and what they tell you…

Sake brewing today has become very scientific. But long ago, before the days of thermometers, hydrometers, and barometers, brewers relied entirely on their five senses to gauge the progress of a fermenting tank of sake. As a curious side note, one toji told me that they compared the accuracy of some of the old school guys to that of modern instruments, and that the old toji of yesteryear were just as accurate as the modern equipment. Not sure this has been scientifically documented, but it is a great anecdote.

Although they might not have known the scientific causes for the phenomena they were observing, experience and intuition (there it is again!) told them how to interpret what they saw, tasted and smelled. One of the most reliable of these empirical yardsticks – and one that is still used today – is the appearance of the foam on the top of the moromi (fermenting mash).

Throughout the 18 to 35 day ferment, the foam will change appearance quite regularly, and very clearly reflect what is taking place inside the tank. Over the centuries, names were given to the foam at each stage that made it easy to assess and convey the status of the work in progress.

After the yeast starter has been created, and after the three additions of water, rice and koji over four days have been completed, foam will begin to develop as the yeast cells process the sugars in the tank, and give off carbon dioxide. This will rise to the surface, often still attached to the yeast cells. This is why the foam has two and a half times as many yeast cells in it as the liquid beneath.

Two or three days into the ferment, small striations will appear on the surface, similar to taught muscle under skin; hence the term suji-awa (fibrous foam). Next, a think layer of soft foam will begin to cover the entire tank; this is known as mizu-awa (water foam).

The timing of these changes of course depends on a myriad of factors, such as how much the rice has been milled, and the temperature of the tank. But soon after this the ferment will enter its most active stage, and foam will rise in great swaths, so that it looks like huge rocks tumbling over each other. This is known as iwa-awa (rock foam).

This continues into the highest stage of foam, known as taka-awa, with the bubbles themselves at this stage being very small and fine. This usually occurs about the tenth day or so, but there is great variation depending on a plethora of factors.

The foam rises so high that brewers usually rig a simple rig consisting of a piece of wire that gently spins on a motor with the sole purpose of gradually beating down the foam as it rises. This spares them the need for extremely high-walled tanks. It also aids in sanitation, as one of the greatest sources of sake-spoiling bacteria is foam that has dried on the inside of the tank.

As the fermentation begins to wane, the foam too falls back, leading to the stage known as ochi-awa (falling foam). This segues into a stage with very large, soapy-looking bubbles known as tama-awa (ball foam).

After this foam, too, fades away, the surface of the moromi is referred to as ji, or ground. This stage has many sub-conditions with their own names. Small wrinkles in the surface are referred to as chiri-men (a type of rough cloth). A totally smooth surface is known as bozu, in reference to the shaved head of a priest. If rice solids that did not ferment have risen to the surface, it may look like a lid is on the moromi, and this is referred to as futa (lid).

Much can be told about the quality of the sake at this stage from observing this surface. For example, if the lid is thick, it indicates that a significant amount of wild yeast ended up in the moromi and survived.

This is because the fibers in rice tend to attach themselves to many types of wild yeast, and rice to the surface when pulled by the carbon dioxide molecules, giving that thick-lidded appearance. Brewers know, then, that a thick-lidded moromi in its final stages will often lead to a sake that is rough, acidic and less refined.

Naturally, today these observations are combined with chemical measurements such as acidity, residual sugar, and temperature to create the precise and wonderful flavor profile for they aim. But back in the day, the appearance of the foam was an important tool for brewers in assessing just when a sake was ready.

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This article originally appeared in the April 15 issue of Sake Industry News. 

Amongst the many steps of the sake brewing process, some are more glamorous than others, and that therefore garner more attention. “Koji-making” and “yeast starter” sound so much more romantic than “milling the rice.” As such it becomes easy to dismissively abridge the more mundane-sounding processes, and even more so when modern machines do a much better job than hassle-laden traditional hand-crafted methods.

And rice milling is the epitome of this. We usually say, “first, they mill the rice…” and move on to the more glamorous steps. But that belies how incredibly important milling is. One could say it is the most important step, since if the rice is not milled well – if there are lots of cracked or broken grains as one example – then the rest of the processes will not proceed well and the resulting sake will suffer.

Why, again, do they mill the rice? The objective is to remove fat and protein from the outside of the rice grains while leaving the starch in the middle intact, and doing this in such a way that the rice grains do not crack or break. Protein and fat can give character to sake, but they are usually viewed as the cause of rougher flavors. And avoiding cracking and breaking while milling is important so as to let the microorganisms used in the process to do what they need to do effectively and predictably.

From eons ago, rice in Japan has been milled a bit before being consumed. But really, only the outer eight to ten percent is milled away; that is enough to significantly improve the way it tastes. Long ago rice was milled using using grinding stones, often driven by water wheels when available. But this was rough, and only the very outer portion (that eight to ten percent) could be milled away.

In 1896, the company Satake, located in Hiroshima, developed automatic milling machines that made all that much easier. And that company grew into the largest rice milling machine company in the world, which they remain today. In the 1930s, Satake went on to develop special milling machines to mill rice especially for sake brewing. These employed harder milling stones that were much larger, and through these developments brewers were able to mill the rice much farther then ever before. This technology led to higher and higher milling rates, and eventually, the advent of ginjo-shu.

