1. First, prepare the wheat needed for koji making, then wash it with clear water, clean up the impurities in the wheat, and put it outside to dry the water.

2. After the wheat is dried outside, take it back and crush it with a pulverizer. It doesn't need to be too thin, just about half. If you are in the countryside, you can use that old stone mill.

3. Then soak the yeast in clear water for several hours, then mix it with the crushed wheat and stir it evenly.

4. Lay the hemp rope at the bottom of the curved die, and it must be criss-crossed. Then spread hemp leaves on it, remember to be even, about 6 to 7 layers. The leaves at the bottom should be bigger.

5. Fill the koji mold with raw materials, while filling, press hard to make the koji made of the stirred raw materials more dense. After all the steps are completed, seal it and expose it to the sun, but don't get wet. After waiting for a month or so, the fermentation was successful.

Raw materials of distiller's yeast:

In some places, koji is also called wine cake, medicated koji, or shochu koji, wine cake, etc. It is an essential raw material for brewing rice wine and liquor. In the words of ordinary people, it is the "drug primer" of wine making. Without it, you can't make wine. China's wine-making culture is profound and has a history of thousands of years.

Moreover, since ancient times, the ancients paid attention to local materials, so the raw materials for brewing koji are different from place to place. In some places, the price is simple, and two or three raw materials can make koji. Some places are more complicated, with dozens or even hundreds of raw materials. It takes many processes to produce excellent koji, but the more complicated the koji-making formula, the less known it is now, because many of them have been lost.

In my hometown, there are fewer kinds of raw materials for making koji, ranging from three or four kinds to six or seven kinds. The common ones are Polygonum hydropiper, verbena, vanilla, lophatherum gracile, peach leaves and citrus leaves. Some exquisite old people will also add wormwood, Smilax glabra, mulberry leaves, bamboo leaves, lentil leaves, laurel leaves and licorice. Because the distribution of plants in different places is different, the raw materials for koji making are also different.