Sake Professional Course
To be held at Sunda Restaurant in Chicago Illinois, August 12 – 14, 2014

From Tuesday, August 12 through Thursday, August 14, 2014, I will hold the 15th stateside version of the Sake Professional Course at Sunda restaurant in downtown Chicago. 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.

The course is geared toward industry professionals wishing to expand their horizons in a thorough manner into the world of sake, and will therefore be somewhat technical in nature, and admittedly somewhat intense. It is likely more than the average consumer needs! But the course is open to anyone with an interest and sake and will certainly be enjoyable. The course lectures and tasting will begin with the utter basics, and will thoroughly progress through and cover everything related to sake. There will be an emphasis on empirical experience, with plenty of exposure to a wide range of sake in the tasting sessions throughout the three days. Each of the three days will provide the environment for a focused, intense and concerted training period.

The goal of this course is that “no sake stone remains left unturned,” and my motto is “exceed expectations for the course.” Every conceivable sake-related topic will be covered, and each lecture will be complimented and augmented by a relevant tasting session. Participants will not simply hear about differences based on rice types or yeast types, they will taste and smell them. Students will not only absorb technical data about yamahai, kimoto, nama genshu, aged sake and regionality, they will absorb the pertinent flavors and aromas within the related sake as well. Participants will taste over 80 sake within five focused tasting exercises across the three days.

Like its counterpart held in Japan each winter, it will be quite simply the most thorough and comprehensive English-language sake education in existence. Participants will also be presented with a certificate of completion at the end of the course.

Also, as mentioned above, an exam is given at the end of the course for those that choose to seek certification. Those that pass receive a   “Level I Sake Specialist” certification from the non-profit organization The Sake Education Council.

The cost for the three-day class, including all materials and sake for tasting, is US$850. Participation is limited and reservations can be made now to secure a seat, with payment due by July 15, 2014. You can read Testimonials from past participants here. (Should that link not work, which is a possibility for technical reasons, I can send you the same by email.) For reservations or further inquiries, please send an email to sakeguy@gol.com. 

 “No Sake Stone Remains Left Unturned!”

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Syllabus and Daily Schedule

Day I
9:00 – 12:30 Welcome, Orientation, Sake Basics, Sake Types, Terms found on Sake Labels
Tasting I: typical representatives of various grades, milling rates
1:00 – 3:00 Sake Production
3:00 – 4:30  Rice Types, Yeast Types, Water, Koji
Tasting II: Rice types, Yeast types

Day II
9:00 to 12:00 Sake Chemistry: nihonshu-do, acidity, amino acidity.
Yamahai and Kimoto
Tasting III: Yamahai and Kimoto.
12:00 to 1:00 Lunch
1:00 – 5:00 All things nama-zake. Pressing methods. Aging and maturity. Non-standard sake types like nigori, low alcohol sake, sparkling sake, red sake, taruzake etc. Sake competitions. Vessels, temperature, toji guilds.
Tasting IV: Nama-zake, aged sake, various non-standard sake. The same sake in various vessels. Sake suited for warming. Competition sake.

Day III 
9:00 – 12:00 Sake regionality, sake and food, sake competitions, history, the state of the industry.
Tasting V: Sake Regionality
12:00- 1:00 Lunch
1:00 – 3:00 Break
3:00 – 4:30 Exam

It was well into the evening when the phone rang, but my caller i.d. told me the call was from a brewer in Akita Prefecture. Since he fits into both the friend and business associate categories, I picked it up.

“Du-hu-hu-hu-de. I’m pretty ha-a-a-a-mmered.” Not your typical call from the owner of a prestigious sake brewery, to say the least.

And to what do I owe this honor? Surely there must be a reason you have called at this hour and in this, er, state?

Indeed, indeed. Today was ‘kaizo.’ It’s over. We are done for the season.

That’s it. Kaput! All we have to do is clean up and we are outta here until the fall.” He seemed to momentarily forget he lived in the old house attached to the kura. “And, thanks to your support,” he continued with typical Japanese uber-humility, “we managed to finish the brewing season this year without any major difficulties.” I was fairly sure I myself had nothing to do with that, and of course politely deferred.

“Wow,” I responded. “That’s great. Congratulations. Another season down! I am sure you are relieved, and I am just as sure your sake will be kick-ass again this year.”