So for a long while, it was all about Satake. But note, the company’s bread and butter (or rice and pickles, as it were) was machines for table rice, a market they dominate today as well. But there are other milling machine producers, and many have come and gone. Today, the other main company that makes rice milling machines is Shin-Nakano. Both are great companies, and both continue to make their presence felt.

Shin-Nakano, while a much smaller producer of milling machines, is part of larger holding company that owns other sake industry businesses, including a couple of sake breweries as well. And they have maintained plenty of relevance by focusing on craft breweries, and offering plenty of added value, in the form of research with backed by proper scientific methods that has from time to time gone against what has been common sense in the industry. For this and other reasons, many sake brewers stick with Shin-Nakano machines, and they are quite visible in the sake world.

But beyond the machines themselves and their producers, there are developments that start out as ideas in the minds of brewers and such, and eventually work their way into the technology. One of those is what is called Henpei Seimai, or flat milling.

In order to grasp Henpei Seimai, remember that rice grains are not round, but are oblong, kind of like a rugby ball, and the starch center known as a shinpaku within is also basically of that shape. And like many of us human beings, there is much more meat around the midsection than at the top or bottom. This “meat” in sake rice is fat and protein. But when milling machines mill, they take the rugby-ball-shape and make it round by milling evenly everywhere around the grain. This means that, when milling is done, there is more fat and protein around the sides of the shinpaku then at the ends.

If they could somehow maintain the oblong shape and mill more around the midsection then at the top or bottom, a higher ratio of fat and protein could be removed. This idea was proposed about thirty years ago by Mr. Tomio Saito, a former Chief Official Appraiser at the Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau.

And it worked! The concept was embraced by Daischichi brewery in Fukushima, and others followed soon after that, and Henpei Seimai was born. (Actually, Daishichi takes it a bit further and calls it Cho-henpei Seimai, or “Super Flat Milling.” You can learn more about that here.)

Henpei Seimai does not call for special milling machines. It just calls for modifying and jury-rigging older machines, a lot of skill and a ton of patience on the part of the miller. But basically things are tweaked so that the rice grains fall in fewer numbers against the milling stone, and maintain a vertical orientation as they do. This means that more gets nicked off the sides each time than the top or bottom, and the henpei seimai goal is achieved. So anyone with the requisite skill and experience can do it, it just takes longer, and uses more energy as well.

This is obviously appealing to most brewers: remove a higher percentage of fat and protein with less milling. But since it is a hassle, most brewers do not do it. Yet, amongst those that do, Shin Nakano seems to be the machine of choice, (although that is based on observation and word on the street rather than hard statistics).

However: Satake came back into the mix by recently developing a new milling machine that can do Henpei Seimai, but without all the little adjustments that are normally called for. No mess, no stress. Just select “henpei” and it works. It does it faster as well, and uses less energy in doing so.

But they also took it a step further: Satake developed a slightly different milling outcome that they call Genkei Seimai. Genkei means “original shape,” and as can be surmised from the name, it purports to mill the rice in such a way that it ends up closer to the original shape than normal round milling or Henpei Seimai. The result is that there is more fat around the middle than Henpei, but less than regular milling. However, there is less cracking and breaking since the original natural shape remains more integrated.

They have, in fact, just introduced this machine and this way of milling, so there are not enough results in the field to develop an opinion. That will come, and we will look at some preliminary mumblings in a moment. But to me, the most significant thing about all this is that the mighty Satake is actively getting involved in the sake rice milling game again. That bodes quite well for the sake world.

Back to the differences between the milling methods, please refer to the drawing. Regular milling takes a rugby ball and mills it into the shape of a baseball, Henpei Seimai mills more from the fat-laden sides than the ends, and Genkei Seimai is less flat, and mills somewhere in the middle, with the objective being maintaining the original dimensions, so to speak, of the rice grain.

Several breweries in Hiroshima cooperated with Satake to brew sake that were identical in every way other than one being milled using Henpei Seimai and the other using the newfangled Genkei Seimai. One of them was Imada Shuzo, brewers of Fukucho. The owner/toji, Ms. Miho Imada, sent me a bottle of each to do the comparison.

In truth, I only had one bottle of each, and both were freshly pressed and nama. While certainly delicious, I might be able to tell a bit more with some time in the bottle and pasteurization, but that chance will come in time. And from what I tasted, the results were as subtle as might be expected considering how slight the differences in milling are.

The Genkei Seimai sake seemed sharper and brighter in aromas, but more settled, broader and rounder in flavor. The Henpei Seimai seemed richer in aromas but lighter in flavor. While I am not sure why the aromas were that way, knowing that Henpei was brewed with rice with a bit less fat and protein, the slightly slimmer flavor seemed appropriate. But again, we would need another hundred samples or so to come up with a truly dependable result.

After having brewed with all three types of milled rice, regular, Henpei and Genkei, Ms. Imada emphasized one thing quite emphatically.

