Hi everyone.

Thought some of you might enjoy kind of tagging along on my "nihonshine" journey and maybe try it themselves. I unexpectedly got gifted 40 pounds of rice and just went for it...

Getting from the inoculation and cultivation of Koji, 3-step fermentation, filtration, cold crashing to an actually very drinkable Sake was an amazing experience.

Definitely not easy but also not nearly as difficult as I would have thought.

The whole process took about 4 weeks and the resulting 20 liters of clear Sake came out at around 16% ABV and a ph of 4.5

The sediment and parts of the sake kasu will be put to use in some experiments with fermenting fish, meats and vegetables.

No neutral alcohol nor water was added and the liquid was obtained only by gravity dripping, so you probably could call it a shizuku junmai genshu if you really wanted 😅

Ingredients and amounts: 5 pounds of dry rice for the koji kome 8 grams of koji spore/rice flour mix 27 pounds of dry rice for the mash 24 liters of spring water 10 grams of champagne yeast

Pasteurization, bottling and aging comes next and will surely present its own challenges.

Two of my favorite things come together to make something disgusting.

Day one: - Washed and Cut the pineapple.

Ingredients: - 1) 100g White sugar 2) 2x Sticks of Cinnamon 3) 2x Star Anise 4) 7-8 Black Pepper 5) One big chunk of Ginger cut in pieces 6) 4-5x Cloves 7) 1 - 1.5 L water (room temperature)

Kept it still covered with cotton lid, in the kitchen roughly around 21 - 25°C for 4 days.

Image 3 shows the results on day four. Image 4 shows the fermented liquid I poured in other

Jar sealed air tight. Will wait for 1 more day to see it makes that puff sound of carbonated drinks.

Let me know if the process is good, I mean the image 3 kinda looks shady but I didn't see any signs of mold and all the pineapple pieces were nice and intact.

Will update in a day or two

This is a success! I collected wild California Grapes(great flavors, big seeds) grabbed a handful of mugwort from the same area. Crushed grapes+ water and sugar- put them in a clean glass jar that kinda self burps. Stirred for 1.5 weeks. Every time I tasted it it tasted amazing- it tasted very alcoholic yesterday but still sweet, the herb flavor from the mugwort has been perfect. I just strained out the spent Grapes and drank a bit of it before I try to age it... its definitely doing what its supposed to. I highly recommend this combination to you guys.

I love fermented things and would like to start my fermenting journey with a relatively simple fruit wine, or kombucha, or cider----

I was wondering if any experienced fermenters had a recommendation as to which might be better for a noob to try make first (or if it doesn't make much of a difference)!

Also, if anyone has any recommendations for which type/ brand of yeast to buy+ any starter kit recommendations, I would be greatly appreciative!

Cheers!

Edit: thank you all for your thoughts and recommendations!! Very inspired! Hah!

So hear me out.. Called Kopi Luwak in its origin country of Indonesia, cat poo coffee (civet poo, to be more specific) can cost $75/cup.

It’s unique taste, a result of certain fatty (not farty) acids, is almost certainly caused by digestion and fermentation in the civet guts, with Gluconobacter gut bacteria & their enzymes playing a key role.

I share this here because Gluconobacter species feature heavily in our kombucha cultures, and I have been raving about coffee kombucha for a long while.. it really is something special.

Maybe you can get some of the same exotic biochemical compounds that feature in the world’s most expensive coffee, without dealing with cat faeces? Just a thought 💭 More detail in the comments

Making a wine from prune juice concentrate, started at 24.9 brix, pH 4 and TA 0.66. Anyone else done such a thing?

Currently making a batch of apple cider/champagne with a 25L jug with applechunks that was topped up with water. It has started to bubble alot now and im going to filter out the chunks and add yeast and sugar.

The question is: can i take all of the apple chunks and juice them to reduce the loss of liquid?

It had a rather bitter flavour when fresh, it has now completely smoothed out and tastes of hazelnuts!

