Hi, everyone!
Have you tried making Doburoku ?
The inside of the Doburoku that you made is very busy at this moment to create alcohol.
Once the taste gets drier and you feel enough alcohol, It is the time to stop the fermentation and squeeze it.
The fermentation may be faster than you think. This is the disadvantage of takingthe “easy” and the “fast” way.
If you accidentally made it very very dry
This happened very often for everyone.
For beginners, of course they don’t know how the process goes, so what can we do? It’s OK. Everything is experimental.
In this case, you can just use it for cooking, or try to add some amazake in a container to re-activate the yeast. It’s worth trying.
You don’t know how to make Amazake?
Then try adding a handful of rice koji.
It will change amazingly.
Plus you can try adding your love into the jar…let’s see how it goes🤣
One more advice:
Even if you’re disappointed with the taste of your Doburoku, try to put in the fridge and forget about it. When you discover the Doburoku deep inside of your fridge after a month or so, it may turn interestingly tasty.
It may happen, or not. We never know…
From my experience, I’ve never made a Doburoku so bad that I had to throw it out. I can always use it somehow.
The key here is, “don’t throw it out easily”
Try to think of something! Before you throw it out, let me know!
How to squeeze and filter Doburoku
– Mix the Doburoku well.
– Place a clean cotton cloth (or nuts milk bag) on top of the bowel and pour Doburoku on the cloth/in the milk bag. Squeeze it with your hand.
Do you still think it’s too much work?
Try to use a colander on the top of the bowel instead of a cloth/ bag, pour Doburoku on top, and press the top.
It will be a rough drink, but it will likely be more “cloudy sake”.
The leftover from squeezing is Sakekasu (Sake lees).
I mainly use Sakekasu as a lid when I make miso. Sakekasu protects the miso to connect with the air, so since I started to use Sakekasu as a lid, my miso never gets mould on the top.
When it’s time to open the lid, you will encounter a very tasty Sakekasu on the top of absorbed liquid that came from miso.
You can use this Miso-sakekasu for cooking, or simply mix well with miso.
Other examples using Sakekasu
● Sakekasu + salt = Sakekasu paste. Mix well with spinach (boil, drain, tightly squeeze out the water t, and cut) or any vegetables.
●Sakekasu + miso = base of tsukemono (pickles)
Place cut vegetables in a ziplock with Sakekasu-miso, mush the bag from outside, get the air out, keep it in the fridge overnight (leaf vegetables) or for about a couple of days to a week (root vegetables)
●Sakekasu Miso Paste – As a cracker topping, for dipping, as part of a sauce, etc.
Sakekasu 50g
Shredded Onion – a little
Shredded Garlic – a little
Miso 25g
Soy sauce １tbsp
Sesame oil 1tsp
Honey ２tbsp (or maple syrup if you are vegan)
Just add from the top of the list to the bottom and mix well.
●Sakekasu soup – add sakekasu to any kind of soup.
●Sakekasu butter raisin – Add sakekasu and araisin in a jar, and let it settle for about a week (mix well every day for the first week). You can keep it in the fridge almost forever. Before you use sakekasu raisin, mix it well + butter…which is my favourite.
●Sakekasu Amazake drink – place a sakekasu + water + sugar in a pan, heat up and enjoy.
●You can use sakekasu as a starter of the bread.
Additionla infomation
Since I am low tolerance with alcohol, I’m the one who always uses Doburoku for cooking.
Also, I am not so much a fan of making a dish with alcohol smell/taste, so I don’t need a lot of Sakekasu. You will see how I feel once you started to make Doburoku, but you will get a lot of Sakekasu if you make Doburoku often.
These days, I solve this problem by..“Not filtering the Doburoku!”
I usually place an unfiltered Doburoku in 500ml plastic bottle in a fridge and use it for cooking every day.
Laziest of all, but a very beneficial way to use!
Benefit of Sakekasu
As you may already know, we don’t get any benefit from Koji itself.
We get tons of benefits from the enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and so on that Koji creates.
Did you see the container at the beginning of making Doburoku, it was full of rice from top to bottom. Can you imagine how much enzymes work to break down the rice into liquid? Doburoku itself is full of enzymes!
No wonder the old people use sake as a medicine!
Doburoku has a full of nutrients, which means that the Sakekasu also has a full of nutrients. Better not to waste it.
As I mention earlier, I always emphasize choosing whatever the food that your body wants. Don’t think with your brain, or persuade yourself logically by your knowledge. This is the way to use your 2nd brain, namely guts.
“What do you really want to eat?”
“Do you really feel like to eat?”
even when I ask these questions to patients during acupuncture treatment, there are many people who answers,
“………I don’t know”
This overflown modern life makes people numb.
Let your guts think, not your brain. Listen to your inner voice, what does your body say. To make this happen, taking fermented food to activate guts properly will help you a lot.
Can you imagine how beneficial making fermented food by yourself is? It hugely covers a lot of benefits compared with just talking about nutrition.
Any other idea of using Doburoku itself, filtered sake?
Fist of all, make sure you keep your Doburoku in the fridge.
It will be drier and eventually become vinegar if you leave in a room temperature.
After you filtered the Doburoku and placed it in 3 different bottles, they will all be a different taste. What’s going on in the bottle? Mysterious…
Let me announce this to you again. When you place the filtered Doburoku in the fridge for a while, It may explode when you open it.
Please keep it in a plastic bottle (for pop) and be careful when opening the lid. Spend a lot of time to let the gas out by opening the lid little by little.
-Doburoku is good match with any fruit juice.
-Try warm if your Doburoku is dry, try cold if your Doburoku is sweet.
For Cooking,
-Marinate meat or fish with Doburoku when you buy it from the store. Wash it well and cut the water, place it in a plastic bag and pour Doburoku in it. Instead of getting it rotten, it will ferment.
Doburoku/Sakekasu change the food softer, tastier, more nutrient food.
WORTH TO TRY
-When you start cooking, add oils, stir meat or vegetable, and add Doburoku.
Once it evaporates all of the liquid, there will be no alcohol left, just a full of umami taste remains.
-Then start cooking.
If you add water …a soup!
If you add rice… a stir-fried rice!
If you add tomato sauce… a pasta!
etc.
The key is to add Doburoku at the beginning of your cooking.
– Stew, roasted beef, burgers, any kind of sauce, dressing, even for sweets…Add to everything!!
This is the moment to make fermented food in everyday life. Your habit of taking fermented food is so easy to make it happen.
Besides, you know how cheap it is if you do it by yourself.
This is something that you’re supposed to spend a little time by yourself, and for your important ones in your busy life, and to protect them from many suffers that exists in this world.
I planned this workshop for people who’s been going through a hard time during this quarantine and to make people happy by looking at the bubbling microbes. If this is a good chance for people to know more about fermentation and being able to use this important knowledge to know how to prepare for a future crisis, how amazing is that!?.
This is my last link for this workshop.
Thank you so much for your participation!
I will be happy to hear from you, if you’ve tried making Doburoku.
There are many Japanese Koji Fermentation Advisors in this page, they will be also more than happy to communicate who in interested in anything about koji fermentation.
I will be happy to hear from you if you have tried making Doburoku.
There are many Japanese Koji Fermentation Advisors on this page, and they will be more than happy to communicate who is interested in anything about koji fermentation.
This page is created to make the community of the Japanese koji fermentation in a proper way to spread out, to influence, and to expand our beautiful Japanese culture to the public.
Happy Fermentation!
Shiori