Sake is among the intimidating drinks to take, but it’s easy to understand how to prepare traditional sake at your home comfort. Using the right tools, patience, and the best method, you will get the sweet aroma of the sake filling your home in a short time. Furthermore, you’ll get to know many things that you didn’t understand concerning sake as you prepare it.

With the ten steps below, don’t be scared! Every action has an essential addition to the sake making process:

Step 1: Clean Your Equipment

Before you begin the sake-making journey, ensure that all the equipment is sterilized and clean. When preparing anything to deal with fermentation (booze, bread, yogurt), no other bacteria should be around to eliminate off the fermentation process.

You can place the equipment inside a pot with boiling water then relax for a while.

Step 2: Cook The Rice

Put water on a medium saucepan, then allow it to boil. Some people prefer washing the rice before it starts boiling, but this depends on you. Immediately the water starts boiling, add the rice, then use a lid to cover the saucepan. Reduce the heat to low temperature. Once the rice is ready, please remove it from heat and cool for two hours at 85 degrees. As the rice is getting cold, add the yeast balls to a sandwich bag, then crush them.

Step 3: Layer The Rice with Yeast

Add about ¾ inch of rice, then sprinkle yeast on top of it. Do this process again a few times? Make sure you create some space (about an inch) between the jar lid and top of the rice. Do this because there shall be the formation of CO2. Therefore, please give it some space to escape somewhere else your jar might end up popping. Mix everything properly, and yeast will do the job for you.

Step 4: Look for The Best Spot for Fermentation

When fermenting, the temperature is an essential factor to consider: too cold or too warm, and you’ll end up killing the yeast off. Most home sake brewers prefer using temperatures between 55-65 degrees F. in other words; you can find a cool-ish corner of the basement or garage. Remember that cooler temperatures mean that the fermentation activity might take longer.

In many households (unless your home is quite warm), the room temperature must suffice. You can also wrap the rice using a towel to ensure that it doesn’t cool off, which might inhibit the formation of CO2.

Step 5: Taste and Wait for Some Time

The liquid should begin forming after a day. Ensure you give it a taste. The product should be sweet. Initially, the CO2 emitted from the fermentation process will produce a little effervescence to the sake. Then after some days, the taste of the profile will begin developing.

Furthermore, you’ll realize some notes of sourness or fruit. Stop then serve the sake once it gets to the flavor that you want. Immediately the sake is ready, it looks cloudy, but when you leave it to its devices, it will get cleaner through separating and forming a layer of sediment beneath the container.

Step 6: Use The Sake Wisely

Since you now have the sweet rice wine, you can use it for cocktails or drink straight. Additionally, you can play with its flavors by adding fruit to it. Sake makes a perfect addition to any food recipe. You can try adding it to your pasta sauce or sprinkle it on your sorbet.

How to Make Sake Bombs

A sake bomb is always referred to as a pint cocktail. It has a great taste, and more fun comes in its drinking method.

What you’ll need:

  • Beer
  • sake
  • Bar towel or cloth for wiping up any mess
  • Chopsticks
  • Shot glass
  • Tall pint glass
  • Preparation
  1. Start by pouring some pint in a tall glass. Add about an equal amount that can fit inside a shot glass.
  2. Next, add one shot of sake inside the shot glass. Make sure you chill it first, whether it’s warm or not.
  3. Then add two chopsticks in a parallel manner the move them slightly to come up with an elongated V shape on the tall glass. The distance should be a bit narrow where the chopsticks are sitting in the middle of the glass. This is done to balance the shot glass in a proper position.
  4. Position the shot glass containing the chopsticks at the middle on top of the tall glass.

How to Make Sake Hot

What you’ll need

  • Water bath
  • Tokkuri (this is shaped like a carafe or a vase)
  1. Start by filling a tokkuri with sake. Its narrow neck prevents the quick escape of heat.
  2. Next, place the tokkuri inside a pot containing cold water, then measure the quantity of water that will get inside the pot. Immediately you put it in the pot; its fat bulb should go beneath the water to allow sake heat uniformly.
  3. After that, boil the water, then after a short time, remove it from the source of heat. The temperature of the water should not be past 100 degrees Celsius.
  4. Dip the sake bottle or tokkuri inside the pot immediately, then measure the time using a stopwatch.