The true reason behind their call, driven though it was by the unbridled exuberance of the “kaizou” party, was to thank me for a positive assessment of a new sake they came out with that I was fortunate enough to have been able to taste several days earlier. I had recently ran into the two of them by coincidence, armed with a bottle, at a sake pub the night before a big Tokyo tasting. Regardless, it was great fun to hear from them, and congratulate them on completing the season.

“Hold on. There is someone here that wants to talk to you.” The cell phone got dropped at least twice and bashed into something made of glass on its way to whomever it was destined. Things like that happen in a room full of happy, buzzed sake brewers. Actually, I knew who it was going to be before I even heard the familiar voice.

“Du-hu-hu-hu-de. I’m pretty hammered too-hu-hu-hu.” It was the relatively young toji (master brewer) at that kura. “We made it through yet another season. And thanks to your support, we finished without a hitch…”

It was fun to hear from them, late though it might have been, and they certainly deserved to celebrate.

As many readers certainly recall, sake brewing runs roughly from the fall until the spring. Just when a kura begins to brew sake and when they finish for the year depends on a number of factors, including of course how much they brew. On top of this, dynamics including the number of brewers, number of tanks, size of the batches, how old or new their equipment is, and how often they fire up a new batch will all combine to determine just when they start and end. But typically it runs from mid-October to mid-April.

As the season draws to a close, there are two significant days that the people in the brewery owners and brewers together will celebrate. One is called “koshiki-taoshi,” the other is “kaizou.”

“Koshiki-taoshi” means “overturning the rice steaming vat.” A koshiki is the large vat in which rice is steamed every morning or so. In days of olde, the koshiki was made of wood (sugi, i.e. cryptomeria) and sat on top of a large iron cauldron of water (called a wagama) that tapers at the top.

Today only a handful of kura use wooden koshiki anymore. The craftsmen to make them are also all but gone. Most are steel these days, and in fact, many are fully automatic. Long ago, when the last vat of rice had been steamed, the koshiki would be turned over onto its side, cleaned thoroughly, and left to dry and be put into storage until next season. This is the term to which koshiki-taoshi refers.

When the last batch of rice has been steamed for the year, the brewers can see the light at the end of the brewing-season’s tunnel, hence the celebratory nature of the day.

Of course, that last day’s vat of rice will then be added to the last tank still fermenting, and after that there is still three weeks or more of waiting for those last few batches to finish fermenting, and then be pressed and sent to mature for a while. So their work is far from done. Koshiki-taoshi means only that there is no more rice to be steamed. Within two days, there will be no more koji to be made, and soon after that it is simply a matter of waiting. They know they are getting close to the end of six months or more of long, hard days.

Often in these modern times, automated koshiki are equipped in such a way that they can be turned sideways to make it easier to scoop out the rice. Kinda makes knocking them over a bit anticlimactic. Also, large brewers have continuous rice steamers, large contraptions that steam rice as it moves along on a mesh conveyor belt over steam, and constantly crank it out. So at such places there is no koshiki to knock over. But nonetheless, a ceremony and small party are held to acknowledge the significance of the last steaming of the season.

The next milestone is “kaizo.” “Kaizo” is written with characters that mean “all (has been) made,” and naturally enough indicates the day on which the last tank has been pressed, and therefore all the sake for the year has been brewed. All there is left to do is to sweep up, tidy up, and pack up.

After one or the other – or perhaps even both – of these significant days, the brewers and other employees of a sake brewery will often have a little bash in the kura. The kuramoto (brewery owner) will prepare a nice dinner, there will be warm toasts to each other, and there will be plenty of sake consumed. Also, newly made sake is offered to the gods in thanks for the blessings of the brewing season.

While, from what I have heard, it is more common to have this little party after koshiki-taoshi, obviously the folks at some places (like my friend in the intro) wait until kaizo, when presumably they can sleep late the next day.

Back in the 1960s when several of the larger kura rode continued growth to mammoth-hood, they began to brew all year round, in what is called “shiki-jozo,” or “four-season brewing.” However, as sake consumption has dropped off, especially that of cheap sake, the need for year-round brewing has dropped off, and none of the big brewers are doing this any longer.

