How To Make Homemade Sake (手作り酉)

Hey, I love Sake! The really good stuff and the table stuff too.  What I didn’t realize is that it doesn’t require a lot of equipment to make.  While sake does have a specific method, it is actually a great way to try your hand at some DIY home fermenting.  This is a process that I learned from a home brewing site that I have adapted to my own. I’ve brewed three batches now and they’ve all come out really good, but each is slightly different!

Watch the YouTube tutorial HERE!

Want to try your own home brew sake?  Here’s what you need:

Equipment:

Up first, the equipment needs are minimal, but there are some critical things that can make the process easier: 

1. Kitchen scale
2. 1 Wide Mouth Gallon or ½ gallon Glass Jar
3. Sani Star
4. A large pot to boil
5. Cheesecloth or muslin and a rubber band
6. A double boiler or steamer or even better a rice steamer or Instant Pot
7. A way to cool the brew – room in your fridge – outside – swamp cooler. 

Notes about materials: 

1. A kitchen scale helps but is not required. I got down to the gram based off of the 8 cups of water measurement, but the ratio is still pretty accurate with the cup amounts in the ingredients
2. You can use any glass jar as long as it is cleaned and sanitized. If you’re using a ½ gallon jar, you should cut the recipe by ½, if using a 1 quart jar, you should use ¼ of the recipe ingredients.
3. The cheese cloth will be used in steaming, to cover the mouth during fermentation and to squeeze out the rice at the end of fermentation.

Ingredients:

• Kome-Kōji: 1-⅓ cup
•  Rice: 5 cups
• Spring water: 8 cups
• Yeast Nutrient: ⅛ tsp 
• Yeast: 1 package Wyeast #9 or Lalvin-1116 or Lalvin 1118

Notes about Ingredients: 

1. Kome is rice and Kōji, or Aspergillus oryzae, is a filamentous fungus or mold that helps break down the rice in fermentation releasing saccharides for the yeast.  I got this Koji from Amazon, but you may be able to find others at your local Asian Food Market. 
2. The quality of the rice matters.  Polishing the rice can help, but as long as it is a medium grain sushi rice at a minimum you should be okay.  Something like Nishiki Medium Grain or Calrose should work.  I went with some high quality stuff Nozomi Super Premium Short Grain Rice
3. The quality of the water also matters, if you have good quality water from your tap that is just fine.  Distilled water will not yield the best results, but even then if you put ⅛ tsp epsom salt or ⅛ tsp Mortons Salt I have heard this is okay.  I used bottled Spring water and it turned out great.  
4. The yeast ingredient is easily searchable on amazon.  I used DAP yeast nutrient, but there are others out there. 

Sake Ratios:

The ratio I used was 25:100:160, Kome-Kōji to Rice to Water respectively. It was unclear to me if this ratio was for the dehydrated Kome-Kōji (which is how it came in the package) or the rehydrated Kome-Kōji.  It was also unclear if the ratio of rice was pre-steam or post-steamed.  In this attempt I measured the Kome-Kōji dehydrated and measured the rice portions after steaming. 

	Kome-Kōji	Steamed Rice	Purified Water
Ratio	25	100	160
Total cups or g	~ 1-⅓ cups or 316 g	~ 5 cups or 1,185 g	~ 8 Cups or 1, 896 g
6.66% Mash	~ 1.5 Tbsp or 20 g	~ 6 Tbsp or 79 g	~ ½ cup or 118 g
13.33% First Addition	~ 3 Tbsp or 39 g	~ ¾ cup or 158 g	~ 1-¼ cups or 296 g
26.66% Second Addition	~ 6 Tbsp or 79 g	~ 1-½ cups or 316 g	~ 2 cups or 474 g
53.33% Third Addition	~ ¾ cup or 158 g	~ 3 cups or 632 g	~ 4-¼ cups or 1007 g

The Method: Sandan Shikomi 三段仕込 (Three Stage Preparation)

DAY 0: Preparation

The first 4 steps that follow in this recipe are all to get to the so-called three stage preparation, which are the three stages of adding rice, kome-koji and water to the fermentation vessel.   Still these first steps are important. 

Rice Soaking: First you should rinse the rice.  This is essentially just putting the rice in a large pot and covering it with cold water, agitating the rice, dumping then dumping out the water.  The first time you rinse you will see the water is very cloudy.  Repeat this 20 to 40 times until the water runs clear. Then, the rice should be soaked in ice cold water overnight for about 8 to 12 hours in the fridge.  

Step 1 DAY 1: Steaming and Preparing Future Rice Additions

1a) Rice Steaming and Dividing:  Steam the rice until it is firm but easy, but not mushy.  It should be a little harder than normal cooked rice, full of water and slightly chewy, but not mushy.  You can boil the rice, however, most recipes recommend steaming, because it is easier to make sure you don’t over saturate the rice.  When done cooking we want to remove the rice from the cooking vessel so it doesn’t continue to cook.  I kept mine in the cheese cloth on a sterilized clean pan so it wouldn’t go all over the place.  Measure the amount of rice for the 1st addition, 2nd addition, & 3rd addition each doubling in size each time according to the chart or your own amounts for your vessel.  I saved the smallest 6.66% until last, because it can go right in the brewing jar with the water to await the Kome-Kōji.  If weighing out in grams just multiply the weight by the % in the chart above (0.0666, 0.1333, 0.2666, 0.5333).  Add the amounts of steamed rice to the baggies then add the Kome-Koji and throw them in the freezer.  I used the following sizes: 

• sandwich size for the 6.66% (this will be used immediately for the mash or moto)
• sandwich size of the 13.33%
• quart size for the 26.66%
• gallon size for the 53.33%

 1b) Kome-Kōji Dividing: I usually do this step while letting the rice steam.  Kome is rice and Kōji or Kōji mold, is a mold that breaks down the rice into sugars during the brewing process.  This mold is sold on dehydrated rice, hence Kome-Kōji.   You can also buy Kōji spores and make your own, but that is time intensive and this is a recipe for newer brewers, like myself!  You can buy Kome-Kōji that is ready to use, but I couldn’t find any.  You could also steam the Kome-Kōji, by following the instructions on the bag, but for the sake of simplicity and the fact that the recipe was in Japanese I just left it dehydrated and put it in with the steamed rice.  As I said above I used mine dried following the amounts Kome-Kōji in the chart, then put it in different sized ziploc plastic baggies and set them aside, adding the steamed rice to them later and then freezing all but the first 6.66% that I put in the in the rice mash starter. 