“None of these methods is unequivocally better than the other. None will replace the other two; they all have their place. It depends on what kind of sake you want to brew; that’s the deciding factor.”

And, as mentioned above, to me what is most important is that these developments continue to take place, and that important companies like Satake continue be involved at the research and product development levels.

If you are in Japan, you can purchase both sake here and compare for yourself: https://fukucho.info/?mode=cate&cbid=2467869&csid=0

If you are interested the machine that does it, you can see the specs here, in Japanese: https://satake-japan.co.jp/products/ricemill/sake/edb40a.html

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Of course they do…

I do not get to Ishikawa Prefecture often enough. It sits nestled basking in its historical glory, on the Japan Sea side of the country, its rich history former reputation for wealth and opulence in stark contrast to mellowness and sleepiness that pervades much of the prefecture today.

During my most recent excursion there, I was able to visit a brewer called Kuze Shuzo, whose main brands of sake are called Choseimai (“The dance of long life”) and Notoji (“The road to Noto”). As is the case with a lot of Ishikawa food and drink, it’s enjoyable but hard to find near me, enough to cause one to think, “Why haven’t I heard of these guys more often, and why can’t I find this near me?”

They are unique and extremely interesting in many ways, one being that they grow their own rice that is also called Choseimai, although written deliberately with different characters. And one of the most interesting aspects of their brewing practice is the fact that they use two sources of water, one hard, and one soft.

Readers will likely recall a number of things about water used in sake brewing in Japan, including that since in the end sake is about eighty percent water, it exerts massive leverage on the nature of the final sake. And while iron and manganese need to be at very low levels to even begin to think about using a water source for making sake, beyond that brewers discuss the hardness or softness of water. This is measured by the amount of magnesium and calcium or calcium carbonate.

While one is not unequivocally better than the other, hard water encourages a fast fermentation that often leads to full sake with a quick finish, and soft water allows a slower, more lackadaisical fermentation that, when combined with lower temperatures, is conducive to ginjo production and more readily results in sake that is softer, rounder, and more absorbing.

Overall, Japan tends to have slightly soft water compared to the rest of the world. So even what is called hard water here in Japan is actually kind of soft when compared to the water in other countries.

Back to Kuze. They have a well inside the kura as do many producers, and like most places this is of course the main source of water that they use for making their sake. But just outside the brewery is another source of water, a spring that is sourced from a completely different origin, and has a significantly different mineral profile. It is, in fact, fairly hard water.

And so just for the fun of it, or perhaps just be-Kuze they can, they use that hard water for some of their sake. Interestingly, some of their products use both sources of water, i.e. both hard water and soft water in the same tanks of sake.

This of course complicates things hugely, and is in essence a nod to the history and culture of their immediate environs. And good marketing of course, if you can get people to listen to the story.

As they explained their brewing philosophy and methods to us, they eventually came to the sake that is brewed with both sources of water. And it came to light that they limit the hard water to being used in the moto, i.e. the yeast starter, and the soft water to use in the moromi, i.e. the subsequent fermenting mash.

Bear in mind that when making sake, the first milestone is the moto – the yeast starter – which takes two to four weeks to prepare, and the goal of the moto is to have a mini-batch with an extremely high populations of healthy, strong yeast. After that, more ingredients are added in three stages, roughly doubling the size of the batch with each addition, and then fermented for an additional three to five weeks, with the goal this time being more alcohol, and enjoyable flavors and aromas of course. This longer fermentation is often carried out at lower temperatures, and much more slowly, as such conditions encourage cleaner and more aromatic sake.

So when they told us that they use the hard water for the yeast starter stage, and the soft water for the subsequent longer fermentation, I immediately thought, “ of course they do.”

Indeed, of course they do it that way. While it does in fact make total sense, it is quite instructive to note why.

Remember that at the moto stage their goal is creating a strong yeast starter, and that means they want the moto to ferment strongly, so as to have the yeast reproduce quickly and healthily. And hard water will support that. Conversely, they want the subsequent moromi stage to take place more slowly, to some degree inhibiting fermentation speed, to bring out more appealing aspects of flavor and aroma in the final sake. And softer water will encourage that.

So, yeah; of course they use the hard water for the moto and the soft water for the moromi.

With about 1200 sake breweries out there today, and almost all of them making decent stuff, it is hard to do something truly unique yet still somewhat orthodox – and still be tasty enough to sell well. While it is not a choice that is open to many breweries, Kuze Shuzo has found one way to do just that. And when you hear of just how they do it, there is naught to say but “ of course they do!”

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The epitome of it all expressed at Kikuyoi

As the climax of the Sake Professional Course Level II course, we visit a couple of breweries. This year, as is the case most years, we head down to Shizuoka Prefecture a couple hours south, wherein sits majestic Mt. Fuji and about 30 great sake breweries. One of them makes a sake called Kikuyoi.

The answer: Yes.

The sake world is rife with paradox. There are so many aspects of sake that are this way, you are told, but a day later another authority says, no, it is not that way. And while you are still scratching your head to figure it all out, you discover things to support both sides of the story. And then, yet a completely different side appears too. Sure, there are principles and rules, but sometimes the exceptions to them outnumber the conforming instances.

