Yes please do book 2. I need a book focused on cooking with bread since it’s too easy to accumulate extra loaves. I’d also like the book to include bread go-with recipes since it seems half the recipes I cook from ATK are authored by you. There’s no way to search specifically for you on the ATK app hence the need for another book.
If you haven't made any koji yourself yet definitely try it out -- if you got a decent source of spores it's very easy, and the fresh koji smells amazing :)
This is great! Thanks for the info. I have been as curious as ypu probably since that post, but summer isn’t much of a baking time for me. However, doing starters is another matter. May need another fridge 🤣
Hi Andrew I made some this morning using a recipe on sourdough.com, wish I could send a picture it worked much better then any wheat starter one I’ve ever made 😂
Hi Andrew! Thank you for all of these notes- I have been intrigued with sakadane for a while now. I am wondering when you made the Shokupain de mie referencing your recipe if you included the instant yeast? I would like to try it! Emma
Emma - Hey there. The sakadane version was very different than the yeasted one, no yeast, and no scald. I'm afraid I don't really have time to write up a full formula and procedure right now, but I plan to someday!
The reason why, as Kirstin notes in her piece, that the older way of making this type of a starter for baking is fading rapidly is that it's just not a sustainable practice. Especially in terms of cost. The name sakadane harkens back to an ancient Japan that had yet to adopt the Chinese kanji for their language so the Kunyomi reading "Saka" is used instead of sake, and "dane" is used instead of tane. Tane as in tane koji (the seeds or spores of koji used to make more on a new substrate) or tane miso (a bolus of microbes from a small amount of an existing batch of miso that is often added to seed a new batch) is used as a type of word elision based on inconsistent rules.
But KIrsten also makes a revealing point about why sometimes the koji used at the old school type bakeries - there are maybe 3 remaining in Japan that make their starters that way - is inoculated at a lower temperature, and not used fresh when the microbiome would contain way more than Aspergillus. Basically what they are doing is making what's called a shubo for an older style of sake, like a Yamahai or Kimoto, that historically had way more umami that the current way popular sake brands are made using the san dan jikomi method (adding cooked rice, koji, and water three times at a certain temperature).
This is a good thing if you are using grains other than polished rice that is almost purely starch. I've never heard of a sake maker that added yeast more than once however to their moromi. That's what you are calling sake. It's not yet sake. It's still reallly a shubo, technically, and sometime it might be used to make a new batch of sake, preserving the flavor and organoleptic outcomes of a particular batch of sake, or preserving a closely guarded sake yeast (rarely if never just one species of Saccaromyces) of a certain brewery.
For baking, however, I think the best starters always have wheat in them during the shubo making. But again, as Kirsten mentioned, the purported rise in gluten intolerance is Japan may be pushing some bakeries to use all rice, even in the dough. All of this is so niche in terms of modern ways of creating what is now considered to be a sakadane starter. And definitely for sake. And even doboroku, a rougher type of rice alcohol that could become sake one day. But then it would be illegal to make in Japan.
Most bakers - especially home bakers - will take unpasteurized amazake and let wild yeasts get at it for a few days. Or, they will buy some of the amazing dehydrated sakadane starters that just need about 24 hours to be up and running, unlike a sourdough starter that's been unfed for a week or even two days.
The Angel Brand, as well as the AKO brands are especially commonly used, with the Hoshino brand - my favorite for the lazy times, as well as for combining with different wheat types for taste variations - relegated to Singapore and Hong Kong because the yeast cartel in Japan is virtually impenetrable, and technically you can just buy an actual sake yeast.
In the US get Wyeast #9 (or possibly #7) and make a liquid starter at 22C - no sugar, just cooked grains - that you can keep refrigerated for a very long time.
I think the ancient sakadane culture technique is really just an attempt to preserve a tradition that has already been replaced. The way that my friend Haruko san of The Koji Fermenteria in London makes it is really the new sakadane starter method (https://thekojifermenteria.com/koji-sourdough-bread/) and it is very much a sourdough starter due to the presence of lactic and acetic acid producing bacteria.
I would caution, however, that making the starter should never exceed 22C/71F, no hard water with calcium or magnesium just like with sake brewing, then refrigerating for a week or two if you can keep the temp very cold. Same as with sake, the flavors will develop into a complex mix with typically a floral array. When baked off alcohols will contribute way more to the esters than the esterst are typically created when using other starters that might be solely S.cerevisiae.
The best starters also have R.oryzae in addition to to A.oryzae, making a lower temperature preferable in my experience.
The powdered starters almost always have both wheat and additional fungal or bacterial derived enzymes along with specific koji grown for hyphae length that work wonders with unpolished grains in sakadane based breads.
Quite clever of Andrew to have used a miso oriented koji, but I would have used some cooked wheat to really take advantage of the additional cellulases and hemicelluloses that were created in that koji rice for that purpose. But, if you're going to do it that way, don't retard more than 12 hours as the wheat will get broken down quickly when fed.
