Why Sake Brewing Is My New Obsession…

Metatube

This video is a beginners guide to brewing Sake at home covering  the science of sake fermentation, koji making, brewing sake, bottling and finally a taste test to see how my sake performs against other popular brands.   Sake Ratios  Rice - 100%   Koji - 25% (multiple total rice by .25 )  Water - 150% (multiply total rice amount by 1.5)  Yeast - follow instructions on years package for amount used   My Ratios in Video  Rice - 10 Pounds Dried Rice (4.5 kilograms)  Koji - 2.5 Pound Koji  Water - 2 gallons (7.5 liters)  Yeast - half my package of Sake Yeast which is good for a 5 gallons   00:00 - Intro 00:45 - What is Sake? 03:18 - Koji 06:45 - Sake Mash 12:27 - Bottling 13:26 - Taste test  For products used in this video - https://www.amazon.com/shop/lifebymikeg  Koji Cultures from Shared Cultures - https://www.shared-cultures.com/shop  Full Video on Koji Making Here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Llt80xkjp48&t=2s  Music Credits:  Epidemic Sound: https://www.epidemicsound.com  Video Credits  Creator, Host - Mike G  Editor -  Cooper Makohon Motion Graphics - Raphael Oliveira

Transcript

00:00So I've been making my own alcohol at home for the past decade or so and I've tried a lot of

00:05different types of home brewing projects and currently my favorite one is sake making due

00:10to what is a pretty simple process that yields outstanding results. Now I love making sake but

00:16honestly I had no idea what the general interest would be so I just put out a short video a year

00:22ago on making it and it turns out that a lot of you want more information and that's what this

00:27video is about. So today I'm going to be giving you the full beginner's guide to brewing up this

00:33rice wine at home plus at the end of this video I'm going to be putting up my sake in a little

00:38battle against three other store-bought sakes at different price points to see how it performs in

00:44a blind taste test. Now thanks to this comment right here I learned that sake in Japanese

00:50actually refers to a bunch of different alcoholic beverages. Nihonshu is the traditional Japanese

00:56term that refers specifically to rice wine but over in the west we said no actually sake is going

01:03to mean rice wine and that just stuck around. So when I refer to sake in this video I mean rice

01:09wine that specifically is made with these four ingredients rice, koji, yeast, and water. Now what

01:17I think is so unique about sake lies in the science of how it is brewed. Now alcohol is produced when

01:24we take a sugary liquid and we add yeast and that yeast ferments those sugars into alcohol. So in the

01:31case of wine we have all of these sugars readily available in the grapes that gets fermented into

01:36alcohol. When it comes to beer it's slightly different. We have these starchy grains that

01:41first have to be malted or basically germinated in order to access those sugars that can then be

01:47converted into alcohol. Now when it comes to wine made out of rice we have this grain that's made

01:53up of a bunch of complex starches but how do we access the sugars within this grain? That's where

01:59koji comes into play and if you've watched this channel you know I love koji. I made an entire

02:05video dedicated to koji making and basically koji is a rice that is inoculated with a mold that's

02:11then used to ferment a ton of different things like soy sauce and miso and of course sake. And

02:17what makes sake brewing so unique is that two different types of fermentation are happening

02:22at once which is called parallel fermentation. Number one is the process called saccharification.

02:28I hope I'm pronouncing that right. This is the process of the koji converting those complex

02:33starches in the rice into simple fermentable sugars and then when we have those simple sugars

02:39available the second fermentation process alcoholic fermentation can occur when we add that yeast and

02:45convert those sugars into alcohol. And what's great about sake making is you don't have to

02:51make your own koji. We do currently live in a world where you can buy koji online or if you have a

02:57specialty Japanese market around you they might just sell fresh koji. Now of course if you make

03:02it yourself I think it's going to lead to a better final sake process and luckily for you koji making

03:08is one of my favorite things to do at home. So I'm briefly going to go over how I made it for this

03:12sake and there are a few things to keep in mind when you're making koji specifically for sake.

03:18Number one being the type of strain you use for your koji spores. Now koji spores can be

03:23got on Amazon but I like getting them from my friends over at Shared Cultures. They make all

03:27types of koji based products out of San Francisco and they sell two specific strains of koji. The

03:33aspergillus soji is going to lean towards more of those umami notes so great for soy sauce,

03:37great for miso making. You want to look for the aspergillus orzai which is going to give you some

03:42of those sweeter more floral notes and you can use both long or short grain rice for koji making.

