I learned about Kuchikami from videos by Beau Timken (Sake Master), Moyashimon (anime), and from my research going into sake and its history.
(moyashimon microbes)
So, anyways, the first thing I did was brush my teeth. Then, I walked into my college dinning commons got big plates of long-grain brown rice. I chewed it until it was a goopy consistency and let it fall out of my mouth (it's pretty difficult to spit). This takes a surprisingly long time. I felt so full afterwords...
But, I did this a couple times to simulate "feeding" my sake, like a mother bird in the nest with her young. It didn't seem to be bubbling readily, so I added a small piece of bread. This was in an open-topped (just a paper towel), wide-mouth, plastic container.
After that it did begin to bubble. I stirred it with a knife occasionally. When it bubbled, it rose a lot because it was so thick and the bubbles would get trapped by the rice. This is why I was so worried about overflow in my sake, which ALMOST overflowed (it kissed the top of the bucket).
Anyway, I let the kuchikami sit out at room temperature for a couple weeks. Then I started to move it in and out of the refrigerator. Finally, I just let it sit at room temperature for a few days.
I knew it would be bad. I took it and squatted down in front of a toilet with a spoon. This time I really did end up spitting it out, rinsing, using mouth wash, brushing my teeth, and spitting some more.
Taste:
It was soo sour. It was unbearable. I think that the lactobacillus spp. and acetobacter spp. (and some other wild microbes) were probably having a party in there, munching on my munched rice.
One of my unfulfilled goals is to take this traditional method and use a yeast starter, airlock, and temperature control to produce a "good" kuchikami no sake, but I don't know who'd drink it.
Importantly, doing this introduced me to shear amount of labor needed to produce sake.
My finished koji-fermented sake probably took like 50+ hours worth of labor.
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