2025 is unofficially the year of the Jappening. The yen may be low but American fascination with Japanese culture is at an all time high. Recently, a trip to the bookstore left me aghast after seeing the manga section stuffed shoulder to shoulder with eager readers in. We at Glyptodon are not above this fascination; our in-house culinary expert, Josh Cashio, plunged into the sporous world of Koji just a few months ago. All this Japa-mania stirred a curiosity in me, and I thought “ask not what the year of the Jappening can do for you, but what can you do for the year of the Jappening.” To that question I offer this, a humble foray into the world of sake making.
4/22/2025 — BREW DAY
In my research, I quickly learned some supplies are required. This was initially intimidating and I was very scared of getting out over my skis and walking out of this sake brew with a small laboratory of tubes, funnels and containers that I would never touch again. After compiling my list and doing my shopping at North Mountain Supplies, I’m proud to announce that, all in, I dropped around $70 before shipping and more than half of that on glass bottles and corks which will not need to permanently reside in my dwelling.
Supplies purchased are as follows:
- 375 ml Antique Green Wine Bottles - Case of 12
- Corking Kit - Includes 30 Corks, Shrink Caps, Corker & Bottle Filler
- US Hop Pellets for Home Brew Beer Making
- Red Star Premier Rouge Wine Yeast
- 4 Gallon Graduated Fermenting Bucket with Twin Bubble Airlock
- 16oz StarSan sanitizer
- Cheesecloth
- 5 lbs of Japanese Sushi Rice
- 2 lbs of Koji
Once the supplies arrived, I was ready to tackle the brew. I opted out of the seemingly overcomplicated and nonsensical ‘Shubo’ which involves a small initial batch of rice and koji to get everything started before adding the total quantities, instead of this I just added everything at once to the bucket and closed the lid, which was actually more difficult than it sounds cooking 5 lbs of rice and meticulously sanitizing anything it touches quickly adds up and kept me up well past midnight on brew night.
4/22/2025-5/13/2025 — FERMENTATION
The only labor needed during the fermentation process was taking off the lid and stirring it to incorporate any dry rice/koji into the mixture every couple of days. The sake mixture just sat on top of the fridge and bubbled away for three weeks. This was no problem for me, but was more of a nuisance for Nadia, my roommate and long term fling, who sits next to the sake bucket during the work day and has had to endure 3 weeks of intermittent gurgles.
5/14/2025 — FILTERING
Squeeze too hard and the sake flies out of every hole of the porous cheesecloth, squeeze too soft and you might as well put on a movie because you’ll be milking sake till the sun comes up. I learned that nothing comes easy during the filtering process, and a late night of milking cheesecloths left my fingers pruned and my morale low during the final stretches of sake making.
5/15/2025 — BOTTLING
Home sake making gets really awesome here!! Everything about this day rocks. Taking the first samples of your laborious creation and discovering the surprising and bizarre flavor compounds you have created is a real hoot, but that's just the start. With a cold (or warm) glass of your home brewed sake in hand you get to finally use the exciting ‘corking’ contraption that has been staring you down for weeks, just begging for you to pull on its little levers.
The woosh of putting a cork into a bottle is incredibly satisfying and only becomes more rewarding when you think about the millions of little yeast microorganisms and koji spores that teamed up to get you here.
The overall flavor of my sake is quite unique. It’s really unlike other sake I have tried, which is a good indication that me ignoring crucial steps like the ‘Shubo’ and keeping a fermentation temp under 60° left me with a product very different from real Japanese sake. “Did I drop a lemon in my fermentation bucket” and “Nadia can you come smell this and tell me if it’s normal” are some of the questions I found myself asking during the tastings. But for all my concerns things really came around in the final week of fermentation and I was left with a product that I think shows off the fun diversity of flavors fermentation and koji spores can create. Friends of Glyptodon News can expect a bottle coming your way in the next few weeks, and when it arrives you can look for the following tasting notes in your own bottle.
With rice and koji hailing from the high clouded peaks of Japan:‘ほとんどが保 (Sake By Sippy)’ has a distinctly smooth and velvety mouthfeel, like a wet cloud cresting the peak of mount Fuji Let the smooth texture pour over your lips and into your hot little mouth. Water sourced from the high mountain streams of the Central Valley Region of Northern California creates a distinctly sour taste like a fresh lemon plucked out of a blooming tree. The sake finishes with a subtle smokey flavor like that from the barrel of a Remington 1100 deep in the hill country on a dewey morning in the fall.
Cheers (Kanpai)