September 29

Sake Day Is Coming + A New Brewery

Thursday is Sake Day! If you’d like to know how to celebrate this Japanese holiday, here are a few tips: Read The Passionate Foodie’s recent post all about Sake Day.  If you’re in the MetroWest area, swing by Dion’s in Natick, Newton, or Waltham and pick up a few sake from the selection I curated–all […]

July 31

sake stuff friday: ben bell visit

Lucky to have Ben Bell visit from Nanbu Bijin via Arkansas! We drank our Sake, his Sake…lots of fun! Enjoy this short video of the two of us talking about Sake and the American market

June 05

Sake stuff Friday: simplified homebrewing

There are many methods detailed online and in books showing you how to make Sake at home. Almost all of them attempt to replicate large scale Japanese brewing on a very small scale. However, much like baking, brewing doesn’t always scale exactly as batches get much larger. A tank in a small scale brewery in Japan is […]

May 01

sake stuff friday: shubo tank

this post is totally for the brewing geeks out there. when faced with the job of growing our shubo in a small space, we looked at self contained systems but ultimately settled on constructing one from standard components. it turned out pretty well; the ability to not open the tank to heat or cool, or […]

April 10

sake stuff friday: sake analysis

although we are still a very small brewery that has yet to launch its Sake in New England, we are using good scientific methods to the best of our abilities to keep our Sake high quality and consistent. here is a short video on the analysis that we do.    

March 27

sake stuff friday: color in sake

I was filtering some small batch Sake today and I realized that Sake, which is often depicted as clear and pure, is never really that. It is true, you can use lots of charcoal filtration to strip out color but real Sake has color from a variety of sources.  

January 16

new year and otoso

Celebrating the new year with the traditional spiced Sake, o-toso.

December 26

sake stuff friday: shinkame shuzo & rethinking warm sake

A few weeks ago I was extremely lucky to spend time with a visiting Sake Brewery owner/brewer; Mr. Ogawahara from Shinkame Shuzo in Saitama. Mr. Ogawahara was in Boston to investigate the possibility of selling his Sake in the U.S. The challenge for him is that his Sake has to be served properly warmed. His […]

November 21

sake stuff friday: fune press for homebrewers

I get a lot of questions from homebrewers about the best way to separate the solids from the finished Sake in moromi. We needed to build a small press here for R/D purposes and I found it relatively easy and great to use. I hope this helps some of you in your homebrewing Sake adventures!

October 24

sake stuff friday: shikomi haigo (仕込み配合)

I’m asked a lot about how to make Sake batch recipes. Here is a video on that subject which should help get you started on understanding how a batch of Sake is constructed. For an link to a standard Shikomi Haigo for Sake, click here: http://bit.ly/1wwJ6tj