But interestingly, there are a handful of smaller brewers that brew basically all year, freezing the rice for use in the summer, and brewing at a more manageable, mellow pace. This pace might be starting a batch once or twice a week rather than everey day. Just when these places celebrate koshiki-taoshi is not clear. But I am sure they work it in somewhere!

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In over two-dozen short essays presented in a very informal and conversational tone, “the truth about sake” is revealed. The truth about junmai types versus non-junmai types, the truth about the impossibly detailed craft of sake brewing, the truth about temperature, premium types, aging, purity, pasteurization and regionality are all touched upon.

How the industry works, its challenges and strengths, what really creates sake flavors and aromas, specs you can safely ignore, and what hype you can safely avoid are all fair game. You’ll learn what goes into sake pricing, and how brewers get their rice. How to choose sake, and how to improve your tasting ability are also part of the fun. Suffice it to say that nowhere else is so much detailed information about the realities of the sake world assembled together into one place.

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Listing Rice Varieties on Labels …and the attendant hassles

There are about a hundred different types of sake rice used in making sake. About. But not all sake is made from shuzo-kotekimai, or proper sake rice. Most, in fact is not. But almost all premium sake is. And of that hundred, about a dozen are commonly seen and important. Add to that another several dozen varieties that are not proper sake rice but suffice well enough to be used in brewing decent sake.

However, sake brewers are not obligated to tell you which rice was used in a given sake. No one really hides it. It is just that from a marketing perspective, it had long been considered superfluous information. It is not really that way anymore, especially in top-grade sake. The rice is indeed important!

The other side of that coin is that, although they are not obligated to tell you the rice, if they want to do so there are rules and regulations about what can in fact be listed. As a quick example belying a Pandora’s Box of vagaries and issues, they can use a perfectly good rice grown locally, but if the local agricultural co-op has not agreed to register and inspect that rice for local production, the name cannot be listed on the label. But let’s back gingerly away from that chasm of a diversion, at least for now.

Let us look instead at another aspect of sake labeling. In short, if a producer chooses to list the rice on the label, they must also list what percentage of the total rice in that batch corresponds to that rice. For example, “made using 100% Omachi,” or “75% Miyama Nishiki and 25% Yamada Nishiki.” The point and reasoning is to prevent a brewer from making a tank using some schlock rice and lobbing one grain of superb Yamada Nishiki in there, and then bragging on the label, “made using Yamada Nishiki!” Not that anyone would really do this. But you know…

Also, generally speaking, the blending of rice in a single batch of sake is not common. It is much more commonly seen than it used to be, but still it is not common. Why not? Because different rice types behave differently, they dissolve and break down and make their mark in different ways. If you have two rice types doing their thing together in one batch, predictability suffers. Heck, any one rice type behaves differently each year – and even from batch to batch in a single season! Many brewers feel they are unnecessarily complicating matters if they use more than one type in a given tank. Again; it is not unheard of, just not common.

And when we do come across more than one rice used, it is most common that one (the superior) rice is used for the 25 percent or so of the total rice that is made into koji, and another (lesser) type for the remaining 75 percent that is straight steamed rice added to the batch. So a 25/75 split amongst two rice types is something we do see from time to time on labels.

And that is the point here: that whatever the brewers choose to use, if they choose to tell us, they must document it properly on the label. But then, there are problems related to the fact that rice is an agricultural product subject to the laws of Mother Nature, who does not bother to check with brewers about their plans for the upcoming year. Nor does she seek approval for weather patterns. As such, from time to time shortages exist (for other reasons too, like demand) and brewers do not always get what they ordered, or when they ordered it.

This fact can cause hassles for brewers when they choose to list the rice on the label.

Quickly summarizing the issue, let’s say a brewer makes ten tanks of a given sake, and the very last one of those ten was partially made with a rice different from the rest because “what was ordered did not come in.” When those ten are blended for consistency across that year’s product, the entire batch becomes “tainted” with the one single one made even partially with a different rice.

Will this perceptibly affect quality or flavor? No. Of course not. But the brewer would still be legally obligated to note this on the label, with something like “99.5 percent rice A and 0.5 percent rice B.”

