SAKE

Lately I have been reading a lot about how Sake (Sa-ke) is made. Sake is a Japanese alcoholic drink made from fermented rice. Sake is known as Japanese rice wine around the world. There is so much of information available on the internet regarding sake brewing. It was interesting to sharpen my knowledge about Sake.

In honorific Japanese it is referred to as O-sake. Actually sake refers to alcoholic drinks in general. In Japan, Japanese rice wine is known as 'nihonshu'.

It can be served cold, lukewarm or hot. Sake is usually drunk in small porcelain cups or wooden box like cups but now there are different ways of serving it. It can be served straight or can be used in cocktails now.

There are pasteurized sakes and those that are not.  Sake can also be used in cooking, sauces and marinades.There are various varieties of sake. For instance Junmai Diginjo-shu, Junmai Ginjo-shu, Junmai-shu etc. Junmai Daiginjo-shu is a very special brew of pure rice with rice polishing ratio of below 50 %.  Junmai Ginjo-shu's rice polishing ratio is below 60% and Junmai-shu's is below 70%.

 Sake is produced by a brewing process which may be similar to that of beer yet very different. Rice is used in case of sake instead of barley which is fermented to make beer.  Sake is called rice wine and is compared to beer at times. But Sake is a unique type of fermented alcohol. Sake would be the only beverage in the world using koji. Koji is one of the key ingredients in sake brewing.  Basically there are five elementsinvolved in brewing Sake-

Water, Rice, Yeast, Land, Weather and Technical Skill

I would like to talk about the Sake brewing process at length sometime. To summarize Sake is a result of brewing process that uses lots of water and rice-

1. Polished Rice is washed, soaked and steam cooked without water. Steam is brought through the bottom of the rice. The steaming method is called 'koshiki'.

2. Then the rice is mixed with yeast and 'koji' (rice cultivated with a mold).

3. The whole mix is allowed to ferment with more rice/koji/water added in 3 batches over 4 days.

Fermentation occurs in a large tank (the process is called 'shikomi'...the quality of rice, the degree to which koji mold has propagated, temperature variations and other factors are different for each shikomi) .There are different methods of fermentation.  

4. This mash ('moromi') is allowed to sit from 18-32 days after which it is pressed ('joso'), filtered ('roka') and blended.

[ SAKE BREWING PROCESS :  POLISHING  RICE (Seimai)-->  WASHING & SOAKING--> STEAMING (koshiki) & COOLING--> KOJI MAKING(seigiku)--> YEAST STARTER (moto)--> MASH (moromi)-rice/water/koji added in 3 stages over 4days --> PRESSING(joso)--> FILTRATION(roka)--> PASTEURIZATION--> AGING/MATURING ]