One major enigmatic part of the sake world is rice, or more specifically, the importance of using proper, high quality sake rice rather than just regular sake rice – or even table rice – in making good sake. According to some folks, the choice of rice strain determines everything about a sake. Some brewers insist on using only one variety, or just a few.

Then there are those that say technique and brewing methods are more important than the choice of rice in determining the nature of the completed sake. This concept is backed up by the fact that a dozen brewers can take the same rice, even milled to the same degree, and make a dozen completely different sake. How then could the rice really play that much of a leading role?

Rather than the folly of attempting to answer that – an exercise in futility of there ever was one – let me instead be part of the problem and actually support the paradox by showing an extreme example of each of these facets of the jewel that sake is. While this approach may not be so helpful in ultimately understanding sake, it may help encourage us to stop even trying, and just enjoy it.

So let us first look at this idea: to make the best sake, one needs to start with the best rice available. This would be easier to state if there was such a thing as “the” unequivocally best sake. But there ain’t. So let us lower our expectations just out of the gate and say that to make really good sake you have to start with really good sake rice.

Often but not always this means Yamada Nishiki. It has all the necessary qualifications in that it is easy to work with and easy for brewers to bend to their will. It behaves. Of course, it is not the only game in town, and there are brewers that do not use it at all. But a ridiculously high percentage of breweries use at least some Yamada Nishiki.

So Yamada is good. But there is good Yamada Nishiki, and there is great Yamada Nishiki. There is a ranking system, used predominantly in Hyogo Prefecture where the best Yamada grows. And there are microclimates and even particular rice fields in which the best Yamada Nishiki is harvested, measured by objective and measurable standards.

And make no mistake: when top-grade rice like that is in the hands of a good toji and crew, the resulting sake is something special, something beyond the norm. It is not really a matter of being sweeter, or dryer, or more balanced or more expressive or fuller. It’s much harder to nail down concretely, but the difference seems to be a matter of reverberation or resonance in the overall flavor profile. But it is immediately recognizable as something that is clearly a but above. One great example of this is Isojiman Junmai Daiginjo made with Yamada Nishiki from Tojo in Hyogo, but there are others. And this makes it clear that the best rice can lead to subtle qualities that appeal to almost everyone.

But then there’s the rest of the story…

There are also breweries that can make extremely enjoyable sake using less than stellar rice. Traditional techniques combined with modern measurement and technology help brewers tweak things to the point where they can maximize some things during production and minimize undesirables at the same time.

There is a brewery of which I am fond that is located in western Japan. It is quite popular and well distributed these days, and while the company is growing steadily, they are far from huge. I’ll hold back on naming it as the below might not be public information. The toji there is very regimented, and is not emotionally attached to traditional techniques, or at least not just because “that’s the way it’s always been done.” He uses plenty of machines, and eschews some steps that other toji consider indispensable.

After a recent visit to the kura, I was tasting through the lineup with the toji (master brewer) and the kuramoto (the owner of the company), and we were discussing their labeling as we did so. They do not hide the grade of each of their products, but do not put it on the front label either, relegating it to small characters on the back label. But each product has a unique name, like a sub-brand, that lets consumers associate an impression with it. So selecting and remembering their products are quite easy.

“Too much information, like grades and seimai-buai and all that, is distracting in our opinion. Sake should be judged on how it tastes and smells, and not much else. So we do not hide this information, but we deliberately downplay it,” they explained.

This attitude is slowly taking root, with more and more brewers releasing products with that kind of minimalist labeling. While there are admittedly few such product on the market right now, I expect it to grow to trend-like proportions over the next few years.

“Also, you’ll notice we do not put the name of the rice on the bottle either,” continued the kuramoto. “And that is deliberate too.”

“We brew almost all year-round here. And this product,” he said, hoisting a 1.8 liter bottle of their best-selling junmai ginjo, “is made from Yamada Nishiki. Basically. The thing is, we can’t always procure it for a full 12 months; there are years where there is not enough to go around. So once in a while, we have to use a different rice in a couple of batches.”

“So the truth is, I don’t know what rice is in there. There is an extremely high probability that it is Yamada, but I just don’t know for sure!” He exuded complete confidence in their way of doing things.

While the reasons and reality of that approach could go on forever, one things struck as quite significant. Their products are extremely enjoyable, and also extremely consistent. The toji has it dialed in: he knows just what to do with whatever rice he can get to make the final product taste just like that made with Yamada Nishiki. I am willing to bet he struggles more with the non-Yamada to get it to “behave” than he would like. But at the end of the day, he maintains great quality and stability while using “mostly Yamada, but not always.”

So yeah, great rice is important. Unless it isn’t.

In truth, this conversation could go on forever. It could easily wax philosophical. Some would argue that you need that top-grade rice to make top-grade sake, and even for exorbitant prices there is a market for it. And such sake is outstanding. But is it certainly is not the most fitting tipple for all occasions; no way. Glitter. Glam. Bling. And we all like glitter, glam and bling once in a while, this guy included.