In fact, my preference is to autolyse my dough with salt for up to 24 hours at room temp. Add the wheat and rice sakadane starter, 65% hydration (more water means more enzymatic activity), salt at 2% in the autolyse, 4 folds over 2 hours, shape, proof 2 hours, score and throw in the oven.
Can you see why a baker might want to do it that way?
All the gluten free bakers (that also bake with wheat) will just use lees from a doboroku, or fresh or frozen sake lees from the store or from a local sake brewer (lots of videos in our archives on this).
The wildest part of this to me is that the flavor of the bread after shaping improves when frozen. Lots of research has been done on this, some of which is covered in an upcoming blog post about how all of this isn't really Japanese in origin, and didn't use rice at all until a few hundred years ago.
Which raises the question of whether or not the old school bakers were also drinking their starters, and whether they had to pay sake taxes.
Some of that is covered in Haruko san's article, regarding the arrival of bread to Japan, and why rice was ever used in the first place. I used some of the same references in my upcoming article. She cites the Portuguese as thye reason. I disagree.
But try her direct adding of rice based sakadane starter at 10% to your next bread. You can avoid the subtle cheesecake esters by using different brans and whole grains. Ken (not sharing to Notes because other people are mentioned, a hard learned lesson when someone pimped one of my posts by putting an advert for some Netflix series she was producing on it). AltGrain, CulturesGroup and KojiFest is where the post will appear.
I might be late to the game, but I have been doing a deep-dive on sakadane and I have some insights as to why your gluten didn't form well. You are probably right in suspecting the protease from the koji. If you try it again, I would recommend filtering the liquid out of the starter, and not using the koji pieces. I suspect even that your koji could be the culprit - if it's miso koji, it's possible its protease content is high. For my sakadane, I make koji that has more amylase. If you ever want to try the experiment again, I recommend finding koji for amazake, that would be ideal!
I might be late to the game, but I have been doing a deep-dive on sakadane and I have some insights as to why your gluten didn't form well. You are probably right in suspecting the protease from the koji. If you try it again, I would recommend filtering the liquid out of the starter, and not using the koji pieces. I suspect even that your koji could be the culprit - if it's miso koji, it's possible its protease content is high. For my sakadane, I make koji that has more amylase. If you ever want to try the experiment again, I recommend finding koji for amazake, that would be ideal!
Yes please do book 2. I need a book focused on cooking with bread since it’s too easy to accumulate extra loaves. I’d also like the book to include bread go-with recipes since it seems half the recipes I cook from ATK are authored by you. There’s no way to search specifically for you on the ATK app hence the need for another book.
Very interesting! I'm curious ... does the rice taste from the starter come out through into the baked bread?
Nope. There is very little rice in the bread, and its flavor is pretty subtle to begin with.
If you haven't made any koji yourself yet definitely try it out -- if you got a decent source of spores it's very easy, and the fresh koji smells amazing :)
This is great! Thanks for the info. I have been as curious as ypu probably since that post, but summer isn’t much of a baking time for me. However, doing starters is another matter. May need another fridge 🤣
Hi Andrew I made some this morning using a recipe on sourdough.com, wish I could send a picture it worked much better then any wheat starter one I’ve ever made 😂
right?!
I have always been fascinated with koji, thank you so much for sharing this 🙏🙏
Hi Andrew! Thank you for all of these notes- I have been intrigued with sakadane for a while now. I am wondering when you made the Shokupain de mie referencing your recipe if you included the instant yeast? I would like to try it! Emma
Emma - Hey there. The sakadane version was very different than the yeasted one, no yeast, and no scald. I'm afraid I don't really have time to write up a full formula and procedure right now, but I plan to someday!
The reason why, as Kirstin notes in her piece, that the older way of making this type of a starter for baking is fading rapidly is that it's just not a sustainable practice. Especially in terms of cost. The name sakadane harkens back to an ancient Japan that had yet to adopt the Chinese kanji for their language so the Kunyomi reading "Saka" is used instead of sake, and "dane" is used instead of tane. Tane as in tane koji (the seeds or spores of koji used to make more on a new substrate) or tane miso (a bolus of microbes from a small amount of an existing batch of miso that is often added to seed a new batch) is used as a type of word elision based on inconsistent rules.
But KIrsten also makes a revealing point about why sometimes the koji used at the old school type bakeries - there are maybe 3 remaining in Japan that make their starters that way - is inoculated at a lower temperature, and not used fresh when the microbiome would contain way more than Aspergillus. Basically what they are doing is making what's called a shubo for an older style of sake, like a Yamahai or Kimoto, that historically had way more umami that the current way popular sake brands are made using the san dan jikomi method (adding cooked rice, koji, and water three times at a certain temperature).
This is a good thing if you are using grains other than polished rice that is almost purely starch. I've never heard of a sake maker that added yeast more than once however to their moromi. That's what you are calling sake. It's not yet sake. It's still reallly a shubo, technically, and sometime it might be used to make a new batch of sake, preserving the flavor and organoleptic outcomes of a particular batch of sake, or preserving a closely guarded sake yeast (rarely if never just one species of Saccaromyces) of a certain brewery.
