After some serious self doubt, I have concluded that the whole process went pretty well for a first try at fermenting. So far, here's what I have learned:
First: Sake definitely is easier to make if you start it in colder months like I was instructed, but then foolishly ignored
Second: I now know that you need something finer than cheese cloth to strain your sake, I had way too much solid in my finished product which wasted as much as a half gallon of sake overall.
Third: Bob Taylor, the sake guru, is a most patient and helpful man. I would have been pretty lost if not for his constant cooperation in my endeavor. Cheers to him and his excellent blog. Thanks Bob!
Fourth: I think the most enjoyable sake was the unpasteurized sake right out of the fermenter. It had a very light fresh taste with hints of vanilla, coconut, and flowers. After it was pasteurized, the fresh flowery taste disappeared.
Fifth: Now, my sake seems to be better if it is opened and allowed to breath for a day before drinking. The flavor mellows a bit and loses its sharper overtones. It is very full-flavored robust sake. It has a dry finish which I like, but there's fruity, almost acid quality I am not so sure about. Perhaps I should age it some more? Bob, any thoughts on this?
So there you have it! I think I am going to take a bottle and save it for a couple more months to see if the taste improves any. Perhaps by then, Geof and Carla will be brave enough to revisit Sue's sake and give me another review? Perhaps they could even come up with a name for it like those really fancy sakes have like, "Misty Maiden's Folly" or perhaps "Wandering Lunatic" or even "Drunken Deer". But seriously, I really enjoyed making sake, and would recommend it to anyone who has an interest.
1 comment:
Wow, I'm more than a month late on this one. I really wish you'd e-mail me when you have sake questions like this so I'd be reminded to answer in a timely manner. ~.~
Okay, starting with your second point: get two grain bags from your homebrew supply store. A coarse mesh one and a really big fine mesh one. Use the coarse mesh bag to press your kasu into your bottling bucket, which has been lined with the fine mesh bag. After that, there will still be a fair amount of nigori in your sake, but that's normal and even desirable. Between three 4L jugs of sake it's normal for me to lose around 1.5L to the nigori sediment.
For your fourth point: what you just described is called nama sake, and you're correct in that there are some flavors that are lost in the pasteurization process. But the real beauty of the sake making process is that it allows you to break a batch up into several products. You can bottle and refrigerate some nama sake, then draw off and pasteurize some nigorizake, and then follow through with the clarifying and double pasteurization that results in seishu.
On your fifth point: the acidic bite tones down a lot after about 4 months in the bottle, with the overall flavor beginning to peak starting at 6 months. It comes from the lactic acid generated in the moto step, and you can adjust it by changing the length of that step in your process. Alternatively, you can just buy some 88% lactic acid solution and skip the whole lactobacillus thing, but I don't do that because I like to keep my ingredients as natural as possible. Even if you add lactic acid, you're going to need to age the sake for at least 2 to 4 months for the acid flavor to meld with the yeast and rice flavors in the sake.
That's a beautiful jug of sake, by the way. Are you just decanting it off the nigori sediment to drink it? Or are you enjoying that one as nigorizake?
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