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Way back in April of this year I was in London as a judge for the International Wine Challenge’s Sake Competition. On the morning of the third straight day of tasting sake, it was down to a few sake and a few judges. We were assessing whether or not the sake that had made the cut thus far were worthy of a gold, silver or bronze medal, or whether they were to be relegated back to the quagmire of mediocrity.

Our tasting panel of four included Mr. Satoshi Kimijima, a prominent and passionate retailer and more from Yokohama. He is outspoken to say the least, but he has the experience, knowledge, and tasting prowess to back that up. He tastes pretty much constantly and travels around Japan doing so more than anyone I know. And he plays in a rock and roll band when not tasting. In fact, sometimes I worry about him; but I digress.

The four of us were assessing a sake, and we did not come to an immediate agreement. At least one was concerned that it was too light, with not enough presence or umami, to justify a shiny medal.

Kimijima-san, who was for giving the medal, shook his head tersely and said, “douse wase da kara.” The best translation of this would be, “It is, after all, an early-harvest rice.”

He did not go any further. And as soon as he said that, it all became clear to me. Of course! It should get that medal.

At this point, he deemed it necessary to clarify the reference. So he continued. “Because this sake was obviously made with an early-harvest rice, not a late-harvest rice, we should not expect much more out of it. This is about as rich or deep a profile as we can expect, and because it was a deliberate choice on the part of the brewer, we should acknowledge that and give it a medal.”

First of all, bear in mind this was a blind tasting. None of us knew what the sake before us was. Yet this guy was able to blindly taste the sake and tell us just when the bloody rice was harvested? Can he really do that?

Yes. He can. Like I said, he has tons of experience. How could he know? Well, he couldn’t have, not for sure anyway. But by tasting it and noting the lightness, subdued umami, resonance and depth, he intuitively knew. It could have been a chapter in the book “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell.

Showering heaps of adulation on Kimijima-san is not really the point here. Rice varieties and their effect on sake is the point.

There are literally hundreds of varieties of rice used in sake brewing. Some are proper sake rice, others are not. Each one is ready for harvest at a different time. Some are harvested as early as August, others not until November. While it is not a clear delineation, early harvest varieties are referred to as wase (pronounced wa-seh) and late harvest types are called okute (oku-teh). This nomenclature applies to both sake rice and table rice, by the way.

Most, but not all, sake rice tends to be okute; this includes Yamada Nishiki, Omachi and a few more well-known types. Gohyakumangoku is a typical example of a sake rice that is wase. And there are of course many rice varieties that are neither early nor late harvest, but rather somewhere in the middle.

More relevantly, early harvest rice tends to lead to lighter flavors, and late-harvest rice yields sake with much more umami, breadth, flavor, and resonance. This is not to say that okute rice types are always and unequivocally better than wase types. Perish the thought! Nothing is ever that simple in the sake world.

Rice is a challenging topic. It is the main ingredient of sake, but the connection between rice and sake flavors is not nearly as tight as that between grapes and wine. Still, great rice leads to great sake. Some say the better the rice, the more the toji (brewmaster) can get it to behave during the brewing process and create the aimed-for flavor profile. While different varieties of rice, including wase and okute amongst those, can lead to identifiable flavor profiles and styles, a dozen different brewers can take the same rice, milled to the same degree, and make a dozen completely different styles of sake. Go figure.

But there are generalizations with which we can work. Yamada Nishiki (which is okute) tends to lead to billowing, broad, resonant, umami laden sake. Omachi (which is also okute) tends to give rise to higher sweetness and acidity, and a decidedly herbal touch. Gohyakumangoku (which is wase) often yields light, airy, delicate flavor profiles. Remember that one is not better than the other. It is simply a choice on the part of the brewer. And we are free to have our preferences, but any sake can be more enjoyable if we taste it knowing it was the result of a chain of conscious decisions by the brewer.

The name of the sake rice used in a given brew is often written on the bottle, but not always. However, no sake label includes information regarding wase or okute. So it may take a while to learn to discern them, but the learning curve is a fun one.

How big is ideal?

There are countless factors that determine how good a batch of sake will end up being. Some are directly controllable by brewers; others less so. And there are, nor surprisingly, countless opinions amongst brewers about each and every one of those factors. There are methods or practices that some brewers consider indispensable or key, yet other brewers will downplay or even outright contradict them with diametrically opposed philosophies. Like, 180 degrees. It can be odd, actually. Depending on your threshold for vagueness, it can either be frustrating or fascinating.

One of these factors is the size of the batch. Big batches behave differently than small batches, not surprisingly. A batch is called a “shikomi,” and its size is measured in kilos of dry, milled rice that went into a given tank to create that batch of sake. While there are of course myriad other ways a batch could be measured, the weight of the dry rice is how it is done in the sake world.

Off on a bit of tangent, why is that? Because just how much water the rice is allowed to

absorb, or how much water is added, or what the yields are will vary based on many things as well. Basing size on the weight of the dry milled rice presents one parameter that can be used as a point of comparison for all tanks, all batches, and all brewers.

