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Old 11-30-2010, 07:26 PM  
Toji
 
taylor-madeak's Avatar

Anchorage, Alaska
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 17 | Kudos: +13
Sake homebrewers in Alaska? Speak up!

Okay, so how many of my fellow Anchorites really are sake brewers? Come on, speak up! I know there are at least enough of you to convince Arctic Brewing Supply to keep stocking the supplies for it (yeast and koji-kin, anyway). Let's get a discussion going!
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Old 12-09-2010, 01:23 AM  
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Wasilla, Alaska
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You should try developing your own kome koji. The various molds of the area could make a dandy starter.
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Old 12-09-2010, 02:55 AM  
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Anchorage, Alaska
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 17 | Kudos: +13
I might consider that if Alaska was a rice economy like Japan. But it's not, so the strains of aspergillus we have floating around here are hardly likely to be of the benign aspergillus oryzae varieties used for making sake, shoyu, and miso. I'm not really interested in poisoning myself or my family. =)
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Old 12-28-2010, 01:20 PM  
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I am not in Alaska at the moment but will be in the summer... Spent a few years up there... Your Sake webpage and instructions were the bomb for getting started. I may make a batch in the next few weeks.

Do you ever make lower alcohol sparkling sake?

I ask because the first batch of sake I made was pretty green and wasn't sure what the hell was going on... I used white labs zurich lager yeast. It fermented cold like 45F, but I think bottled too early. Ended up with lower alcohol -- my guess like 7%-- from how drunk it got me... And it got quite fizzy. I put in the fridge to keep from blowing the tops off the bottles...

However, it was really good! slight sweet taste, but green kojo flavor, and the fizz was nice too... Never been able to duplicate since.... any ideas?
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Old 12-28-2010, 02:59 PM  
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Anchorage, Alaska
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 17 | Kudos: +13
Hello fishaspey! I'm glad you found my guides to be useful! That's what they're there for.

No, I never make sparkling sake. Call me a purist if you want, but I like my sake to be perfectly clear, perfectly still, and alcoholic as hell. But hey, I'm not judging, that's just my preference. If you liked how it came out, then go ahead and duplicate it!

Now...how to duplicate it? Well, I don't have much in the way of details about the process you used for that batch. A lot of questions are left unanswered. Did you build up the moromi or was that first attempt a doburoku? Did you take a specific gravity measurement at any time? Obviously it wasn't finished fermenting and you didn't pasteurize, which left yeast and other wild critters alive to gobble up the residual sugar and carbonate those bottles.

The green koji flavor was present because you skipped pasteurizing. Once you pasteurize the sake, that flavor is driven off. I'm okay with that because I don't like the pungent green koji character in a sake. Again, this is my personal preference.

If I were to set out to make a carbonated sake, I would personally go with forced carbonation so that I wouldn't have to skip the pasteurization and fining processes. However, skipping pasteurization, diluting the sake, and priming for bottling is an option. Just be sure you keep those bottles as cold as you can get them (shy of freezing, of course) to prolong their shelf life. Even so, that sake is eventually going to go sour due to spoilage organisms left alive in the bottle. You might get a month out of those bottles in the coldest part of your refrigerator.
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Old 12-28-2010, 03:26 PM  
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Montreal, Quebec
Join Date: Aug 2010
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Bob, feel free to place a direct link to your great web site into your signature here on CP. Just paste the whole URL in there and hopefully you will get some more hits.

I think your passion for sake and sushi, and your willingness to share your brewing secrets is pretty outstanding.

Kudos to you!
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Old 12-28-2010, 04:10 PM  
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Anchorage, Alaska
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 17 | Kudos: +13
I tried to stick a link in there when I set up the sig in the first place, but it wouldn't let me use the URL tags. =( I'll try it again now, hopefully it's something that has changed.

Edit: Nope, it won't let me use the [URL] bbcode tags in the signature, and it won't let me have more than 2 lines in my sig. *shrug* The address for my site is already in there, it's just not clickable and I won't be able to change that unless the admin relaxes the signature restrictions a little bit in the back-end of the forum.
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Old 12-28-2010, 05:37 PM  
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Montreal, Quebec
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Try this. Go to your home page. Copy the URL in the browser bar. Go to my account on Cityprofile and select edit signature. Now paste your copied URL into the signature text field wherever you want.

That should work as far as I know. If it doesn't please let me know and I'll get you an answer. It's nice to have your insight here.

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Old 12-28-2010, 05:45 PM  
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Anchorage, Alaska
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 17 | Kudos: +13
Quote:
Originally Posted by RiponredTJ View Post
Try this. Go to your home page. Copy the URL in the browser bar. Go to my account on Cityprofile and select edit signature. Now paste your copied URL into the signature text field wherever you want.

That should work as far as I know. If it doesn't please let me know and I'll get you an answer. It's nice to have your insight here.

Yeah, I know how to use forum software, thanks. =) I like my signature the way it is, and it's the same sig I use in many forums and all of my e-mail. The difference is THIS forum doesn't allow me to use [URL] BBCode tags in my signature, so I can't make the Taylor-MadeAK.org portion clickable like I do in every other forum I participate in. I would take your suggestion and add the raw http://www.taylor-madeak.org/ url to the bottom of my sig, but THIS forum software only allows two lines of text in your signature. In other words, as users of this forum, we are very limited in what we're allowed to do with our sigs.

I'm not going to overwrite my sig with a raw url just to get 5 more hits on my site.
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Old 01-01-2011, 02:36 PM  
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Palmer, Alaska
Join Date: Jan 2011
Posts: 7 | Kudos: +10
Do you know a good source for finding the Koji starter? I would be interested in trying this.
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