Sake 1.2 Part 1 - The Moto

After a successful inoculation of Koji onto my rice (and by successful I guess I mean successful purchase), the next phase of making Sake has to do with something I finally am somewhat experienced with, yeast.

The next phase according to my recipe is building the Moto, which is essentially a starter to prepare your yeast for major fermentation. The ingredients are:

1. Koji rice
2. H2O
3. Epsom Salt
4. Yeast Nutrient
5. Steamed Rice
6. Sake Yeast

The steps are again fairly straightforward although to be perfectly honest, as a beer brewer, I was totally unaware of the smells and progression that I was about to experience. Here are the steps:

Steaming the rice

• Add Koji to cold H2O + Epsom Salts + Yeast Nutrient (all in a sanitized fermenter), put in the fridge
• Wash and soak rice for 12-18 hours
• Steam rice and quickly add to the cold Koji etc. mixture that has been chilling for 18 hours

Koji and steamed rice mixture

• Wait 3 days, stirring twice a day, at ambient temperature
• Bring mixture temperature down to 50 F and pitch Sake yeast, let rest for 12 hours

The Moto with freshly pitched yeast. The smell at this point is so intensely sour, like sour milk or pickles, very lactic! It is extremely intoxicating!

• Bring back to ambient temperature and stir twice a day for 3 days, then once a day for another 3 days.                                               

I will leave it there for now. The second part of the Moto involves some more resting. There are two goals in this process according to what I have read; 1. Build up your yeast culture for fermentation, 2. Build up natural lactic acid, which is needed in Sake to a point.

I have to say, I finally feel like I'm getting a hang of the process and getting over my beer brewing sanitation compulsiveness. Hopefully I can keep it up. 

Below are two of the products I used for making Sake. If you are interested in trying this at home and you need either a bamboo steamer or some rice, I highly recommend the two below.

Kanpai

BN