Hello,
So glad to have found this thread on Sake’. I’ve only just recently started digging through the archives and already I’ve found a ton of great ideas and information on how to begin and improve ones sake brewing. Looking forward to learning more and maybe sharing a story or two of my experiences brewing sake thus far.
kanpai!
Welcome. This is kind of a sleepy forum these days, but we’re always happy to help answer any questions that new folks post. Feel free to ask anything that comes to mind, I promise we won’t bite. 8)
Cool. Well, I live in Oregon and I have a batch going right now. I am using the standard 10lb rice recipe. Here are the details
Fermenters:
Moto Fermenter: 1/2 gal wide mouth mason jar with filter membrane lid
Primary Fermenter: 6 gal plastic bucket with airlock
Secondary Fermenters: 1 gallon jugs
Rice: 60% polish
Koji: 60% polish Akita Konno Koji (100F:40 hours) ------> Vacuum sealed and frozen for 3 months
Water: distilled EartH20
Yeast: White Labs WLP705
Additional moto ingredients:
Epsom Salt, Lactic Acid, Brewcraft Yeast Nutrient, Morton Salt substitute (not shown in img.)
Moto: Sokujo started evening of 12/30/12
Hatsuzoe: Added morning of 1/6/13 , held at Room temp 63-66F
Nakazoe: Added morning of 1/8/13, held at Room temp 63-66F
Tomezoe: Added 1/09/13 evening, held at Garage temp 49-51F
No addition at Yodan
Below are some daily notes about the ensuing Moromi
1/11/13: I took a very cloudy SG reading of the sake on and got 1.044. Not sure if that is really indicative of how the ferment is going or not though.
1/19/13: Activity in airlock has stopped? Bad seal on lid or stopper? Perhaps the temps got too cold (39-42F) and stalled the ferment?
1/20/13: Brought the ferment inside, warmed to 65F, gave a light stir, replaced airlock and stopper with a new one.
1/21/13: Still no activity in airlock, temp still at 65F. I put my ear to the bucket and I can hear a bunch of bubbling, fizzing, and gurgles. The ferment sounds plenty active…there just aren’t any bubbles in the airlock.
1/22/13: Moved the ferment back to the garage where temps are fluctuating between 49-54F (night/day)
1/22-1/29: Ferment is completely left alone, in the dark garage, for 7 more days.
1/29/13: Press sake and transfer to secondaries: As an experiment, I pressed my sake by using a “6-5-6” stack of nested buckets to press the sake.
Here are some pics of the pressing set up:
Fine mesh bag
6-5-6 bucket press
Press action:
Volume after pressing: @ 2.1 gal. Very cloudy…
1/29/13: I filled two 1 gal. jugs using an autosiphon and bottling wand to the bottom of the handle and placed them under airlock. The 0.1 gal. got set aside in the fridge to sip on and analyze.
1/30/13: Here is what they looked like 24hrs later at 52F.
1/31/13 - 2/5/13: Here is what they have looked like since 1/31/13. They have gone from having a nice sediment layer beginning to form to what is now a bubbling cloudy mass. The temp is still fluctuating between 52-54F in the garage.
Since placing the moromi into the secondaries, there has been a good deal of activity in the airlock. Today I recorded about 8 burps/min.
Anyhow, that is where I am at with this brew as of today. I haven’t taken another gravity reading or anything. I really like that the jugs are well topped up at this point and don’t want to loose any to a gravity reading.
Its been about 1.5 years since my last sake brew and I can’t remember if this level of ferment/cloudiness is normal for this stage.
Can anyone gauge, by the information I’ve given so far, as to whether or not the ferment is going as it is supposed to be going?
I feel like there should be more sediment in the jugs by now. Maybe?
Lastly can anyone suggest some good qualitative tests that I can conduct on my sake to compare its characteristics with really well made sake?
Thanks and I’m looking forward to some opinions/advice about how I can improve the quality of this brew from this point on.
Kanzukuri!
-MPFbrewer
Wow, very nice!
To address your concerns:
[quote]Since placing the moromi into the secondaries, there has been a good deal of activity in the airlock. Today I recorded about 8 burps/min.
Anyhow, that is where I am at with this brew as of today. I haven’t taken another gravity reading or anything. I really like that the jugs are well topped up at this point and don’t want to loose any to a gravity reading.
Its been about 1.5 years since my last sake brew and I can’t remember if this level of ferment/cloudiness is normal for this stage.