Perhaps the most commonly encountered size of a typical shikomi is a ton to a ton-and-a-half (a metric ton, mind you, so 1000 kg or 2200 pounds) of all the rice that went into the tank, be it sraight steamed rice or koji rice (the rice that has had koji mold propagated upon it). But there are many brewers of the opinion that much smaller shikomi, say 600 kg or so, are infinitely better for super premium sake.

Perhaps the smallest size I have seen is 500kg on a practical level. (Experimental batches notwithstanding, of course. I have seen batches of sake in a desktop Pyrex jar.) But done at this scale, yields are quite low. The economics of sake brewing are, of course, important, and brewers need to ask themselves, from that point of view, are tiny batches worth it in the end?

When considering the time required to do each of the many steps, then have it take up tank space, press it and filter it when fermentation is complete, bottle it and care for it and more – it would be so much more economical to double, triple or quadruple one’s yields; yea, verily I say unto thee multiply them by ten-fold for true efficiency. And, of course, many breweries function at such large economies of scale.

Naturally, though, as economically sound as larger batches can be at some point the law of diminishing returns kicks in with a vicious vengeance and quality begins to noticeably suffer. But just where that occurs, and how each brewery factors that into their lineup varies hugely.

For example, some brewers not think that smaller batches are always better, citing the truth that it is much harder to control parameters such as temperature in those smaller tanks over the long run. To achieve a given flavor and aromatic profile, brewers guide the moromi (fermenting mash) along a very tight temperature curve. Smaller batches are more subject to various factors that might send them out of spec, so to speak. For a really small tank, a warm day outside might let the moromi get too warm, adversely affecting the final product.

Conversely, a largish tank would lumber along much more sluggishly so that wild swings in temperature et al would not likely happen. A warm day outside is nothing to a ton-and-a-half of fermenting rice. Such a tank would look askance at the weather outside, secure in its sheer mass.

But of course the other side of this coin is that if the temperature and other parameters stray from the fold of the ideal, it is easy to bring them back into alignment with small batches, back to where they should be, whereas in big batches, there is nothing to little that a brewer can do once things have gotten too out of spec.

Yet more dissention abounds. One hugely famous toji of almost unmatched accomplishment insists that larger batches of about 1.5 tons are ideal. He also insists on slightly customizing the shape of the fermentation tanks he uses, so that the sake in his brewery circulates natural as it ferments. This means that they do not have to mess with using long poles to mix it up. It all occurs naturally in his kura as, inside the tanks, carbon dioxide bubbles stick to dissolving rice particles and the countless yeast cells, rising to the top, where the gas is released and the now-dense glob sinks again. And if your shikomi size is right, it all circulates perfectly, around and around and around…

Having said all this, though, it is a fact that almost always the more premium grades of sake are indeed made in comparatively smaller batches, compared that is to the shikomi size of the lower grades of sake for a given brewer. And contest sake, too, is almost without exception made in smaller batches. Certainly this is due to the aforementioned ability to tightly control key parameters.

Admittedly, this information is more than most of us need or want to know. Most folks are more into tasting sake than the under-the-hood workings of the brewing process. But lately I have come across this information on the back labels of one or two sake bottles: they actually tell us the size of the shikomi!

In truth, I think such information is superfluous and even intimidating. I mean, really; who cares? In the end, the flavors and aromas of a sake before us are either appealing, or they are not. Biasing our minds with such information before tasting could actually encumber our enjoyment by unnecessarily prejudicing it.

But as always, there are a myriad of opinions. One big gun of a distributor in the Tokyo/Yokohama metropolis insists that sake must be made in 600 kg or smaller batches to even be decent. He cites his ten-year convincing effort focused on one famous kura to lower their shikomi size from a ton to 600 kg, and when they did, they won a major international award. True, the smaller shikomi size might have had something to do with it, but so might a gazillion other things. But hey, what do I know.

So enjoy your sake for its flavors and aromas. Should you come across the shikomi size on a label or in a kura, bear in mind its significance, and its potential liabilities.

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Sake Professional Course in Chicago
April 23 ~ 25, 2019

From Tuesday, April 23 to Thursday, April 25, 2019, I will hold the 30th North American running of the Sake Professional Course at the restaurant Sunda, in Chicago, Illinois. The content of this intensive sake course will be identical to that of the Sake Professional Course held each January in Japan, with the exception of visiting sake breweries.

The course is recognized by the Sake Education Council, and those that complete it will be qualified to take the exam for Certified Sake Specialist, which will be offered on the evening of the last day of the course.

You can learn more about the course here, see the daily syllabus here,and download a pdf here. If you are interested in being in the mailing list for direct course announcements, please send me an email to that purport.

Testimonials from past graduates can be perused here as well.

Sake Rice Survived a Couple of Typhoons, But How Did it Fare Otherwise?

In late October, the National Research Institute of Brewing in Japan released their annual rice report, loosely translated as the Suitability of This Year’s Rice to Sake Brewing Report. In short, the report analyzes the weather patterns of the previous summer, comparing it to analytical data, and predicts how well (or not well) this year’s rice harvest will dissolve in the fermenting mash.