Step 2 Day 1: Rice Mash

Put the first addition in your jar and add the ⅛ tsp of yeast nutrients. Place your cheesecloth over the top of the jar and tighten the lid or use a rubber band to keep it in place. DO NOT add the yeast yet. We want the enzymes from the Kome-koji to start to break down the rice. This will sit at room temp for 2 days. Stir the Rice Mash (Moto) twice daily.

Shubo 酒母 means (Mother of Sake) Moto 元 (base) is where we begin.  After 2 days at room temperature we now add the yeast, which will begin the fermentation.  I used Lalvin 1118 and had to make sure you re-hydrate it first before adding it to the mash.  Now we must cool the jar to below 15°C or 60°F to keep bacteria at bay before the yeast takes over. Put the mash in the fridge for 12 to 18 hours.

Step 4 Day 4: Odori 踊り (The Dance)

Odori means dance, so after chilling for 12 to 18 hours take the jar out of the refrigerator and let it sit and dance at room temperature for 3 days.  Stir it twice a day to really get it dancing.  😁 Now we are ready to build up the mash.

Step 5 Day 7: Hastuzoe 初添 (First Addition)

After 3 days at room temperature you will add your first addition (13.33%) of frozen Kome-Kōji steamed rice and water. Put your jar back in the refrigerator to bring below 13°C or 55°F, letting it sit in the cold for 5 days.  At this point no more agitation of the mash is necessary. 

Step 6 Day 12: Nakazoe 仲添 (Second Addition)

After sitting in the refrigerator for the aforementioned 5 days, bring the jar back to room temperature for about 12 hours.  We are now ready for the 2nd addition.  Get your quart baggie of frozen kome-kōji, rice, and water.  You may need to break it up and stir it a little to get it fully covered.  We now return the vessel to the refrigerator, again bringing the temperature below 13°C or 55°F for 5 more days of cold fermenting. 

Step 7 Day 17: Tomezoe 留添 (Third Addition)

After sitting in the fridge for 5 more days of cold fermenting, bring the jar back to room temperature for 12 hours or less.   Retrieve the biggest baggie of frozen kome-kōji and rice along with water for the third and final addition.  After this last addition it will sit for 2 weeks in the refrigerator for the final fermentation period. 

Step 8 Day 31: Pressing and Sedimentation

After the final 2 weeks in the refrigerator, it is time to separate out the liquid from the rice, kome-koji and yeast. This left over mush is called sake kasu 酒粕 (sake lees) and it can be used in other food recipes and is also used in beauty products or soap. To separate out the sake kasu, we poured our mash through a food grade cheese cloth inset in a plastic strainer. It is critical to be able to pour all the sake kasu in go. After our third attempt we recommend big pot that and laid the cheesecloth in the large strainer on top of the pot. In this case it is better to have a large strainer so it can hold all the sake kasu. We initially tried pouring the liquid through a smaller strainer back into another sterilized gallon jug, but the mouth of the jar was too small and we got sake all over the counter. We initially just let the sake kasu drain with gravity vertically which is the traditional way. We also recommend separating out the sake that was drained with gravity, because it is clearer and has less sediments. The final step here is to press out any extra liquid through the strainer and cheese cloth filter by hand or twisting the cheese cloth.

At this point put the jar or jars in the refrigerator for another few days to let the sediments drop to the bottom.  

Step 9 Day 33: Bottling and Pasteurization

Any sake that will not be consumed immediately will need to be pasteurized.  This involves heating up the sake to mellow it out and also allow it to be stored for longer periods of time.  We decanted sake into bottles from the gallon jug after letting it sit with a siphon. We put the gallon jar up higher than the bottle and siphoned off the top clear liquid into the bottles and left the sediments on the bottom of the gallon jar. This recipe produces about 2 x  750ml wine bottles. The first bottle is crystal clear while the second usually gets a little of the sediments and is a little cloudier than the first bottles. This sake will be dry and close to 18% ABV give or take about 2% ABV.  The sake can now be drank!  

To pasteurize the sake we need to get the internal temperature around 140°F to 160°F for about 10 minutes at least that was what I could find on the internets.  We took a big pot and filled it up about halfway with water and got it to boil.  Then I lowered the heat so it was a rapid simmer and put the two 750ml wine bottles in the water.  I left the bottles close, it is important to take care to heat and cool them slowly or we risk bottle explosion.  I just boiled mine with one the bottles closed and made the mistake of opening it in the middle and the sake exploded al over the place.  Sake producers usually age their products for several months over the summer before selling it in the fall.  This is to let the flavors settle and mellow out.  

We really enjoyed this process and had fun with our tezukuri sake 手作り酉 (homemade sake) experience. It is very easy and requires very little specialized equipment. Please let us know if you are going to try it and what worked for you!

Don’t forget to buy yourself a pretty sake set for your first tasting!

Happy Brewing!

-Selene and Devin

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