Something sort of Sake (Rice & Raisin Wine) 23.11.08

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:thumb:

I've got to agree with percival. We've already discussed the fact that this isn't a "true" sake in another thread. but i'm still calling this a Sake even if it aint :P

it's a Sake as far as i'm concerned and cant wait to try it :thumb:
 
percival said:
yep, me too, very interesting. now put your helmets on cos aswell as the cool post there is an **** or two about and i gotta let off some steam!
If you want to see an **** go look in the mirror.

If you are quite happy with it then great but most people actually want to improve their brewing - be it beer or raisin wine with added starch.
 
sometimes i wish i would just answer short and sweet like stew. but when i had a bad day (my better half stormed off at 5.00 am) because she was snoring and i hadn't drunk enough to sleep through it, got fidgety and woke her up, then i just wanna RANT.

btw i checked out matey Taylors website. its very neat and VERY thorough, and i love the funky pretty colours and washes too. for those who are into AG beers you may want to try it, but be ready for a looooong read. long but interesting stuff. As for me ... respect to those who try it, but i can't be bothered. quick, simple, pleasant beverages get my motor running, even i i do leave them for 6 months + most of the time to condition.
 
cant be bothered with the flaming. so here's one for a chuckle, being an amputee my **** is decidely one-sided. and unless you are very familiar with arses you wouldn't recognise mine as one, whether you use a mirror or not. for recognition of the fact i'm interested in improving my brewing check out some of my thread starters which call for suggestions, comments, advice, and thoughts. improving is one thing, but scale is important, i want to improve in manageable increments not leaps and bounds. leaping and bounding on one leg with gallons of boiling water is way hard. try it, you'll see, and then you may understand why some are happy with the simple, small things in life, while those without a disability can be much more adventurous.
 
by all means,i owed you that one for hijacking my spices in brewing thread :D

sorry again for the rant
 
Such a negative response to my humble offer to help! :shock: I apologize if I offended you by offering my advice, I was just concerned when I saw it mentioned that making real sake at home was "impossible." You may, of course, call your homebrew whatever you like - call it "raisin jiu" if you want and most people you know probably won't know any better. It's all in good fun. :)

But, to the offended one-legged man I issue this challenge: I maintain that even someone with your handicap can turn a 2.2kg bag of short grain rice into 6 liters of delicious real nigorizake with no more trouble than it takes to track down the ingredients.

I imagine prepared koji is probably a bit difficult to find across the pond, though, and I can't blame anyone who doesn't want to make their own moldy rice from mail order spores. But, if you can find Chinese yeast balls (jiu bing), you can always use glutinous rice to make some Chinese style huangjiu. Just an idea, I can link instructions if you like.

Kampai!
 
yep, sry about that, but reading the thread further you'll be able to work out that my response was far being 'such a negative response' infact i thanked you for it a couple of times because it was constructive (even if not entirely humble) and complimented your website too. i've also posted on the thread welcoming you with an apology. take the time to read the thread for the bits you missed (thanks and compliments), and also the apology in your welcome thread.

my actual comment was "but if you rummage about the website above you'll find homebrew sake is pretty much impossible". its well qualified, stopping short of being plain impossible. so your concern is exaggerated, but nevertheless its good to know that its not nearly as impossible as i thought. tho from reading the website i linked to i'm sure you would agree my conclusions were reasonable, and even generous. Having said that commercial brewers can be very precious about the stuff and want to dissuade folks from having a go. it seems from your experience that this is exactly what was happening.

as for my disability i can't even wear an artificial limb, so the hopping about wasn't exagerrated. of course i use crutches but when juggling stuff in the kitchen using crutches is far too time consuming and clumsy (putting them down, picking them up again etc) not to mention the possibility of infection from stuff on the grips each time i handle them. so hopping is the efficient way. in this regard brewing is more effort, considerably more, than popping down to the shop with a ruck sack on my back (and sometimes my front too if i need to get a lot of stuff).

i would like to reassure you the main gist of your post was appreciated again. and if i wanted to i could make you feel equally uncomfortable, but also be informative, by an equally 'humble' offer to correct you in using such terms as handicap and also telling me how well i can cope with brewing a genuine sake given my disability. Instead i will leave it to your imagination as to how that would be phrased. and then factor in the fun and games i had in the early hours of this morning.

nice website you got, nice to know it can be done, thanks for the link and the info, welcome to the forum, don't take offence.
 