Can anyone gauge, by the information I’ve given so far, as to whether or not the ferment is going as it is supposed to be going?[/quote]
Well, you didn’t take a specific gravity reading, so it’s impossible to say how close to complete your fermentation is. That the batch is still fermenting is unquestionable, and while it continues to ferment the rice solids will continue to be stirred up into suspension.
My advice is to either take a SG reading or taste it. If the SG is above 1.000 or the sake is too sweet for your taste, you should let the fermentation continue. If you’re happy with the way it tastes and/or the current SG, then shut down the fermentation by lowering the temperature to below 35ºF and allow a couple weeks for settling to occur.
Use your senses! 8)
No, seriously, taste your sake side-by-side with an example or two of high quality commercial sake. Better yet, conduct a blind tasting with your buddies. 
Thanks for your comments!
2/6 - 2/7/13: In the last couple days, the sake has started to settle out again. Also, the number of burps in the airlock is down from 8 BPM to 6 BPM. Temp is fluctuating between 49-52F (night/day). It seems like the ferment is slowing down a bit.
2/9/13: Burps in airlock down to 5 BPM this morning. Temps have been a couple degrees colder the last couple of days…Decided to take an SG reading based on Taylor-MadeAK’s advice. I took a sample and put it into the measuring flask. I then chilled it down to 44F to help some of the solids settle out before I took the reading. After settling for an hour or so, the SG was 1.010.
When I took the SG reading, the temp. of the solution was 44F. My understanding is that I need to adjust the reading due to the colder temp. I referenced the sheet that came with the hydrometer and found that it only gives adjustments down to 54.2F.
I was wondering if anyone knows what the adjustment for 44F is? Perhaps I should just allow the sake to rise up to 54F and then use the adjustment?
In my previous post, I asked if there were any good qualitative tests to help me judge the sake. I meant to ask, are there any good quantitative tests (besides SG) that can be done to compare ones sake with that of really well made sake? I think it would be helpful if I could take a less subjective approach to analyzing this stuff.
I did taste the sake after measuring the SG. Its still too sweet in my opinion. I was really hoping that the SG would be below 1.000 by now. Its a bit disappointing that it isn’t lower already.
Anyhow, I am going to let it ferment out for another week. After that I plan on cold crashing it to let it settle out.
I’m wondering how much another week of fermenting will really affect the FG of the sake? I’m hoping that it causes the SG to drop another 0.010 or so. I never really monitored the SG of my previous batches so I’m not sure if hoping for that kind of drop is reasonable for that amount of time.
One last question…Do you allow the sake to sediment out when taking the SG reading? Does it really matter? Should I start another thread concerning this question?
Thanks,
-MPFbrewer
The corrected SG for your sake at 44ºF is 1.009. In my opinion, you really want to get that down to 1.000 or below. The way to do that is just to allow it to continue fermenting.
This is one of those “ask 10 different brewers, get 15 different answers” type of questions. The best I can offer is that all evidence suggest that your fermentation is slowing down, which to me indicates that your not likely to see a 10 point drop in 7 days. Besides, you want to give it time for that sediment to settle and compact as well. Give it two weeks, then taste it again. You’ll know when it’s right.
In a word: nope.
Its late March and the kan zukuri season is winding down for me here in Oregon.
I managed to get two fermentations in during the season. The first batch finished up at SG 1.002 and got bottled up as:
Junmai ginjo genshu namazake
Junmai ginjo nama chozo genshu murokazake
So far……
The nama has a slightly gamy and very bold fruity nose with strong banana and bubblegum taste.
The nama chozo muroka is highly aromatic, smooth, crisp, clean, and leaves very little aftertaste.
The nigorizake is crisp, dry, and smooth with strawberry, banana and vanilla aroma.
Now that I’ve finished my preliminary tastings, I’ll be putting the rest aside to age for 6 months in the fridge. Can’t wait to see what some aging does to the sake.
I currently have a second batch that is at day 20 in the moromi with an SG of 1.000. Looking forward to pressing it sometime next week. For this latest batch, I actually pitched the moto with a 500mL yeast starter in substitution of the normal 1 tube of yeast. I wanted to see how having a larger yeast population in the beginning would affect things. So far so good…
For my next batch I’ve got the Wyeast Sake #9 yeast on special order. I’m hoping I can create some of those nice melon esters that I taste in some of the import daiginjos I’ve been trying lately.
Anyone out there have any tips on how to enhance the melon and apple flavors in sake besides using #9 yeast?
平和,
-MPFbrewer
I am told that fermenting in the 45ºF-48ºF range encourages that yeast strain to produce those melon esters.