For baking, however, I think the best starters always have wheat in them during the shubo making. But again, as Kirsten mentioned, the purported rise in gluten intolerance is Japan may be pushing some bakeries to use all rice, even in the dough. All of this is so niche in terms of modern ways of creating what is now considered to be a sakadane starter. And definitely for sake. And even doboroku, a rougher type of rice alcohol that could become sake one day. But then it would be illegal to make in Japan.
Most bakers - especially home bakers - will take unpasteurized amazake and let wild yeasts get at it for a few days. Or, they will buy some of the amazing dehydrated sakadane starters that just need about 24 hours to be up and running, unlike a sourdough starter that's been unfed for a week or even two days.
The Angel Brand, as well as the AKO brands are especially commonly used, with the Hoshino brand - my favorite for the lazy times, as well as for combining with different wheat types for taste variations - relegated to Singapore and Hong Kong because the yeast cartel in Japan is virtually impenetrable, and technically you can just buy an actual sake yeast.
In the US get Wyeast #9 (or possibly #7) and make a liquid starter at 22C - no sugar, just cooked grains - that you can keep refrigerated for a very long time.
I think the ancient sakadane culture technique is really just an attempt to preserve a tradition that has already been replaced. The way that my friend Haruko san of The Koji Fermenteria in London makes it is really the new sakadane starter method (https://thekojifermenteria.com/koji-sourdough-bread/) and it is very much a sourdough starter due to the presence of lactic and acetic acid producing bacteria.
I would caution, however, that making the starter should never exceed 22C/71F, no hard water with calcium or magnesium just like with sake brewing, then refrigerating for a week or two if you can keep the temp very cold. Same as with sake, the flavors will develop into a complex mix with typically a floral array. When baked off alcohols will contribute way more to the esters than the esterst are typically created when using other starters that might be solely S.cerevisiae.
The best starters also have R.oryzae in addition to to A.oryzae, making a lower temperature preferable in my experience.
The powdered starters almost always have both wheat and additional fungal or bacterial derived enzymes along with specific koji grown for hyphae length that work wonders with unpolished grains in sakadane based breads.
Quite clever of Andrew to have used a miso oriented koji, but I would have used some cooked wheat to really take advantage of the additional cellulases and hemicelluloses that were created in that koji rice for that purpose. But, if you're going to do it that way, don't retard more than 12 hours as the wheat will get broken down quickly when fed.
In fact, my preference is to autolyse my dough with salt for up to 24 hours at room temp. Add the wheat and rice sakadane starter, 65% hydration (more water means more enzymatic activity), salt at 2% in the autolyse, 4 folds over 2 hours, shape, proof 2 hours, score and throw in the oven.
Can you see why a baker might want to do it that way?
All the gluten free bakers (that also bake with wheat) will just use lees from a doboroku, or fresh or frozen sake lees from the store or from a local sake brewer (lots of videos in our archives on this).
The wildest part of this to me is that the flavor of the bread after shaping improves when frozen. Lots of research has been done on this, some of which is covered in an upcoming blog post about how all of this isn't really Japanese in origin, and didn't use rice at all until a few hundred years ago.
Which raises the question of whether or not the old school bakers were also drinking their starters, and whether they had to pay sake taxes.
Some of that is covered in Haruko san's article, regarding the arrival of bread to Japan, and why rice was ever used in the first place. I used some of the same references in my upcoming article. She cites the Portuguese as thye reason. I disagree.
But try her direct adding of rice based sakadane starter at 10% to your next bread. You can avoid the subtle cheesecake esters by using different brans and whole grains. Ken (not sharing to Notes because other people are mentioned, a hard learned lesson when someone pimped one of my posts by putting an advert for some Netflix series she was producing on it). AltGrain, CulturesGroup and KojiFest is where the post will appear.
What's a gang of rabbit holers called? A fluffle?
I might be late to the game, but I have been doing a deep-dive on sakadane and I have some insights as to why your gluten didn't form well. You are probably right in suspecting the protease from the koji. If you try it again, I would recommend filtering the liquid out of the starter, and not using the koji pieces. I suspect even that your koji could be the culprit - if it's miso koji, it's possible its protease content is high. For my sakadane, I make koji that has more amylase. If you ever want to try the experiment again, I recommend finding koji for amazake, that would be ideal!
I might be late to the game, but I have been doing a deep-dive on sakadane and I have some insights as to why your gluten didn't form well. You are probably right in suspecting the protease from the koji. If you try it again, I would recommend filtering the liquid out of the starter, and not using the koji pieces. I suspect even that your koji could be the culprit - if it's miso koji, it's possible its protease content is high. For my sakadane, I make koji that has more amylase. If you ever want to try the experiment again, I recommend finding koji for amazake, that would be ideal!