Basically speaking, the more sunlight and heat the rice plant absorbs as it grows, the harder the grains will be when harvested. The harder the grains are, not surprisingly, the more stubbornly and slowly it will dissolve in the mash. This is pretty much a function of sunlight and average temperatures in primarily August and September.

So colder summers lead to softer rice that dissolves comparatively faster and leads to bigger and bouncier flavors, and hotter summers lead to slowly dissolving rice that leads to cleaner, more narrow flavor profiles. One is not unequivocally better than the other; it is all a matter of what kind of sake a brewer is trying to make, and getting the rice at hand to dovetail with the rest of the processes involved.

Of course, just how fast or slow a rice dissolves depends on a myriad of factors. How much water the rice was allowed to absorb, the amount and type of enzymes created by the koji, and the temperature of the fermenting mash are just a few of those. So in truth the best a report like this can do is to say, “in comparison to an average year, rice can be expected to dissolve in this way…” Brewers can then take into consideration the factors unique to their facility and methods to get an idea of what to expect.

Having information like this is extremely helpful to sake brewers. Why is this? Because the faster the rice dissolves, the fuller and more rambunctious the flavor of the sake will be. If the rice is expected to dissolve more readily than most years, brewers may want to rein that in. Conversely, if the rice is expected to dissolve more slowly, brewers might want to do what they can to hasten that dissolution.

What can they actually do as a countermeasure? Considering that most brewing decisions for a given product will remain the same, the most visible activity is adjusting the moisture content of the rice. That is accomplished by adjusting the amount of time the rice is soaked in water, and the precision with which that step is undertaken. There are of course other steps, but this is their first line of defense.

More often that not, brewers are loathe to let the rice absorb too much water. If anything err on the side of less moisture, and a slower dissolution. It is easier to speed it up later than to slow it down, or at least it is easier to make up for too little flavor than to rid a moromi (fermenting mash) of too much such sloppiness.

Of course, brewers – and toji (brewmasters) in particular – are not oblivious to the weather. Many will follow it closely and are in the rice fields and getting reports regularly throughout the season. So many may not feel the need to read this short four-page report. In truth, I have no idea! However, what is interesting is that this information is also there, and surely it is considered handy by many brewers in the country.

So what did the report say about the rice grown in 2018?

Interestingly, the report assesses the rice based on two things, where in Japan it grows, and when the ears of rice begin to appear on the rice plant. Naturally, these are related to how much heat and sunlight are absorbed. The sooner it is planted, the sooner the ears appear, and the more sunlight and heat it will be exposed to during a given summer. And this, of course, leads to hardness or softness in the rice grains once they are harvested.

And, so, the report reads thusly.

For early-harvest rice such as Gohyakumangoku for which the ears appear in mid-July, the rice is expected to be harder, and will not dissolve as readily as most years. But for rice in which the ears appear in the first ten days of August, typically grown in Northern Japan, the rice is expected to dissolve more readily than a typical year. And for rice that is particularly late harvest, like that grown in Western Japan (as is much of the best sake rice), in which the ears appear in late August – for the most part will be like a normal year, and compared to last year either the same or little bit harder.

These were the generalizations for the major growing regions. After this the report addressed a handful of smaller rice producing regions, and all were expected to dissolve more slowly excepting Hokkaido, the northern most island of Japan’s main four. Normally very cold, global warming is affecting rice growing up there, and Hokkaido rice is expected to dissolve comparatively readily.

The main point here is not to have people look out for Yamada Nishiki’s dissolution rate to be normal in next year’s sake while to be prepared to notice that Gohyakmangoku’s will be slower – all while enjoying sake and sushi with friends. Nah. Forget that; leave that to the brewers. Rather, it is interesting to see the connection between sake quality and climate. With sake, sometimes that can get overlooked.

For those that are interested the report can be read and downloaded here, although it is only in Japanese.

Sake Professional Course 

The next Sake Professional Course will be held in Chicago, April 23rd to 25th. It will be the 48th running of the course, and will be held on the second floor of the wonderful restaurant Sunda. While details are not yet complete, the generalities are set to the degree that I can respond to inquiries and accept reservations. To learn more about the Sake Professional Course, go here. To inquire about the Chicago course, go here and also please send me an email at sakeguy@gol.com . 

The sake of the Tohoku region in Japan has been showered with much-deserved attention over the past five to ten years. Certainly, it is worth it to learn a bit more about the area, and why their sake is so highly regarded.

Regionality in the sake world is fascinating to study, but it may be a bit further than most people want to go. Honjozo, junmai daiginjo, and “the glass in front in front of me now” may be plenty of sake study for most folks. And that’s fine; it is all about enjoyment after all. But like most things sake, a little study goes a long, long way. And it might not be so interesting to start by learning 47 new prefecture place names. But just one or two big-ass regions? Sure, we can do that.

If we are going to talk region, by all rights we should start with the Kansai region, wherein sits Hyogo (and therein Nada), Kyoto (and within it Fushimi), and Osaka. The first two (Nada and Fushimi) are the largest producing regions of sake in the country, and historically the most significant. But since Tohoku is “big in Japan” right about now, let us start there.

