Making amazake is perhaps the most overt example of saccharification that I've ever witnessed.
Take some cooked rice, blend it with koji (about 2:1 by volume), embrace them in warmth (100-140F), and in less than half of a day the koji will have efficiently digested the rice's starch, converting it into simple sugars. The result is stunningly sweet and full of character.
Traditionally, amazake is used as a sweetener or blended with hot water and served as a warm drink, but I'm just starting to investigate its potential in other arenas.
Recent Comments