Adventures in Unmalted Grains - Rice Shochu

[SBB]

Bloody hell that stuff makes a run away rum wash look mild......never seen so much froth :o

[invisigoth]

Bloody hell that stuff makes a run away rum wash look mild......never seen so much froth :o

hehe yeh... caught me by surprise too. because of the amount of co2 produced commercial sake breweries use open topped fermenters and people have died of asphyxiation from putting their head too far in to the vat. the foam is wasteful, so a series of strains were selected out that produce similar flavour and fragrance profiles but without the foam. they all end in "01", so if i could have used #901 instead of #9 there would have been more real estate in the fermenter for booze. :))

[bt1]

Not long now and we get some tasting notes...yeh


bt1

[invisigoth]

Not long now and we get some tasting notes...yeh

:laughing-rolling:
bloke, you asked about that 10 days ago.... when i said it was a 20 day ferment :angry-banghead:

so... in another 10 days or so, i'll let you know :teasing-neener:

[invisigoth]

ok, so day 20 and it looks like it's more or less finished, although i suspect it hasn't quite yet, but anyway... filtering time! :dance:

so i tied the end of a brew bag around some copper tube, suspended the bag in a 25l fermenter and let the tap rip! (i made sure that the tap didn't have a sediment trap in it to restrict flow) :handgestures-thumbupleft:



shortly after taking this pic the weight was too much for it and with a splash the bag slipped into the bucket. i managed to get to it in time to hold it open to get all the brew into it, minus maybe a few grains. my original idea was to tie the other end of the bag around another bit of tube, then grab both tubes and twist to press out the liquid, but it seemed like there was too much liquid in the bag, so i closed the bag up, removed the tube at the bottom, and let it sit there.



then i set up my 15l fermenter underneath, took out the airlock grommet and slipped a tube from the tap through the hole. it's a closeish fit. the idea was to just let it gravity filter into the other vessel with minimal exposure to airborne nasties, although the suspected alcohol content of this brew (18-20% abv) would probably take care of most.



i'll let that do it's thing overnight, then wring out the last of it. according to the recipe i should get 7.8l (the original recipe reckons 3l of sake from 3.87l of water added not counting the 185ml of water added to the moto)

i'll probably fire up r2d2 on tuesday and run it, cause tomorrow i'm running bourbon knock off and will need some time to let the jars air and blend cuts to free up the jars for this run. :shifty:

[invisigoth]

got a bit nervous about leaving it to drip overnight. it was up to 10l so i sterilised my hands as best as i could, grabbed both ends of the bag and twisted and pushed and generally tried to squeeze out what i could. eventually my hands got sore, my back hurt and i was getting a bit dizzy with the fumes, so i decided that even though there may have been another couple of litres in there, i couldn't be arsed chasing it. this is more of a dry run to go through the process before doing one with proper sake rice. ended up with 13l of stuff that fairly clear with a layer of very fine sediment at the bottom which will probably settle. clear, but by no means colourless. :scared-eek:

the daiginjo i've been drinking is a very pale yellow. this stuff looks like i've had one too many beroccas and couldn't get to the bathroom in time :whistle:

some of you that habitually ferment in 120+l fermenters are probably having a good laugh at my volumes :teasing-neener:

[bt1]

Are we there yet?

bt1

[invisigoth]

Are we there yet?

bt1

yeh ....bloke :laughing-rolling:

i figured that since the volume of my bourbon knockoff was about 15l and there was 13l of this stuff, i'd just shove them both in the boiler together, throw a little fairy dust at the still and let the magical properties of a mcstill made bubbler separate the two out ......... 8-}

i'll be running it in a couple of days :roll:

probably .......

[invisigoth]

well i decided to rwing whatever i could from the lees, ended up with some cloudy stuff. in the end including the stuff i had already got, ended up with 14l leaving behind the sediment in the two lots. from that i ended up with 150ml of fores and 23 x 100ml jars. heads started to show up during jar 19. jars 1-18 came in from 92% to 87%, jars 19-21 came in at 87% to 66% and 22/23.. don't know don't care :teasing-neener:

not bad out of a 14l without running turbo. i dipped my finger into the wash before i ran it... didn't taste too good.. dry as a bone and a little sour. smelled ok though. i'll air for 48h and then go through the cuts and report back, but i suspect it will be a bit raw. normally this would be aged in ceramic pots. modern distilleries have started to age in oak. don't know about the rice shochu, but mugi shochu (that made from barley) is supposed to resemble single malt scotch.

[invisigoth]

ok, so dun ma cuts! :dance:

the bubbler defiantly seems to give me less waste. final cut, 1140ml @ 89% abv. it's a little raw, but it has potential. if you were expecting a neutral, this ain't it!
i think half of it i'll dilute to 35% (shochu is usually 25% - 45% with 25% being fairly typical) and shove it in glass, airing it over night every couple of weeks to simulate the natural airing it gets through the earthen ware pots that it's traditionally aged in. i'll dilute to 65% and oak the rest.

my next batch with the 60% polished sake rice is already in it's second day of starter using lactic acid instead of yoghurt. so no 40c incubation. i did a batch of all the kome-koji i will need in the fryer as my incubator as per my best batch of the last lot. it went well :music-deathmetal:

so far.... result! :happy-partydance:

[MacStill]

Man you've really put some effort in here, it's not something I'm really interested in trying myself although I've found your thread interesting.

