How thick is your Nigori?

souportugues · July 16, 2013, 5:10pm

Just curious as to other folks on here who bottle up some Nigori; how thick do you make yours? Do you follow a time honored and specific ratio (4:1, 8:1, etc), do you look for clarity vs cloudiness (can’t see the bottom of a cup at 3 fingers deep), or do you just slosh some inspecific quantity in there and hope for the best (um, yeah… more often than not, that’s this guy :oops: ).

I’d say I’ve never exceeded a 3:1 ratio, and never fell short of a 12:1 either. That all said, I find (depending on the batch, but as an average rule of thumb) that I like somewhere in the 4:1 up to 6:1 range.

What can I say; “I don’t always bottle nigori, but when I do, I like em thick an’ sweet.”

pdarling · July 19, 2013, 5:46pm

The nigori I drink is usually nama and comes from sampling the fermenter. Thats the best in my mind. The “thickness” of those samples are not controlled and it just is what it is.

I don’t really understand the ratios you’re listing; are they comparisons between settled rice solids and clear sake above (in a bottle)? What do you mean when you say “slosh some in there and hope for the best”?

Awhile back I recall reading that commercial nigori is often made by adding rice solids back into clarified sake, is that what you’re doing?

souportugues · July 22, 2013, 5:47pm

Kinda. Mine is more along the lines of “how much of the settled stuff do I include when siphoning off the clear stuff.” My ratios get thicker (more settled solids) in direct proportion to how much I have been sampling, and how steady my hand is.

pdarling · July 30, 2013, 6:53pm

Oh, I see now. Yeah, heh I can totally relate to the “how much I have been sampling” variable.

I find that if a bottle settles out to have more that about 2 inches of sediment then it doesn’t stay good/fresh tasting for nearly as long as one with less sediment. Even with pasteurization. The supernatant suffers too, even if decanted without the sediment.