I had this complaint vociferously explained to me by an ornery brewer a few years ago, a conversation I documented here . Yet, I had never once seen a real-life example of such confusing labeling. So, I assumed, the problem exists in theory alone. Until now.

A couple of weeks ago I was visiting a brewer in the historically as well as currently significant Aizu-Wakamatsu region of Fukushima Prefecture. And while tasting their lineup, I spun the bottle to see the gory details on the back label. And there it was.

It read: “Yamada Nishiki: 94%, Gohyakumangoku: 6%”

The natural reaction would be, why would anyone do that? Why would a brewer use 94 percent of one rice, and but 6 of another? The answer was clear: the rice wasn’t available. But it played out a bit differently than I had thought it would.

Upon inquiring, I was told that this particular batch of daiginjo was to be made with 100 percent Yamada Nishiki. However, when the day came to start the batch, the rice was not there. “Well, why not just hold off a week or two to start that batch,” one might ask. Unfortunately, it is not that simple. To delay things would push into disarray the whole flow of the subsequent batches, the timing of the steps of which are put together like a jigsaw puzzle. It could also push the brewing of that particular batch late enough into the season that the higher ambient temperatures would have their say in things as well. Et cetera. Ad infinitum. Ad nauseum. So, no; it is not that simple.

But only six percent? Why? Enquiring minds want to know! And so I enquired. And the answer was simple enough: the moto; i.e. the yeast starter.

In other words, the very first step of making a tank of sake, as readers likely remember, is the yeast starter, called the moto (or shubo). The amount of rice that goes into this mini starter batch is about six percent of the final total. And it takes two weeks to make.

So they had a situation in which the Yamada Nishiki rice they wanted was not in, but they had to get started. So they made the yeast starter with what they did have, a perfectly respectable sake rice called Gohyakumangoku, and two weeks later when the Yamada Nishiki they had ordered came in, they continued on with that. Final tally: Gohyakumangoku 6 percent, Yamada Nishiki 94 percent. And being the up-and-up scrupulous brewer that they are, they duly represented it properly on the label.

In the decade since these rules were put into place, this was the first time I had come across an actual example. So I do not think most folks will need to worry about it. But should you come across a listing of multiple rice types, the ratios of which seem curious, consider the rice supply story behind it. Just don’t consider it for too long.

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January 27 to 31, 2014
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There are certainly a great number of symbols in the sake world; images and artifacts that evoke perfectly Pavlovian pangs for a glass of good sake. It might be a blue-dyed curtain hanging in front of a sake shop, invitingly waiting to be parted by your own hands as you enter. It might be the rising smell of yakitori (grilled chicken on skewers, a standard sake accompaniment) or just the right fruity or flowery essence reminiscent of a good glass of ginjo. Or, it might be a sugidama, arguably the oldest and most often-seen sign of where sake is to be found.

Certainly you have seen them hanging around (pun intended): green or brown spheres of tightly bound leaves suspended by a cord, dangling in front of sake shops and pubs. A quick glance at the photos here should evoke a “Oh, those things! Yeah; I’ve seen them…” response from many readers. While in the past, they might have only been visible in Japan, now many shops outside of Japan sport one out front as well, and certainly we can see images of them all over the internet.

Sugidama originated in the Edo Period (1604 to 1868), and have taken many shapes and sizes over the past centuries, sometimes appearing more like bales or bound stalks of thin branches. As the pictures here show, they are always spherical these days.

What are they, these sugidama? Also known as sakabayashi, they are – as they appear to be – balls constructed of the needle-like leaves of the sugi, or Japanese cedar tree. (The more precise name for this tree is, actually, cryptomeria, and it is botanically closer to cypress than cedar, although it smells damn like cedar to me.)

The sugi holds religious significance in the Shinto religion, particularly in connection with a shrine named Miwa Jinja in Nara Prefecture, wherein resides a deity related to sake. Although today not all sugidama are made from sugi boughs from this shrine, it certainly is one traditional source.

Possibly related to that religious influence, it was in the past said that if the needle-like leaves of sugi are soaked in sake, that sake will not go bad. But there is more to the story than that.

Until about 60 years ago, tanks for sake brewing were made of this wood, (now they are ceramic-lined steel) as are the casks called taru in which sake was formerly shipped (before bottling came along), and the small boxes called masu traditionally used for drinking sake (and measuring rice). And beyond these uses, the walls of most traditional koji-making rooms as well as the trays used to make koji were all almost always made from sugi.