03:48I actually found a really high quality medium grain rice so I'm using something right in

03:52between and I'm using four pounds of dried rice which is going to give me five and a half pounds

03:56of my final koji product which is exactly what one of these packets of spores is going to be

04:01able to make. I'll soak my koji overnight and for the best koji product you really want to

04:06steam your rice. That way you get these individual rice grains that the koji spores can totally

04:13surround and inoculate each grain versus a whole clump of rice sticking together where the spores

04:18can't get in. And I like using a cheesecloth to just keep everything contained and I'll pop in a

04:24steamer basket in the bottom of a large pot so the bag doesn't actually boil in that water below. And

04:29it takes around 45 to 50 minutes total to steam the rice and I do like giving it a flip around

04:34midway so I get even rice cooking. And you can see after it comes out how that rice is perfectly

04:40cooked through yet each grain is completely separated and not mashed together. And you want

04:45to wait for your rice to cool down to at least 90 degrees Fahrenheit and that's when I can sprinkle

04:50in my koji spores making sure to mix them in evenly throughout the rice. Now koji is a tropical-based

04:55mold so it prefers a hot and humid environment to properly inoculate the rice. So to recreate that

05:01at home the easiest way that I have found to do this is putting my rice into trays, placing a

05:06damp towel over the rice, then I'll wrap the trays in plastic wrap making sure to poke a few holes in

05:11there just for some ventilation so that liquid can release and then I'll pop it in the dehydrator at

05:1785 degrees Fahrenheit. If you don't have a dehydrator I've done this right on a heat mat in

05:22my kitchen and that works as well to get that temperature up. And after 24 hours this is what

05:27the rice looks like. You can see that white mold starting to spread through the rice grains but not

05:32fully covering the grains which is why this needs longer. So I'm going to put the trays back in the

05:37dehydrator and in total at this temperature it generally takes around 40 to 50 hours to fully

05:44inoculate. All right, 40 hours later we should have koji. It smells incredible. It's one of my

05:52favorite things about making koji is the perfume, the sweetness, the just completely unique aromas

05:59that come off of this stuff when you're making it. All right, ready? This is an exciting reveal.

06:08Perfect matted koji. So there's some spores being created over here. That's the koji reproduction

06:15but overall we have a perfectly even mat. Check this out. Look at that. Like the whole thing just

06:23comes up like that. If we break it in half you can see the mold has spread completely

06:28through all of the rice. Just beautiful. Oh smells so good. You can't eat this stuff. It's amazing

06:36already the sweetness that's produced on the rice from the mold. That's awesome. I'm gonna be using

06:41a good bit of this for the sake and I'll just save some in the fridge for another project. So when I

06:47went into making sake for the first time to be honest I was overwhelmed. There's not that much

06:52information out there and some of the processes I did see were very complex with multiple additions

06:58at different times and it wasn't until I found this video from Brewshow which is fantastic and

07:03most importantly the process that he shows in the video is very simple and I tried this out a few

07:09times and the product is fantastic. So before you comment in saying this isn't like a traditional

07:15way to make it, ultimately as a home brewer I need to find something that's simple enough that I'm

07:20gonna repeat it over and over again and actually enjoy the process and not just quit. And that's

07:25what this version is. And speaking of something that's not traditional in the sake world, right

07:30off the bat when we're talking about the type of rice used to make sake they actually will polish

07:37off the outside of the rice kernel which removes a lot of the proteins and fatty acids just leaving

07:44that starchy inner core with the goal of giving you like the cleanest tasting sake. And they're

07:49doing this anywhere from 50 to 70 percent and actually that percentage of polishing correlates

07:54to how high end the sake is as you can see on this chart. But I'm pretty sure that the Japanese sake

08:00industry is actually the only industry that uses polished rice so it's very unreasonable for anyone

08:06to get it at home. So I just use regular white rice and the sake comes out great but of course

08:10we'll see how it compares in the blind taste test. And I'm using the same rice that I had from the

08:15koji because it's high quality and I had a bunch of it. So in total I'm using 10 pounds and I'll

08:20follow the exact same steps for the koji, soaking the rice overnight, straining it off into a cheese

08:26cloth. I did give it a few washes to get off some of that excess starch and then I'll steam it. And

08:31this was actually the biggest batch of sake that I ever made. So the rice barely fit into the actual

08:37pot and I had to use some tin foil to keep in that steam. Now while that's steaming let's talk

08:41about another important ingredient, yeast. Which is how we're going to develop the alcohol. Now you

