Rice Wine and Barley Malt Flour

I don’t have an answer to your question, but since you have experience I was wondering if you know if there is any difference between Korean nuruk and enzyme amylase that is commonly available in Brew stores. Of course I am interested in your recipe too! Where do you get your nuruk? When I visited Jeju I tried orange rice wine and I think cactus flower rice wine. Not overly exciting but different.

Nuruk and Koji are basically interchangeable for making sake. There are no less than 3 commonly used varieties of Koji, white, black and yellow.

Koji – history and process

I do not think nuruk can replace koji in the making of sake. That does not mean it will not produce something desirable — it just won’t be sake.

Sake is a highly managed, multi-stage ferment process that requires constant attention around the clock. Koji is added to the brew every few hours. Nuruk is tossed in makgeolli at the beginning and left to ferment in a single stage ferment over several days. Koji cannot be used to make makgeolli. Sake breweries have a cedar lined room maintained at a constant temp and humidity to grow the koji they need as they need it.

Makgeolli is a single-stage ferment because nuruk is a very complex collection of bacteria, mold and yeasts. All effect the flavor, aroma and sweetness of the final product. Enzymes are breaking down the starches into sugar at the same time yeast is changing the sugar into CO2 and alcohol. This is done is separate ferments with beer and sake.

A I said in another post – nuruk is literally the same as dehydrated sourdough bread starter.

Correct, i should have said rice wine instead of sake. Either can be used to break down the starch into sugar. Many people just use yeast balls which contain both the “enzymes” and the yeast also.

Im curious which one is used to make Korean Cheongui.

I just started a test batch using Maangchi’s recipe. Ive made several Chinese rice wines lately but i wanted to try using Nuruk.

The only change i made was using Lalvin K1-V1116 yeast and keeping it as cool as possible during the fermentation. This yeast is very cold tolerant and can produce a very high alcohol content.

After just one night it is bubbling away like mad and the rice is breaking down very very fast.

Hey, thanks for the mention of Lalvin yeast! I looked it up on the web. I have a pkg of Lalemand’s Nottingham ale yeast I was going to use. Now I wish I had a wine or Champaign yeast like you have – it would have greater tolerance to the alcohol. Distiller’s yeast is the most alcohol tolerant, yields a beverage with 22% alcohol or more. Why are you going for a cool fermentation instead of room temp?

Sometimes cooler temps help reduce the sourness from lactobacillus. It is at room temp but my basement room temp is in the lower 60s. The first 24-36hours i start my rice wines in the warmest part of the house to speed up saccharification.

It didn’t seem to help much with this batch. So i added rice syrup and racked it off into a secondary with an airlock. This yeast is not lactic acid tolerant and it appears to have stopped fermented now.

It was an experiment more than anything else. I much prefer typical rice wines made with Angel Rice Leaven or red yeast rice and yeast balls. The Angle Rice Leaven makes a delicious drunken rice porridge in just a few days.