Here is a method for making amazake using a low-temperature cooker. You can easily make delicious amazake with this method.
- Ingredients: Makes 1 liter
- Cooked rice: 200g
- Dried rice koji: 200g
- Water: 600g
- (For dried koji, use a 1:1:3 ratio. For fresh koji, reduce the water to a 1:1:2 ratio.)
- Instructions:
- Place the cooked rice, rice koji, and water in a ziplock bag.
- Cook at 63 degrees Celsius for 6 hours using a low-temperature cooker.
- Tips:
- We use the Iris Ohyama LTC-01 low-temperature cooker, which costs about ¥10,000.
- The taste of the cooked rice doesn’t seem to change whether it’s freshly cooked or frozen. We freeze leftover rice and use it for amazake. It’s easy to use because you can put it in frozen. If you prefer amazake without the texture of rice, making it into porridge works well.
- Rice koji was cheapest at the wholesale supermarket near us (¥800 for 1kg). There are two types of koji, dried and fresh. Fresh koji contains more water, so when using the above measurements, the consistency is more watery. We use a 1:1:2 ratio when using fresh koji. Sometimes we buy fresh koji at a local roadside station, and it’s interesting how the flavor varies depending on the koji.
- You can also make your own rice koji. (I’ll write an article about it soon.)
- Experiment with the ratios of these three ingredients to find your preferred amazake.