Why sugi over other woods? There are of course a handful of reasons, but the most often presented is that sugi tends to not impart its woodiness to the sake or the koji-in-waiting.

As a rule long ago, but still commonly today as well, sugidama are hung just outside the front entrance to a sake brewery immediately after the first sake of the year has been pressed (like – now!). At this point, the leaves are still green, having been recently cut and used. Over the next several months, however, the green needles slowly faded to brown. It has long been said that when at long last the color had changed to brown, the sake had aged enough to be ready for drinking.

These days, lengths of maturation vary greatly on style, region and other factors, including modern climate control. But the sugidama cares not, fading from green to brown in its own time, as it always has.

Although accounts differ subtly from source to source on the details, the above is the basic gist of the saga of the sugidama. But it has evolved in its use, if not its symbolism. Today, sugidama appear not only in front of kura (breweries), but also in front of sake retail shops, as well as sake pubs and other places serving sake all over Japan, and even a few appear in other countries as well. It is basically an enticing indication of “sake within!”

Often, I have wondered how they were actually made. My inquiries were met with, “Ya just keep stuffin’ more and more sugi leaves in there, and trim it ‘till it’s round enough…” But only recently did I see a work in progress when visiting a brewery that was just about to press its first batch of the year.
In the old days, the experienced guys would ball up a bunch of boughs and stuff everything else into that. These days, many if not most use a ball of wire or styrofoam at the center. As you can see from the photos here, someone just sits amongst fermenting tanks with a bunch of fir sticks around them, stuffing them into a globe and trimming it to a round aesthetic perfection. I was genuinely surprised to see it was that simple.

Let’s get started!

Sugidama being made…
Note the white ball of traditional styrofoam in the center. 😉

The finished product!

One of the most charming sites of winter – if you are into sake – must be a sugidama with freshly fallen snow resting on the top. If it doesn’t evoke an inner warmth, try viewing it with a glass of sake. It soon will.

Learn everything you need to know about sake via concise, downloadable ebooks here!

In a recent newsletter about aged sake, I read about how the system used to tax sake brewers that was in place from the late 1800s until just after WWII was one that indirectly but strongly discouraged brewers from even thinking about trying to age sake. While this system is long defunct, it left the industry with decades of catch-up self-education on the results of aging, yet at the same time shaped the sake we enjoy today.

In short, back then brewers had to pay tax to the government on sake as soon as it was pressed, in other words, as soon as the rice lees has been filtered away after fermentation was complete, i.e. as soon as it became proper sake. Note, it did not matter whether the stuff ever got sold. As soon as it came into existence, the government demanded its due taxes.

The problem was – especially back then – what if it went bad after that, or if a tank leaked or it got spilled. Too bad, intoned the Ministry of Taxation. And so ensued clandestine tactics.

In order to make sure that every taxable drop was accounted for, the government would measure everything at every stage. (They still do, more or less, today.) They operated on the basic assumption that brewers were fundamentally trying to avoid paying taxes. And so genmai (unmilled, “brown” rice), white (i.e. milled) rice, koji, liters of moto (yeast starter), and liters of moromi (fermenting mash) all had to be carefully measured and recorded for each batch.

After reading the article, I spoke to the author, a now semi-retired (one never really leaves the sake world!) former director of a large-ish, dignified and diverse brewery of some means. He explained the details of how things proceeded.

“Back then,” he began, “it was a game, really. Everyone was doing it!” His smile was laced with some embarrassment, much like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, as he continued.

“In truth, we felt we had to – or at least had the right to – make up for what was sure to be at least some inevitable losses, be it from inadvertent spillage or leakage, sake going bad from incomplete pasteurization, or just other unexpected mishaps. We had to at least make up for what we were sure we would lose!”

So the brewers would try to hide part of the moromi, or hide the sake as it was being pressed, and went w-a-y out of their way to come up with creative ways of doing this. And of course, there were in fact occasionally incidences of the moto or moromi spilling or leaking. But it was hard to convince the tax man of the veracity of this.

