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by **Massimo Maddaloni** » Mon Mar 28, 2011 10:45 pm

Hello all,
I brewed some sake with Apergillus oryzae, lactic acid bacteria and lager yeast boosted at the end with Montrachet wine yeast. Yesterday night I was discarding the left-overs when I thought about this forum. Does anyone know what I could do with the cake (which is high in alcohol)?
Thank you.
Regards
Massimo

by **wheels** » Mon Mar 28, 2011 11:21 pm

Err, I'm not 'au fait' with what you've done, but it sounds like something I should know about!

Can you explain further please.

Phil

by **Massimo Maddaloni** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:19 pm

Well, there are faster and easier ways but this is what I do. In brief, I "malt" part of the rice with Aspergillus oryzae making what's called Kome-koji. Then I "rot" part of the kome-koji with lactic acid bacteria (I use my homemade yoghurt) making the moto. Then mix steamed rice, water, kome-koji, moto and the yeast. I run most of the fermentation with lager yeast and at the end I boost with Montrachet wine yeast because lager yeast is sensitive to high levels of alcohol. I gauge the fermentation and I add more rice and, eventually, more kome-koji. All rice is soaked in water and steamed. I learned the hard way that boiling rice doesn't work. At the end of fermentation you end up with your sake and a gooey cake of unfermented ... stuff. Most of it, I believe, is the embryos. It tastes like sake and it must be very nutritious and it p$$&$ me off to throw it into the garbage. Because of the alcohol I am reluctant to feed it to wildlife. If you are interested in the exact procedure google "koji order center", the first link is where I get my mold.
Regards
Massimo

by **mitchamus** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:53 pm

can you distill the alcohol off it to make some sort of Sake Grappa?

by **Massimo Maddaloni** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 11:02 pm

Technically, I could, but distillation is not legal here. Thanks, though

Regards
Massimo

by **wheels** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 5:19 pm

Thanks for the link - I'll look into it further as I still don't fully understand it.

Phil

by **saucisson** » Thu Mar 31, 2011 4:08 pm

In a nutshell, or should that be a "rice husk"?:

There is very little sugar in rice it's almost all starch and yeast can't convert much starch to alcohol. To ferment starch you need to convert the starch to sugars. In beer brewing the enzymes are there in the grain and that's the malting stage where the damp grain is warmed and gets ready to germinate. Saliva contains salivary amylase (which starts converting starch to sugars even before it gets to your stomach) and in the old days Japanese women used to masticate the rice to give it a good coating of saliva before fermenting it. As I understand it the aspergillus does this stage nowadays

Then you ferment it with a yeast.

I'd be interested in what Massimo's lactic acid stage is for, and whether I've got the above right...

by **Massimo Maddaloni** » Thu Mar 31, 2011 8:56 pm

You are substantially correct, Saucisson. In beer brewing barley is germinated and dried thus making the malt (different kinds of malt depending on the germination/post-germination procedures). Then the malt is mashed in water by holding it at certain temperature(s) which is what converts starch into fermentable sugars. With rice this is accomplished by Aspergillus. You are also correct with the chewing thing: maize chicha of South America is another example. One thing that not everybody knows is that the enzyme content in the saliva varies greatly among individuals: some don't have any.
I am sorry I have been confusing: to me it was totally clear but, obviously, it wasn't.
Lactic acid bacteria act as stabilizer by increasing acidity without pasteurizing. I make about 1.5 gallons of raw sake at the time and they last me about 2-3 months in the fridge (unless I share it). Also, adding lactic acid bacteria exponentially increases the complexity of flavors.
Regards
Massimo

by **NCPaul** » Fri Apr 01, 2011 9:32 pm

Could you use the rice cake to make some rice wine vinegar? You would have to add a "mother" and dilute the alcohol down to a level suitable for the vinegar process. You could add any sake that you didn't care for to keep the batch going.

by **Massimo Maddaloni** » Sat Apr 02, 2011 4:34 pm

Hi Paul,
thank you for the suggestion. I removed some sake silt and added it to my vinegar "mother". I tried to use the rest to make some sushi, wrapping jumbo shrimps (17 USD/Lb) around the blob but it didn't work for it's too fluid. If I still had my own chickens I'd feed the blob to them. Making chickens drunk is one of the funniest pranks one can ever pull. I did it once twenty years ago and I am still laughing :lol:

Regards
Massimo

by **saucisson** » Sat Apr 02, 2011 5:15 pm

Thanks Massimo.

Dave

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