good luck getting quality rice. It’s almost absurd that you ask…

*Edit:
These are the over all impression I get from reading and watching interviews.

Just throwing this out there, what do you think? I’ve over simplified, but this is what I feel like when I go around researching and looking for information.

Personally I would love to attend one of John Gauntner’s “No sake’ stone left unturned” course. I feel that might be the only way to push my knowledge into a more useful what to expect, how can I make it work at home with the same quality as beer, wine, cider and mead. State side of course, I don’t know any Japanese yet, besides a few Sake terms :wink:

Never done it and don’t have any idea on the process but I don’t see why it couldn’t be done.

Hey Dray,

No way???

I think we can definitely make some supreme tasting sake at home. I personally don’t have any winemaking experience so I can’t comment on that and actually I’ve only brewed beer twice so not much to say there either. All my brewing effort for the last ½ decade has been making sake. Sake is definitely a double edged sword due to all its quirky steps and fermentation parameters etc…and by that I mean it’s the quirks and parameters that make it so awesome and so challenging at the same time.

For me, Miyamizu (heavenly blessed water) = distilled water, salt additions, and a good prayer to get it all going.

Meticulous standards: I’ve seen your koji muro and it looked pretty meticulously built.

Quality Rice: Agreed! It is hard to get. Back to the old home made rice polishing machine thing. Luckily for me, I can get some decent 60-65% polished calrose rice from FH Steinbart in Portland, Oregon.

I think you have to do the best with what you have, keep learning and most importantly keep practicing. World Class sake doesn’t come easily, but from your input here on the forum, it looks like you’re on the right path to me.

平和,

MPFbrewer

I disagree, dray, and here’s why.

Ingredients aren’t a problem. Most municipal water sources can be filtered into a useable state, and there’s always the old distilled water + adjustment option. Most of the necessary equipment and facilities are also readily available. What is a mash/lauter tun but a rice steamer waiting to happen? Anybody with a modicum of carpentry skill can construct a joso press.

The keystone, in my opinion, is being able to invest in a rice polishing machine. This is the most difficult, most specialized, and most expensive piece of equipment to secure. Once you have that nailed down, ingredients are no longer an issue.

As I’ve advised others in the past, the biggest hurdle, the one that will be the deciding factor of when, where, and if you set up shop, is market. If the market for your product isn’t there, how are you going to make any money?

Just wanted to note I don’t feel this way about sake, its just the narrative I get when reading and researching.

Of course I’m not talking about the fine folks here discussing and trading first person perspectives on making sake. I’m also not talking about a few Kura’s who open up their process and enjoy showing what is going on, and not in a marketing sense.

I personally think sake can be made well at home, with crappy rice - although I don’t know to what extent.

Would love to get a hold of proper rice just like when I can get a hold of actual malt used by the professionals verses hand-me-down grades sold to homebrewers. The later being much less of an issue due to an educated homebrewer demanding quality and knowing the difference.

If brewing sake becomes more into focus for the homebrewer, I can see some exciting changes in the future.