This show compares Korean Makgeolli 막걸리, Japanese Nihonshu sake, and Chinese wine making. You can watch it free with Amazon Prime.
Most interesting to me were the parts dealing with makgeolli.
Here are the highlights:
They showed some famous malt makers in Sanseong Village, Geumjeong-ju, Busan.
They poured boiling water over wheat, mixed it, then dumped it on a tarp on the floor. They then stepped on the wheat mixture to press it into a form and flatten it out. They then took the cakes to a fermentation/malt room that had shelves covered with bamboo mats. It seemed like there were dirt floors. Then a cotton or burlap looking cloth was put on top of the cakes. The fermentation is said to have gone well when a creamy yellow mold grows on it (not black).
Someone else said earlier in the show that the malt should stick to your hands with not too much water. And it should be pressed into a frame so that there were no bubbles.
This really is a stark contrast to the sterile seeming environment that they showed the mold (koji) for Nihonshu being made in.
They also showed Sanseong Makgeolli Brewery also in Sanseong Village.
There they 1) pulverized malt into chucks. 2) Added water and let it ferment one day (no rice yet!) 3) Added cooled steamed rice into a big steel tub. The fermentation was said to take 15 days depending on the season.