08:45can get specific sake yeast strains. This one I've used a few times I've linked it below. It's a

08:51refrigerated yeast and it has to be activated for a few hours. But if you can't get this or find this

08:56you can certainly make sake with just a simple dried wine yeast which is very easy to find on

09:02Amazon. Now after 50 minutes the rice was steamed so I took that out and I don't have to let it cool

09:07this time because I can just add it right to a clean fermenting vessel because I'm adding cold

09:12water on top which will cool things down. And if you don't have a vessel like this it's totally

09:16fine you can use a five gallon bucket like this to ferment your sake. And one thing to keep in

09:21mind is you do want to find a container that matches the size of sake that you are brewing.

09:26You don't want to be brewing a little bit of sake in a huge container where there's so much room for

09:30oxygen to build up in that container. And I would say one of the trickiest parts about sake making

09:35is getting the right ratios of ingredients. This is something I'm still learning as I brew batch

09:41after batch because there's really not that much information on the internet about home brewing. So

09:46if you're making a small batch I have found that you can find some great recipes online and you

09:52can follow those. Boom you're good to go. But for big batches like this I've had to sort of experiment

09:59a little. The best thing I found so far was a blog that had this ratio right here which I'm going to

10:04be following for this batch. I'll put all the specifics down in the description plus any other

10:08information I have to help you out on this process. So I added in all my filtered water, I added in my

10:13koji, I added in my yeast, and there's one more ingredient that I didn't mention that's just added

10:19to prevent bacteria spoilage. And a lot of recipes will use citric acid but Bruchot in his video he

10:26used a little bit of hops which will actually do the same thing. And I did have some hops left over

10:30from a recent beer making project so I soaked some of those and poured those in. Then I'll just pop

10:36on the top and what that's going to do is create a nice seal where the CO2 built up from the

10:40fermentation is going to push out that oxygen creating the perfect environment for proper

10:46alcohol fermentation. And in total it's going to take around three weeks for the sake to ferment.

10:50I started mine off at room temperature right here in this room so I could easily monitor it and

10:55just after the first day it was super active and bubbly.

11:07And then after one week I transferred my sake down to my fermenting room where the temperatures were

11:11a little lower around 60 degrees Fahrenheit where it sat there and finished for the next two weeks.

11:16And I like this little spout so I can taste it along the way and really see how it's fermented.

11:21So after three weeks the sake was tasting nice so I sent it through a cheesecloth to remove

11:26all of the solids all of that rice and that koji so I just had the alcohol left over.

11:33That smells so good. Overall it just has a very beautiful floral sake smell but you really

11:40you can pick up on the floralness of the koji and then you get hit with the alcohol built in

11:45fermentation. Wow. Amazing. Take this. By the way it's easier to make a smaller patch than what I did.

11:59And sake can be served in this state right here. I actually like a sake that's milky like this

12:05but the next process is going to give us a clear sake which I'm going to go over now.

12:10Oh that was terrible. So I'm just straining out the final bits of rice particles but you can really

12:17see that half of the original sake was like up to here was just rice. This is the final strained

12:24alcohol contents. Now I actually prefer my sake cloudy. I like the taste and the the slight

12:31difference in texture but I can't do this for the taste test because it would be too obvious since I

12:36didn't buy any other cloudy sake. So what I'm going to do to combat this is put my sake in the

12:41refrigerator overnight and what that's going to do is separate the clear stuff from the cloudy at

12:46the bottom and then I use this clear tube to funnel the sake right into my bottles and then once I

12:51filled up a bunch of bottles then I'll mix up the sake to get some cloudy sake which I'll funnel

12:56into the pop-top bottles and then I get to do one of my favorite things which is corking these

13:02bottles, labeling them, and then getting them off into the cellar to age which is a very important

13:07element of sake making. Just like wine, sake will taste better as it ages. It starts to smooth out.

13:14That bite of the alcohol starts to mellow out a bit. Unfortunately, I didn't have much time

13:19for this blind taste test so these bottles just got to age for two weeks.

13:23Blind taste test for sake is completely different price ranges. All of this is chilled because

13:29actually one is not a good sake but I had to chill them all. Hot sake is generally for

13:33sh**ier sake. At least in this country that's how sake is consumed. No one knows anything except

13:38myself. We're going to start here and we're going to try them one by one with water in between.

13:42I want to hear like honest reviews for each sake in the moment. There's no way to do this.

