greetings all,

After moderate success with Rum ,and hope for some further advancements,, I figured its time I obsess about the creation of my next favorite in line, Sake.

I"ve been researching this for a few days now, and the more I find out about it the more it seems like a dauntingly impossible task.

I"m posting this in hope someone out there has already tried and had moderate success ,or more hopefully, in making Sake.

Making/buying Koji? The fungus that"s supposed to break down the rice starches. There was a lot of general talk about it, but I could not find a good source for the actual making process and component control for gaining one or another desired flavor. It seems like an incredibly touchy and temperature Intolerant process.

Preparation of the rice? Some say boil, others say steep, and none talk about the proper time for yeast pitching. Is it after I let the Koji to its thing, or during?

This is even before trying to figure out rice fermentation flavor profiles.
I understand that for some sakes sugar can be added to balance out the acidity and gain a sweeter result? Or do I just use more rice and let the Koji work longer?

What strand of yeast do I use, what sort of nutrients would complement this best, best ph levels and so on...

As you can see, I seem to know exactly what I"m doing.

Does anyone out there have a beginning recipe I can use to start wetting my very dry palette of experience? Maybe a recommendation of a good site to learn sake making in more detail? At this point if I fail I"m not sure I"ll even have a vague idea of what it is I did wrong ;,

Thanks!

Another link to 3 recipies of differing hardness.

http://www.tibbs-vision.com/sake/moto2.html

alex c. i made some rice wine without koji,and this is what i did. i cooked 15lbs of calrose rice.this it not easy to do cause it wants to stick.if it does,you will get a burnt flavor that you dont want.so anyway once your rice is cooked,check the temp,and and add some water to bring the temp.down to 150f. at this point i added 2oz.of amalase enzyme, 2tsp. gypsum and let mash for 2 hours{covered}. at 2 hours i added 8 beano tablets{crushed},and stired it up and put the lid on it, and left it till the next day.then i disolved 10lbs.of corn sugar in a gal.of hot water till it was clear,and added this to the rice that i put in a jumbo straining bag.i also put in 10 cans of welches white grape consentrate{the frozen kind}.
{dont use table sugar cause it will give it the wrong flavor}check temp and see if its under 100f.the yeast is flor/sherry wine yeast.it has a alco.tolorence of 18% to 20%.i used 4 packs of it. ferment for 2 weeks in primary, then remove the bag and squeese it out real good.add some water to bring it up to 6 gal.and ferment for another week in primary.then rack this stuff through some cheese cloth in a funnel.{it will still have alot of sedement,but dont worry,it will settle out later.once you have it in a carboy,take a gravity reading.once it gets to 1030sg add another 1 1/2lbs of corn sugar{disolved} slowly!if you add it too fast it will foam up real bad,and make a hell of a mess.wait till the s.g. drops to 1030 again and rack it being careful to leave the sediment behind.add 1 1/2lbs corn sugar,as before.do this 4 times and ferment it out till it stops.{it takes a long time, 3 or 4 months} when it stops its ready. this is not real saki,but its damn close.
it finishes a little sweet,but that is good cause it covers up the alcohal bite from the flor/sherry yeast.{esters} do shots of this at room temp. and it will kick your butt. it has a unique buzz to it. this recipe is alot of work,so if you try it you must be prepared to make a mess!

Wineo;

Wow, that"s pretty creative! Defiantly something worth trying, I have very little experience using external enzymes and additives, should be good experiment.

As for my goal with Sake, I"m trying to maintain the rice to be as much of the favor source as possible. I"m a sucker for following in the brewing footsteps of traditional drinks.
The amylase enzyme seems like pretty much a replacement for the Koji. Though if used properly, it seems like it should generate all the sugars you need from the nothing more than the rice source ,no need for additional corn sugar,.

Looks like I"m going to spend quite a while lining up my guns on this one before I give it a, worth mentioning, go.


Thanks for the info!