Vlad Pomogaev

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#9 Chamomile Sake

Jan 26th 2025

(Day 1) Jan 26th: Combined 600mL cold water with 4g of yeast nutrient and 115g of (~1.2kg total) previously prepared koji. Leaving that in the fridge. Separately, also washed and placed to soak 340g of Jasmine rice into the fridge overnight.

(Day 2) Jan 27th: Prewarmed the steamer. Steamed the 340g of rice for 50 min. Sterilized 5 gal plastic bucket with peroxide-based brewing sanitizer. Combined with the 600mL water+koji+nutrient solution. Mixed in bucket by hand and affixed airlock. Placed bucket at room temp.

(Day 3) Jan 28th: Stirred a couple of times by shaking closed bucket.

(Day 4) Jan 29th: Sprinkled 1 packet of Lalvin EC-1118. Did not stir in. Left at cooler temperature (14 to 17C) for 24 hours.

(Day 5) Jan 30th: Stirred the mixture.

(Day 9) Feb 3rd: Stirred the mixture. The moto is now progressing. The enzymes have almost completely liquified the rice. There is a floating layer that that has formed on the surface (~2mm thick, partially broken up like dried clay, white). It smells like lactic acid, but not as strong as a moto that was raised back to 20C after Day 5. There is yeast bubbling action.

(Day 12) Feb 6th: The floating layer has gotten thicker, about 3mm thick. Less broken up. The smell is a bit more lactic acid as well. Still a tiny bit of bubbling under the layer generally.

(Day 16) Feb 10th: Boiled 650mL of water. To boiled water, added 5 Chamomile tea bags. The amount of water added so far is 1250mL (not including water added when we cook the rice). This gives us a ratio of 1 tea bag per ~250mL of water. Put this in the fridge.

Added 225g of koji to the moto (starter must). This was done after letting the koji warm up to room temperature after being stored in the freezer.

Washed and soaked 570g of rice in cold water.

(Day 17) Feb 11th: Drained rice of water for 1hr. Steamed rice for 50 min. Added rice to 650mL of Chamomile tea. Cooled down in the fridge until 29C. Added to rice+tea to must by stirring in with spoon. Raised temperature of must to 21C.

Made 2.1L of Chamomile tea with 10 bags (8 needed, but 2 to make up for water content of rice). Steeping time was 5 min. Placed tea in the fridge.

Added 340g of koji to the must and stirred in.

Washed 1.36kg of rice. Placed in the fridge.

Mixed must by hand for about 30 min. The must started out not liquified at all, but quickly turned to liquid.

(Day 18) Feb 12th: Steamed the 1.36 kg of rice. Waited for it to cool off. Added it to must.

Added the 2.1L of Chamomile tea from earlier. Mixed must by hand for 30 min.

Added 570g of koji to the must.

Washed 2.27kg of rice until water ran clear. Placed in fridge to soak.

Made 3.3L of Chamomile tea with 20 tea bags. This is one liter short of what was required. Could not make full batch because the pot I was using was too small.

(Day 19) Feb 13th:

Steamed the 2.27kg of rice in two batches and added it to the must. Mixed in thoroughly by hand for 30 min.

Added the 3.3L of tea, alongside 1L of room-temperature water.

The bubbling activity is going crazy now. Compared to the previous musts, this one is much more "airy", like some rising sourdough bread or something like that. Smells wonderful. Like artificial banana flavouring used in candy. The taste is a bit sour, but that was the same as previous musts. The color is an orangy-ish white-dough.

(Day 20) Feb 14th:

Moved to a colder place (14 to 17C).

(Day 25) Feb 19th: Stirred must. Smells absolutely fantastic, again, like banana scent or vanilla? Maybe some banana bread. Still bubbling, but has slowed down now. The enzymes in this batch have done better at liquefying the must than previous batches, everything is quite liquid, with what I can only assume as the least-cooked rice grains floating up top.

(Day 28) Feb 22nd: Bubbling has slowed to the point where the CO2 leaks through the gap between the lid and the bucket. The bubbler no longer bubbles, even with minimal amount of water in it. Very small bubbles in the must. Layer of floating rice has now appeared on the top.

(Day 32) Feb 26th: Placed outside in 8-14C weather. Added 20W band heater around the bucket.

(Day 35) Mar 1st: Measured internal temperature to be 14C.

(Day 39) Mar 5st: Measured specific gravity to be 0.998. Internal temperature at about 9.4C. Moved to slightly warmer 17C ambient temp.

(Day 43) March 9th:

Filtered all sake through a medium-coarse nylon bag (about 0.5mm holes). The coarse filter made it much easier that the fine filter before, but it still took a lot of manual effort to squeeze the sake through. The filtered contents were quite cloudy. Racked into 3x 1 gal glass carboys with airlocks affixed on top. The carboys were filled about 80% of the way up, so estimating about 9.5L total yield.

Quick taste test:

Very complex smell and taste. Smells like earlier sakes I've made but with more "banana", or "yogurt". Very very alcoholic, but more ethanol and no acetic acid/methanol. Definitely very fresh; still a lot of yeast activity. The initial taste is very good, but it's quickly overpowered by the pungent aftertaste.

Placed carboys outside in ~8C weather. Placing inside @ 17C in the nights when temperatures drop to 0C.