That’s how to make a cold sake hot.

How long does sake take to make?

The entire process of making sake can range from 60–90 days (2–3 months), while the fermentation alone can take two weeks.

Is it easy to make sake?

Even though it takes quite a bit of patience, making sake is fairly easy to do. Sake fermentation is divided into three major steps: moto, moromi, and yodan. These steps are to be done in a duration of six weeks for a basic amount.

What is the best rice for sake?

The best sakes are produced with japonica (short and medium grain) rice. This kind of rice is rounder than long-grain rice and has a relatively plump starch core within the rice kernel. In general, the rounder and richer the starch core is, the easier it is to ferment the rice to produce sake.

Is Sake any good?

There are some health benefits to drinking Japanese sake in moderation. Sake reduces the risk of having cancer, helps prevent osteoporosis and diabetes, can help to reduce high blood pressure, and even makes your skin clearer because it reduces the production of melanin so sunspots become less visible.

Why is my sake yellow?

Sake is typically clear, and the yellow hue indicates that the oxidation process did quite some damage to the alcohol. Off, rotten, or pungent smell. If it smells bad, throw it away.

Can sake get you drunk?

Sake is an alcoholic beverage and can make you drunk, just like every other alcoholic beverage out there. Sake, by itself, will not get you drunk.

Can I drink 10 year old sake?

Why does sake taste so bad?

Can you drink old sake? Sake without an expiration date does not mean that the taste will not change over the years. If it hasn’t been opened then there will be no health problem, but the fragrance and taste will change.

Is sake stronger than vodka?

That being said, a lot of cheap sake have been diluted with distilled alcohol and that can give you a strong ethanol smell/taste. And unfortunately, even if you begin with a good tasting sake, it can end up tasting really bad if the restaurant doesn’t know how to take care of it.

Is Sake better hot or cold?

Contrary to popular belief, most sakes are only about 40-proof, which renders them about half as strong as most whiskeys and vodkas. The image of the drunken Japanese businessman is not due to sake alone. It is most often drunk alongside pint, but also sometimes with plum wine or Schochu (sweet-potato-based vodka).

Why does sake not give a hangover?

Although sake is usually served warm, it’s also quite good either chilled, at room temperature, or hot. Cheaper sake is often warmed to disguise its low grade, and premium sake is served chilled.

Should you let sake breathe?

On the whole, sake does not rank highly on the list of hangover inducing beverages because it is simply fermented rice and water. Also, sake has no sulfites, 1/3 the acidity of wine, and very low histamines – all three of which have been known to produce hangovers in other libations.

Why is sake so expensive?

I’ve also noticed that a bit of aeration does wonders on some highly aromatic sakes. For me this is a bit too much but decanting the sake, or allowing it to sit in a glass for a few minutes, allows those volatile aromas to evaporate off and a much subtler and delicate sake emerges – a delight!

Is sake the healthiest alcohol?

Aged sake tends to be expensive, too. Those sakes require delicate works during the brewing process. Therefore, Daigin-jo, ginjo, aged sakes and other sakes with added values tend to be expensive. Just like wine, the price of sake depends on supply and demand, and production costs.

Can I drink sake everyday?

Though red wine is usually the alcohol lauded for its health benefits, fitness-minded imbibers should consider sake. It’s high in amino acids, naturally gluten-free, and consists of simple ingredients.

Is Sake bad for your liver?

When consumed in moderation, drinking of alcohol may generally improve good cholesterol, reduces clotting, and otherwise slightly improve heart health. Sake happens to help further by helping to reduce bad cholesterol, and naturally inhibiting production of enzymes that contribute to high blood pressure.

Can sake make you fat?

Although excess sake consumption may induce adverse effects on the liver, sake intake has the potential to promote anti-oxidative stress activities following radiation exposure.

Is Sake better for you than pint?

Even though the calories in sake alone will not make you fat, just like with every type of food and drink, too much can be a bad thing. In actual fact, people who drink often tend to have a higher percentage of body fat.