Thanks for keeping us updated and trying something different, well done :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[invisigoth]

Man you've really put some effort in here, it's not something I'm really interested in trying myself although I've found your thread interesting.

Thanks for keeping us updated and trying something different, well done :handgestures-thumbupleft:

thanx :oops:

i think that's common with all the threads in the recipe development section, i just took more pictures than some :))

i see ad as more than just a forum, but a community. people should make a contribution if they can. o:-)

[Sam.]

:O)

Man you've really put some effort in here, it's not something I'm really interested in trying myself although I've found your thread interesting.

Thanks for keeping us updated and trying something different, well done :handgestures-thumbupleft:

thanx :oops:

i think that's common with all the threads in the recipe development section, i just took more pictures than some :))

i see ad as more than just a forum, but a community. people should make a contribution if they can. o:-)

i'm with Mac, this has been some interesting reading :handgestures-thumbupleft:

So different to the run of the mill grain stuff, I still don't think I have ever had any "good" sake etc, the gear I have been served from japanese restaurants has all tasted like tails to me :puke-huge:

But like all things i'm sure if you do it right then it is going to be fucking awesome :music-deathmetal:

Maybe we need some japanese moonshiners here? :think:

[invisigoth]

So different to the run of the mill grain stuff, I still don't think I have ever had any "good" sake etc, the gear I have been served from japanese restaurants has all tasted like tails to me :puke-huge:

yeh, it's a bit different. but like wine or beer, there is good sake and there is not so good sake. factors such as what rice has been used, how much it's been polished, what water has been used, how the koji was grown, what yeast was used, what temperature it was fermented at during the different stages can all effect the flavour. a lot of what they serve in restaurants hasn't been treated as well as it should have been, and often served hot. the best sake is served chilled. it kinda breaks all the rules. with most drinks like beer, chilling it dulls a lot of the flavours (it's a good way to hide off flavours :whistle: ). good sake when chilled has more intense flavour.

but... the purpose of the exercise, to bring it back to relevance to a distillation forum, was to make shochu. later i'll be having a go at some of the other types such as barley and sweet potato. for the barley i'll be doing two lots. one using rice koji, and one using barley koji. for the sweet potato i think i'll get some of that dried koji you sourced in the chinese yeast ball thread. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

also wanna try corn. i haven't seen anywhere a reference to the japanese using corn for shochu.

Maybe we need some japanese moonshiners here? :think:

hehe that could be interesting. if your definition of moonshine is making illegal alcohol, then just brewing beer is moonshining over there. :crying-blue:
i belive anying over 1% abv you can't home brew. and yet.. there are home brew shops there. 8-}

[invisigoth]

erm... apologies to cupcake and sam_and_liv. x_x

it was cupcake who posted the rice koji source. i sowwy :oops:

[Sam.]

Yeah have only ever had it warm... Prob need to go to Japan to experience the real gear or a very high end restaurant in oz?

[invisigoth]

Yeah have only ever had it warm... Prob need to go to Japan to experience the real gear or a very high end restaurant in oz?

for some, maybe. i'm kinda fortunate. the run documented here was done with medium grain rice from the supermarket, but that was just a warm up for the brew i currently have going. for this one i'm using proper sake rice. the distilleries that make shochu also use similar polished rice. and my source for this rice, the only sake brewery in australia. it's about an hours drive away. sadly this is the only time they were prepared to sell me some of their rice, because they only get just enough for a batch. the upshot is that i also buy my sake directly from them. they make a range of sake including the good stuff. their japanese plum wine is also pretty nice, but a little intense neat. mixed with a little soda water and it makes a really nice drink :dance:

[5 o'clock]

Invisigoth,

This thread looks like a lot of work.

How were the results?

in hindsight would you do it again like this?

Does anyone have experience with a lazy version of a rice ferment, ie boil up lots of rice and throw in some standard (bakers?) yeast?

My local supermarket had 10kg bags of long grain white rice very cheap and I grabbed one with a simple recipe in mind but won't have time to go to the effort that you did here.

Thanks,

Richard

[blond.chap]

Hey mate, Invisigoth can probably give you a better answer than this, but my understanding is that rice needs to have it's starches converted to sugars before the yeast can do anything, (like mashing malt before fermenting beer) so throwing yeast in probably won't work.

The thing I'd try is Chinese yeast balls, they contain a kind of mould (possibly bacteria or something) that converts the starch to sugar, while the yeast simultaneously ferments the generated sugar. Take a look here:
http://www.aussiedistiller.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3672&hilit=yeast+balls

I recon you want to:
- cook the rice up into mush
- add about an equal amount of water, cool down to 30 degC
- add the crushed yeast balls and
- Allow to ferment for a month or so
- strain through large coffee filters or a sheet

[bang300]

I've done this two ways...1. medium grain rice and Chinese yeast balls (koji & yeast combined). 2. I've malted unwashed brown rice, mixed with medium grain rice and then yeast balls.

It all tasted wonderful (wine) and the resulting vodka was very nice. I really guard a small bottle!

My problem was the separation of liquid from mash and the low yield. No matter how good it is, the yield makes it very expensive.