I've read this thread in its entirety, but I haven't actually had any sleep in the last 24 hours. So I may be going a bit crosseyed as I read your posts. Sorry for any misunderstanding this causes. ~.~

Let me see if I can put together a coherent reply. Beware! Much quoting ahead!

percival said:
yep, sry about that, but reading the thread further you'll be able to work out that my response was far being 'such a negative response' infact i thanked you for it a couple of times because it was constructive (even if not entirely humble) and complimented your website too. i've also posted on the thread welcoming you with an apology. take the time to read the thread for the bits you missed (thanks and compliments), and also the apology in your welcome thread.
Okay, I admit I misunderstood your aim. Possibly because you didn't actually say who you were responding to. It's all good, though. Glad you like my site, my aim is to have the most clearly written sake homebrewing guide on the web, and Google says I've pretty much achieved that aim. Yeah, I know, not very humble of me...but what can I say? I'm proud of my accomplishment and glad that so many more people are finding it to be useful every day!

percival said:
I have also mentioned the use of a fungus to break down the sugars in the rice in true sake. and i may be wrong about it being a fungus, it could be a bacteria.
It's a filamentous fungus (mold) called aspergillus oryzae that just happens to produce lots of amylase and proteolytic enzymes without the nasty mycotoxins and aflatoxins that other members of its genus produce.

percival said:
And we could also argue about the difference between a sugar and a starch, or whether there is any difference, or whether the difference is simply nomenclature, old system vs new ones, categories and subcategories. blah blah blah.
Carbs are carbs are carbs. When it comes to brewing the real question comes down to: can brewer's yeast metabolize it? That's more than just a difference of nomenclature.

percival said:
I don't want to come across as bolshy or know it all, but the short way that people are are entering into this thread is unlike anything i've seen elsewhere on this forum
Blah, I'm already coming across as a know-it-all, so I might as well just keep going, right?

I know you specified "this web site," but you might find it interesting to know that I've seen that recipe before. Evidently it's been around for quite some time, a holdover from a time when nobody knew how sake was really made, I guess.

percival said:
my actual comment was "but if you rummage about the website above you'll find homebrew sake is pretty much impossible". its well qualified, stopping short of being plain impossible.
What? You mean this one?

percival said:
Nice website for all you want to know about sake

http://www.esake.com/Knowledge/knowledge.html

so yep, this is far from authentic sake. but if you rummage about the website above you'll find homebrew sake is pretty much impossible.
I actually have a link to that site from my own web site, so I'm pretty familiar with that shop and its sister site Sake-World. I correspond with the creator of both sites, John Gautner, on a fairly regular basis, usually pestering him with obscure questions like "where do I buy a SMV scale hydrometer?" and "what percentage of beni koji is used in the production of akaisake?" Dropping a name like that probably makes me look like a total ass, but it's not meant that way.

What I'm getting at is this: real sake is not impossible to make at home. It's not even difficult. All you need is access to the right ingredients (short grain rice, koji or koji-kin, and water), good note-taking skills, and basic wine making techniques and equipment (a calendar really helps, too). Certain types of sake, however, might be harder to make than others. Ginjo sake, for example, is impossible to make without either a rice milling machine of some type or a source for 60% polished rice. Fortunately for Americans, F.H. Steinbart Co. sells ginjo grade rice and professionally-made koji both manufactured by the SakéOne brewery in Portland, Oregon. I have no idea if they ship out of the country, but it couldn't hurt to ask.

percival said:
Having said that commercial brewers can be very precious about the stuff and want to dissuade folks from having a go. it seems from your experience that this is exactly what was happening.
Actually, Japanese sake brewers aren't all that stingy with information about how sake is made, as evidenced by blog pictorials like this one. The real problem is that homebrewing is illegal in Japan, which makes information on the home production of sake in the beverage's homeland just about impossible to find. But Japanese web sites about it do exist.