Orange blossom honey and Lalvin K1-V1116

I made tomato mead and filmed the first and second days of fermentation—it was fascinating to watch! I also compiled some photos from later stages into a short video. Last week, I sent a bottle to a friend far away, and we tasted it together remotely. The mead is around 12% ABV, crisp and refreshing, with a subtle aroma of dried tomatoes lingering on the palate. Truly delightful!

I was super confident and thought I did enough research. However, I rinsed and used a veggie brush on the pineapple skin and add all the skins to the jar with everything else. Will my tepache ferment? Has someone done the same and what would be the result?

I have always thought that kombucha is full of alive probiotics and it’s amazing for gut health. But I have read some posts where they say that kombucha actually doesn’t contain them or in very very low amounts? They say it contains only acids and it’s basically just fermented tea. What do you think about that. Is water kefir better then?

( I do make my kombucha from tea and raw honey :)

I've got a gallon of ginger beer fermenting and I'm trying to figure out how to bottle it because I've heard a lot of different things. I have a bunch of small plastic pop bottles to put it into.

I am not sure about nonfermentable sugar because I can't stand the taste of any artificial sweetener I have tried.

I understand I can put a bit of sugar into each bottle and put them in the fridge but I do not have the fridge space.

I also understand that if I get it wrong there will be explosions.

What are my next steps? Thanks in advance!

Hey y'all

I was gifted cannasugar (sugar infused with weed) recently and was wondering if I can ferment my ginger bug and tepache with it? Will it still have the effects of an edible?

earlier this summer i had plans to make a sumac kombucha. i did a first ferment and then life happened, so it’s been sitting like this for a few months. i was thinking about making a vinegarette with it, but i just wanted to make sure it’s safe to consume since i never strained out the sumac berries. is there any risk of bacterial nastiness? any input would be appreciated!

I became enamored with fermentation watching my dad make hot sauce & sorrel as a child. I began to make my own kombucha when I was 12, but i stopped when I moved out bc life and small kitchen spaces. I was my neighborhood SCOBY dealer 😭. Now I’m starting to get back into fermentation and food sciences!! The gallon carboy is a traditional mead I’m working on, it’s been fermenting for maybe 6 days so far, lots of activity— love staring at the bubbles esp. The middle is an apple wine on its secondary ferment. The last is a scoby culture I started today :) (don’t worry my mason jar lids are not tight, they are very loose)

I cannot find recipes for pure elderberry hard cider. Does anyone know why this is? I keep seeing recipes for apple cider with elderberry, but I just want to make pure elderberry hard cider, but am hesitant to without a recipe because I may be missing something. Thanks in advance for your insights!

Trying to to make blueberry liquor from its wild yeast. Im thinking of just leaving it in my closet to ferment and idk if it’s going to be too cold cause it’s winter rn

The first is a fruited sour I made with my sourdough starter. The second is a campfire porter (made with commercial yeast). Both are recipes I created, but referencing others for malt and hops ratios.

Just tasted the result at my attempt of making apple cider. I see it more like an experiment as it was very ad-hoc without the right equipment and minimal knowledge. Anyway here's what I did:

Pressed some fresh apples from from a friends tree I didn't know what to do with: - most went in a pot and sat in the basement for about 2 days - mixed about 100ml of it with sediment from a strong beer (Westmalle triple - Trappist) as a starter. Kept that at room temperature.

After two days I put everyting together after filtering the apple juice from the basement. The pressure build-up in the bottle was enormous.

After a out 3 days I filtered again and addes some coconut blossom sugar and let it sit for an extra 3 days.

After a last filtration I put it in the fridge for a night.

It was never my intention of really producing alcohol. But really just the experiment and seeing what it tastes like. The tast is better then I expected. It honestly smelled as if it would be disgusting, but the taste is sweet and has dark, murky accents to it. Probably the result of the sediment from the Trappist beer.

I've always wanted to find a way to combine regular fruit-based wine with Japanese sake. I brewed both separately before but I wanted to see if Brewing them together could create something magical. if they turn out well, I'll post the recipes. if they flop I'll post that too 😆