adventures in unmalted grains - pt 2 - mugi shochu

[invisigoth]

mugi shochu is made with barley. whilst there are regional variations like there are in scotch whisky, there are two basic types. those that use kojied rice, and those that use kojied barley. i'm going for an all barley brew. there is very little information out there (at least in english) for making barley based shochu, other than the barley used in the industry mostly comes from here. it wasn't till reading a few papers that i found out that schooner is more than just a size of beer glass! :scared-eek:
i did manage to glean that whist traditionally it's aged whitedog in stoneware jars, in more recent times it's oaked.

since my only guide is my experience with making rice shochu, i'm going to use the basic methodology i used in the second batch of rice shucho. i'll go through the methodology in more detail when i start a brewin'

so some numbers: :-B
total barley = 10kg pearled
barley for koji = 2.5kg leaving 7.5kg

shubo (starter)
250g dry wt koji barley
552.5g dry wt steamed barley
955.5ml water
4ml 88% lactic acid
4g nutrient salts
0.7g mag sulphate
yeast - this time i'll use a whisky distillery yeast. it comes with nutrients so i might leave out the nutrient salt and mag sulphate, and only use half the sachet. or i could do extract brew and harvest some of the trub. :think:

first addition
500g dry wt koji barley
937.5g dry wt steamed barley
1.107l water

second edition
750g dry wt koji barley
2.25kg dry wt steamed barley
3.381l water

third edition
1kg dry wt koji barley
3.75kg dry wt steamed barley
6.897l water.

will post again when i actually start this lot in a couple of weeks time. :handgestures-thumbupleft: