Sake yeasts in Melbourne?

[afromaiko]

Hi,

I'm trying to track down some Sake yeast in Melbourne. Either Wyeast Sake #9, the Maurivin 'Mauriake Fuji' or 'Mauriake Sakura' varieties, or any other similar products. Does anyone know of somewhere that stocks these down here?

I've been to a few shops and also emailed a few places but no luck. However I did get one helpful email from NNL who can get in the Sake #9 so I will end up ordering online from them if I can't find it locally.

I contacted the AB Mauri distributor here (recommended from their website) and they don't stock it. Despite having a great looking site with lots of helpful info on their Maurivin etc yeasts, I tried emailing them direct a week ago and never got a reply.

Any help much appreciated.

Afromaiko

[Cortez The Killer]

have you been able to source any Kome-koji??

I had a look around on the net and couldn't find any in Australia

Cheers

[afromaiko]

Hi Cortez,

I just received an email from Grain & Grape in Yarraville, Melbourne and they are happy to order in the Wyeast Sake #9 for me although like NNL it will take a few weeks to get in.

I have got some Kome-Koji sitting in my freezer at the moment. Two of the three major Japanese supermarkets here in Melbourne stocked it. The one that didn't stock it told me that it was impossible to import here so don't believe that line if you get told it.

I ended up getting it from Fujimart here in Melbourne, it was roughly $6 for 200gms, so I needed two packs to make Vision Brewing's basic recipe (have you seen the Vision site?). It was in the freezer and in square blocks the same shape as the 2 minute noodles you get from the supermarket. The front had a see-thru panel.

I believe that Fujimart have a store in NSW too, but it's called Tokyomart instead. I just asked for 'koji' and they instantly knew what I was talking about.

Tokyo Mart
(02) 9958 6860
83 Sailors Bay Road, Northbridge, 2063

My first batch turned out sour so next time I'm going to make a half batch while I am experimenting. I think the main problem was I should have fermented it at a much lower temperature, probably low teens. I don't have a spare fridge to use and it's been really hot here lately. Next time I'm going to use a stainless stock pot and put that in an esky surrounded by ice to make about 3 litres. I used champagne yeast, at around room temp here 22 deg.. It also has a champagne taste to it, so I'd steer clear of that yeast again.

You also might find this site interesting.

Jeremy's Sake Brewing

After a few dud batches he is having success with a high gravity trappist ale yeast I think.

One final thing you may be also interested in.. I've been researching how to make Japanese clone beers and found out about rice malt syrup. You can get it in Coles in the health food section at about $4 for 500gms and I picked some up last night. Apparantly it's marketed as a honey substitute for vegans. Although I'm going to use it for the beer, I'm wondering if it could be used in place of (or in addition to) the Kome-Koji when making sake. Something to ponder...

Good luck with your search, and be sure to let me know how you get on!

Cheers,
Afromaiko

[Cortez The Killer]

have you tried culturing the koji as detailed here?

http://brewery.org/library/sake_MH0796.html

[afromaiko]

No I haven't tried cultivating my own. I didn't find anywhere to get the spores locally, so figured if I had to order it from OS then I may as well just use the premade stuff instead. I'm not sure how it goes importing that through customs but would like to find out about it.

I also thought that the premade stuff has probably been grown with a more suitable rice than I could find. I'm currently using Koshihikari table rice and once I can sort this out I've got some Akita Komachi that I'll try. Most short grain Japanese table rices have been polished to about 80% of their orig size which is ok. Although specialty sake rices would be somewhere down around 50%.

I do have some thoughts on how to polish rice more, possibly using a rock polishing machine. I read a site where a guy used his tumble dryer and taped place mats over the holes, threw the rice in with some small fish tank rocks and apparantly it worked well. I'm not game to go that far just yet!