percival said:
as for my disability i can't even wear an artificial limb, so the hopping about wasn't exagerrated. of course i use crutches but when juggling stuff in the kitchen using crutches is far too time consuming and clumsy (putting them down, picking them up again etc) not to mention the possibility of infection from stuff on the grips each time i handle them. so hopping is the efficient way. in this regard brewing is more effort, considerably more, than popping down to the shop with a ruck sack on my back (and sometimes my front too if i need to get a lot of stuff).

i would like to reassure you the main gist of your post was appreciated again. and if i wanted to i could make you feel equally uncomfortable, but also be informative, by an equally 'humble' offer to correct you in using such terms as handicap and also telling me how well i can cope with brewing a genuine sake given my disability. Instead i will leave it to your imagination as to how that would be phrased. and then factor in the fun and games i had in the early hours of this morning.
You've already gone to the trouble to say that you're not interested in putting forth the effort to make real sake, preferring instead to make "quick, simple beverages." I'm cool with that, it's your hobby. I apologize for offending you by suggesting that missing a leg might not entirely prevent you from making sake. Most of the actual work in making sake can be done while sitting down, though, and handling "gallons of boiling water" isn't required in any step of the process. It might be pretty tough to steam rice from a chair, but the rest of the mixing and stirring can be done while seated.

I'm going to drop the subject now because you seem understandably touchy about it. I suppose that's in large part due to the kind of morning you say you've had, so I'm just going to let it sort of roll off my back. Hope your day gets better, man.

BrewStew said:
thanks!

I might give that a go sometime ;)
If you ever have any questions about the techniques, ingredients, etc. described on my web site, don't hesitate to give me a shout. You know how to contact me and I'm always happy to answer questions or help troubleshoot a brew. :ugeek:

Same goes for you, steve_flack, since you also seem to have an interest in homebrewing sake. :D

Kampai!
 
steve_flack said:
If you want to see an **** go look in the mirror.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

I see an **** every morning when i look in the mirror. Usually a slightly hungover ****. :lol:
 
poor stew, his thread still being hijacked! my mint wine is an odd looking beast. The combination of green tea and yeast floating on the top could definately be sold as a very encrusted stilton .... until someone took a bite of course!
 
i just had a sip after giving it it's daily stir...

bloody hell it's strong!

tastes like brandy butter at the moment as it's still really sweet. i could probably get smashed off the fumes alone though!

swmbo approved of it's flavour too :D

even at this stage i felt the warmth inside from the alcohol... this is going to be an excellent winter warmer.

thanks again percival!
 
Good to know you approve of progress so far.

aaaah, the fumes, yes that's the nice part of drinking sake warm. you get plenty of those fumes while you sip and as you guess they are very warming. I'm so glad that all is going well. not long now til you rack and hopefully get a fast clearing product. is it still fermenting in a lively fashion? i guess so if it still tastes sweet?
 
it's still fizzing violently. unfortunately the raisins grip the hydrometer so i cant take an accurate reading to see how its doing... but based on the noise and strong smell of CO2 an educated guess says that it's still going like a rocket ;)

i'm hoping it clears sharpish too as a few bottles seem to have gotten themselves claimed by friends and family for drinking between xmas and new year :cool:
 
hehe, you could be dropping down a few chimneys on xmas eve, santa stylee :rofl:
 
Hey BS

just bottled the first demijohn of my sake .... so i have to have a bottle meself ofc. Put the last bottle worth into a plastic jug and nuked it (a few times testing temp with my finger as i did so) ok ok i'm a heathen, plastic jug, microwave and not really sake, but i'm enjoying it and i think you have a treat to come. its definately not sweet, in my books i would say it fits v comfortably in the medium bracket. so happy winter warmers to you and the recipients of your similar brew.
 
fantastic stuff :cool:

i'll be racking mine to secondary this weekend ;) will give it two weeks in that then bottle it. should be ready just in time for new year :thumb:
 
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