Sake World - How Sake is Made, Ingredients, People

Copyright John Gauntner at Sake-world.com


	Sake is made from but a few ingredients: Rice, Water, Yeast, and a mold known as Koji-kin, or Koji mold. But the land and the guilds of craftsmen are part of the finely wrought expression of sake as well. Here is a bit more about each of these "ingredients," although in truth, each topic could fill tomes with what there is to say.


	THE BREWING PROCESS For a step-by-step review of the brewing process, accompanied by photos of the various brewing stages, please click here.

	THE RICE There are dozens of special rice used to make sake. Growing sake rice is hard and backbreaking work, and inefficient as well from a mass production standpoint. For a description of the rice varieties used to make sake, click here. For an example of a typical rice bag, click here.

	THE WATER Great sake typically comes from small brewers who use special water from nearby mountain streams or hidden underground aquifirs. But how does the water (whether soft or hard, rich or poor in minerals) impact the taste? Click here for an overview.

	THE PEOPLE At the end of the day, the final sake product says as much about the people who make it as the ingredients they use. Click here to learn about the special brewing traditions that smaller brewers continue to use, despite intense competition from mass-producers who use less labor-intensive methods and lower-quality ingredients.

	THE KOJI The magical koji mold is used in sake brewing to break down the starch molecules into sugar molecules that can be used as food by the yeast cells. Click here for more about koji.

THE YEAST	THE YEAST The type of yeast used in the brewing process significantly impacts the flavor and fragrance of the resulting sake. Click here for more about the types of yeast used in sake production.

	LAND & WEATHER What type of terrain and climate is best suited for growing the rice used in sake production? Click here for an overview.

GRAB BAG	GRAB BAG Photos and descriptions of various sake-making machines, curious drinking vessels, and other interesting objects associated with Japanese sake.