Koji rice gives a pleasing dry, sour characteristic to this fusion beer.
Koji beer is a fusion of eastern and western styles of beer. Sake is generally called a rice wine, but it is in fact more like a beer than wine. It is made using rice and top quality koji, and this formed the ‘Eastern’ element of the brew. When making sake, only rice and koji are used, plus a special yeast that can reach the 18-20% ABV (although it is often diluted down to 15% when sold commercially).
The Western part of the brew was a mash made using extra pale malted barley and Saaz hops. These two elements were blended together and fermented using an American yeast that gives a crisp finish. This is a truly international beer!
The final ABV of the beer was 7.8%, which places it pretty high up in the normal beer ABV range of 3 to 9%. It fermented most of the sugars out to give a fairly dry finish, similar to traditional ciders but without the astringency. This is a very different tasting beer - while it has citrussy notes, it also has another flavour dimension, something that is hard to describe, but is reminiscent of sake. This beer goes well with dishes made using koji, like miso and soy sauce. So it’s perfect for Japanese food.
WHAT IS KOJI?
Koji is made from cooked rice and/or soya beans which has been inoculated with a fermentation culture, Aspergillus oryzae. It’s then left to propagate in a warm, humid place for up to 50 hours. Koji has a rounded and deep, pleasantly funky umami flavour. The enzyme-rich koji is used to make delicious fermented foods, drinks and seasonings like miso, sake, soy sauce, mirin (a sweet rice wine used for cooking), and Shochu (a Japanese distilled spirit made from grains like rice, barley or buckwheat or sweet potatoes). Note that koji does not contain yeasts necessary for fermentation of alcohol.Â
Order koji from umami-chef.co.uk
Batch: 12L
Boil: 12LÂ
ABV: 7.8%
INGREDIENTS
1 kg Flaked rice
2 kg Simpsons Extra Pale Malt
400 g Umami Chef koji
1 packet SafAle US05 Yeast
25 g Saaz, boil, 60 mins
15 g Saaz, boil, 15 mins
10 g Saaz, boil, 5 mins Â
RICE PREPARATION
Wash the rice and then add at least 2 litres of water. Leave to soak in a fridge overnight. Rinse and then boil for 20 minutes. Drain the rice and then leave the rice to cool. Discard the water.
KOJI FERMENTATION
Add the rice and the koji to the nylon bag. Place the tied nylon bag into a 3 gallon fermentation vessel. Cover with 3 litres of cooled, boiled water. Place a lid with an airlock on top and leave at room temperature (21oC) for 4 days. Filter the rice from the liquor. Keep the liquor, you’ve now finished with the rice.
THE BEER
Make the beer with 2kg of Simpsons extra pale malt and Saaz hops in a kettle ready mash at 66oC. I had 15 litres after sparging; after the boil, 9 litres went into the fermenter. The initial gravity of this wort was 1.055.
Add the liquor from the koji (3.3 litres), giving a total volume of about 11 - 12 litres (Note: The initial gravity of the koji liquor was 1.072 and when combined it was 1.063.)
Add SafAle US05 yeast and fit a lid with fermentation lock. Leave to ferment out, about 5 days. (Note: final gravity 1.004). Rack off the beer and add 60g priming sugar before bottling. Leave to condition for 10 weeks.
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