Sake, The Welcome Surprise

A few weeks back I tried my sake. It was sour and kind of gross. I had written it off, and ignored it for the next few weeks. This past evening I decided I needed to empty my growler, get rid of this sour rancid liquid that I had hoped would become a Japanese rice wine.  This is what it looked like.

From Storehouse

 It really isn't that pretty looking -- resembles a urine sample with rice grains at the bottom.  But the sourness that I came across a few weeks back was gone.  While this stuff isn't nearly as refined as the sake I'd get in a store, it now actually tastes like sake, albeit a very rough version of it.

I poured out the mixture from my carboy into a mason jar.  I also squeezed the rice kernels to get the last of the sake out of them. It became quite cloudy.

From Storehouse

Looking back on it, my assuming the whole thing had become rancid was a good thing. If I had followed directions and emptied it all out at the five week mark I would have trashed the whole thing because of the sourness. The extra 2-3 weeks gave the sake time to finish fermenting and come more refined.

From here I'm not sure what I am going to do. This stuff is still a bit rough compared to what I'm used to. I have enough of it to do experimentation -- serving it cold, serving heated up, or in shot glasses with a raw oyster. Afterwards I'll get a better sense of what I can do with this stuff.

Either case, I can now say to myself, I've made sake!

From Storehouse