Hello NB community,
I am currently finishing writing up on a project I did on brewing of sake at university and I accidentially stumbled on a sake article written by some Japanese guys. Now for half a year me and my friends have been vigourously shaking some 30 liters fermenters in order to mix and aerate the mash. But in this article and several others they make a completely anaerobic primary fermentation (without presence of oxygen). Sake yeast require oxygen for production of sterols, which are the components of a healhy cell wall. However in sake brewing, these sterols are provided by Koji and as a result makes it so that yeast cells do not need any added oxygen…
So you may want to reconsider that excessive amount of aeration especially during the primary…
Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article … 097-06.pdf
(Search for ergosterol)
when you say the first week of fermentation do you mean (moto, build up, primary fermentation?)