13:48Super sweet. Very light. Knowing what koji smells like has completely changed my reference of like

13:55what this flavor is. Totally. Because it tastes like tropical fruit but it's koji. It does have

13:59a fruity quality to it. Yeah, it's really it's sweet but it's light. It's not really too sweet.

14:04It's not too sweet. It's not too sweet. It's not too sweet. It's not too sweet. It's just

14:08a little bit of a sweet. It's just a little bit of a sweet. It's just a little bit of a sweet.

14:14But it's koji. It does have a fruity quality to it. Yeah, it's really it's sweet but it's light.

14:18It's not like nauseating and it's kind of like has like more of a viscous. Cooper,

14:22what do you think? I think I'm realizing I've had really sh**y sake in the past. It's like

14:27this is a first for you. This tastes good. This one smells very different. Much like greener,

14:32cleaner than fruity. Oh yeah. Like this one's drier. Boozier. Yeah. There's more of a bitterness

14:39to it. Yeah. The other one was much smoother, like lighter. It tastes like a higher alcohol content

14:43than the last one. I like this one a lot. Moving on, number three. This one like doesn't have much

14:49of a smell at all. Oh, that one's really interesting. This is the driest one and the

14:53lightest one. Like it's not viscous-y. Like it has much more like a drier mouth feel. I'm getting

14:59like a tartness to this one. Yeah, like green apple kind of. Yeah. Smells a lot more like the

15:04first one. Like I think it's going to be sweet. This one's really good. Number four. It's probably,

15:08this one's going to probably be the cheapest one. Yeah, that is really good. Like less dry than the

15:14last one, but still like not viscous like the first one. Definitely more drinkable than two.

15:19One was much smoother, but this is more in that camp than it is the other with the

15:24like more acidic or bitter sakes. This one is a lot smoother. Oh my god, I'm so nervous.

15:30So this is Shane's. This is Cooper's. Very different. So different. All right, and I'm

15:35going to do the reveal. So number one is Brooklyn Cora. Ah, and that's the most expensive one, right?

15:42No, second most expensive. This was the sweetest. My favorite one. Yeah, this was number two for me.

15:47Just the most drinkable, light, refreshing. It's undeniably a delicious sake. A little

15:52denied. Yeah, I gave it third place. Number two. Carly. Do I love cheap sake? Carly. What did I

15:59say? You're out, Carly. We don't trust your abilities. I'm surprising that I love cheap sake.

16:04By far the cheapest sake. When I tasted this, I thought it tasted like rubbing alcohol,

16:10personally. I did a mild taste test. Shane is number three. Oh, it's so good. Cooper,

16:15number three. Number three. I am a little bit sad about this, is my sake. Cooper, number one.

16:24Carly, you switched it last second. Well, I switched it because I realized that. That hurt my feelings.

16:29Sorry. And then that leaves the most expensive one, which is funny. Shane had the most expensive one.

16:35Second. I'd say that balances me out. Cooper had it last. While cheapest was my favorite,

16:41the most expensive was my second. All over the place. Really crazy. Yeah. I'll take Cooper

16:47coming in at number one. At least you know that we were honest. Yeah, that's true. That's true.

16:53It's very interesting. The fact that Carly picked, like that to me tasted so bad and you

16:57have a number one, which I think is fascinating. It shows you how the variety of taste buds. Also,

17:03yeah. And preference. Total preference. So good. I don't know how they put this at the bottom of

17:12the list. For what it's worth, I did my own blind taste test where I just closed my eyes,

17:16mixed up the cups and my sake for me, I had tasted it before. Of course, not the final product. It

17:23won by a mile. Then went these two, which I thought were very similar. And by far the last

17:28was the cheaper bottle, which tasted like rubbing alcohol to me. So I would say my sake is a bit

17:32polarizing. It's either your favorite or your least favorite. Two things that I think would

17:37improve the sake. One is less hops. I think maybe that was adding to some of the bitterness that

17:42Shane and Carly didn't love. And then two is just aging it longer. I think that would have taken off

17:47some of the bite that I think they were talking about. When I taste it, I just think it has the

17:50most unique flavor. It tastes like green apples and bubble gum. It's so yummy. But I do get what

17:57they're talking about with that bite. And I think with just aging, a lot of that will go away. So

18:02I'll report back. Maybe I'll do a short video on how it ages over time. But this is all

18:07experimentation. That's what fermentation is. You got to get in there. You got to be a little

18:12scientist and experiment and improve every time and have some fun. That's all I got to say.

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