Where is the Tohoku region? It’s easy to remember: it is the top third of the main island of Japan. It consists of six of Japan’s 47 prefectures, all larger than average. (The cheap-looking photo was taken in the office of the Tohoku region Tax Office in the city of Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, when I was up there as a judge last week.) Those are Aomori, Akita, Iwate, Yamagata, Miyagi and Fukushima.

Let us look at why the sake of Tohoku – as a region overall – is so popular, and also at what the main identifying characteristics of the various prefectures are.

Perhaps one of the biggest reasons the sake of Tohoku is so well known is the region’s success in the Zenkoku Shinshu Kampyoukai, or “National New Sake Tasting Competion,” held each May in Japan. (The official English translation is the Japan Sake Awards, but I like my unofficial but more direct translation better.)

Sake brewed just for this contest (i.e. not normal sake you can buy at the store) is submitted and blindly tasted and judged. While many consumers do not even know this contest exists, it is a very prestigious event in the sake world. And over the past ten or fifteen years, Tohoku sake has done very, very well.

In particular, Fukushima Prefecture has won more gold medals than any other prefecture for the last four years in a row, and in seven out of the last ten years. Only vaunted Niigata and Tohoku neighbor Yamagata are close to that performance. This contest demonstrates brewers’ command of the highest levels of brewing skill, and as the results might suggest, currently this brings lots of attention to the sake of Tohoku.

The Japan national competition is one big one, but there are a handful of other competitions both in and outside of Japan to which many people pay attention. If you look at the results of these blind tasting competitions, there are a handful of brands that very often rise to the top. Quite often, these are of a light, fine-grained, bright and aromatic style. And this style is precisely what Tohoku does well.

While the style of sake that often does well in such contests is far, oh-so-very-far, from the be-all end-all of what makes a good sake, or what everyone likes, the results do indicate what is consistently popular based on one figure of merit.

But the point is that the style of sake made by many of the brewers in the Tohoku region is that kind of fine-grained, light and clean style; it is a style that is approachable and likeable. And this is yet another explanation of why the region is popular and worthy of attention: it makes the kind of sake that people these days like.

It is extremely important to emphasize that this is only one style. Many sake fans from the western half of Japan would find Tohoku sake too light, with no body, umami, or earthiness, and perhaps find it challenging to pair with food – especially in comparison to the rich, broad, umami-laden sake of their own region. We are only looking at one snapshot of all the great sake that is out there.

What makes the sake of the region taste this way? Many things, of course. One is climate. It’s colder up there, and when you brew and subsequently mature at colder temperatures, you end up with lighter, cleaner sake. Higher temperatures give fuller bodies. Think lagers and ales.

Next would be the support of the prefectural governments. While all regions in Japan have this to some degree, Fukushima, Yamagata, and Akita in particular have very active sake research organizations. These are run by the local governmental industrial research center or tax administration, and crank out sake-brewing technology, new rice strains and new yeast strains that constantly and consistently raise the Tohoku bar.

Then there is rice itself, of course. Most of the Tohoku prefectures are large rice-producing prefectures as well. While most of this is for eating, they all produce plenty of one variety or another of sake rice. The aforementioned colder climate means the indigenous strains of rice are generally smaller than their western-Japan counterparts, leading to the more narrow flavor profiles of the area.

Each of the six prefectures of the Tohoku region has plenty that could be said bout them. A “sake readers digest” version might look something like the below.

Fukushima has about 70 active breweries, ensuring a wide range of styles, and three distinct geographies: an oceanside, planes and mountains, with most breweries in the prefecture located in the last of these. Miyagi has about 40 breweries, and an inordinately large amount of what they make is junmai. Yamagata right next door makes just as inordinately large amount of ginjo compared to other types, and has lots of fragrant, light sake coming from the 40 or so kura there. Iwate is the home of the most prominent and accomplished guild of toji (master brewers), the Nanbu guild, but only 25 active kura. Much of their sake is light, but a few rich, reverberating deep sake are made there too.Akita sake, made by the 50-odd active breweries there, is often rich but seems quite fine-grained to me, with of course the requisite exceptions. And at the very top of the region is Aomori, with 20 breweries making a richer, sweeter style than the rest of the region.

While the above-described styles are of course vague, with exceptions and variation across each prefecture, the region in general does confirm to the light, crisp, aromatic style that is quite popular today. And while each prefecture is much deserving of detailed study, knowing a bit about the region goes along way too. It is, after all, Tohoku time.

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Sake Professional Course

The next Sake Professional Course will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada on November 27 to 29.  As of today, only three (3) seats remain open.

The content of this intensive sake course will be identical to that of the Sake Professional Course held each January in Japan. The course is recognized by the Sake Education Council, and those that complete it will be qualified to take the exam for Certified Sake Specialist, which will be offered on the evening of the last day of the course.

Learn more about the course here. You can read Testimonials from past participants here.

If you would like to make a reservation or to be placed on the notification list, please send an email to that purport to sakeguy@gol.com.