They would have none of that nonsense, and would scour the kura looking for where it was being hidden. Never limiting their searches to the main brewing facilities, they would go into the living quarters of the kuramoto (the owning family) and poke around in closets and storage rooms, and if they did not find anything there, they would search for the unaccounted volumes in the homes of neighbors and relatives. It seems to have been quite the game!

The drag for the brewers was that, again, from time to time there were real accidents. The wooden tanks in use back then might have cracks, so that months after filling a tank with sake for maturation, they could open the tank and find it empty. Whoops! Or the wooden stopper at the bottom, if not properly inserted, might pop out and a whole tank’s worth of ambrosia could disappear in a couple of hours. Or warmer-than-expected temperatures could spoil a sake not yet pasteurized. Yet they could expect no redress from the tax man for this. Hence the perceived need to pre-emptively account for that via whatever means available to them.

And this is why the Zoukokuzei system was so hard on the brewers. Fortunately, the government is more reasonable these days, and brewers are now taxed on what they sell and when they sell it. And this has opened up brewers’ willingness to at least experiment with aging sake. We can at least understand their reticence of brewers long ago, since once they have paid taxes, if the aging thing did not go well, they were out a significant amount.

This seems to me to have affected sake as we enjoy it today. Very little sake is matured today, much less than might have been had brewers been permitted the leeway to experiment over the decades. As such, sake has developed in such a way that it is best enjoyed relatively young, albeit with some exceptions.

And I, for one, am OK with that.

Non-foaming Yeasts

Admittedly, the subject of yeast types begins to push the envelope of geekdom. While some want to know both in theory and practice the difference between a Number 9 and a Number 10, and perhaps even between a CEL-24 and EK-1, most of us are content to sip and smile. Even so, there are some interesting historical, cultural and technical anecdotes surrounding even things as dryly scientific as yeast, and the topic of foamless yeasts, or “awanashi kobo,” is one such example.

First of all, just what is foamless yeast? Usually, when sake undergoes its 20- to 40-day fermentation, the foam rises in great swaths and falls again, especially over the first third or so of this period. In fact, brewers of olde would judge the stage, progress and condition of a given batch by the appearance (and smell, and taste, and even sound) of this foam atop the fermenting mash. Also, there are ten times more yeast cells in the foam than the mash itself, so very often yeast for subsequent batches is removed from the foam of healthy, vibrantly fermenting tanks.

So foamless yeasts, obviously, are strains of yeast that do create as much foam (there still is a little bit) as they convert sugars to alcohol, carbon dioxide, and more. The question is, why would anyone want to use them?

There are, actually, a number of very good reasons. Most of these are centered around efficiency, sanitation, labor-savings, and even safety. For instance, since the foam rises so high during fermentation, brewers cannot fill a tank to the brim with rice, koji and water since it would soon overflow with foam, leading to hygienic nightmare. Rather, they can only fill the tank initially about 3/4 of the way to leave room for the foam to rise and fall. Naturally, this puts a damper on one’s yields and efficiency. There may be 30 tanks in a fermentation room, but if you can only fill each up 3/4 of the way, your monthly yields are only 75 percent of what they might be. With foamless yeasts, however, this concern is all but a non-issue, and a brewery can get the higher yields out of each batch and tank.
Also, when foam does rise and fall, the remains that cling to the side of the tank are a veritable hotbed of bacterial activity, an orgy of undesirable microorganisms just hankerin’ to drop back in and do damage to the unsuspecting ambrosia-in-waiting below. So this must be assiduously cleaned off by the brewers. Not only is this hard and time consuming work, it is also quite dangerous, since it generally requires leaning into the tank. Falls into tanks are almost always fatal since there is no oxygen and the huge amount of carbon dioxide billowing up from the mash is harshly engulfing. So by eliminating the foamy remains, time, labor, and risk are spared. Finally, without all that gunk in the way, the hard-working yeast cells move and work a bit more freely, so that fermentation proceeds a smidgeon faster and can finish a day or two earlier.

Why are they foamless? What happens, it seems, is that most yeast cells will cling to bubbles of carbon dioxide that are created and then rise to the surface. Foamless yeast cells, on the other hand, for whatever reason do not cling to these bubbles and so are not carried up, up, and away. Since the bubbles are unencumbered, they pop, and there is no foam rising high above the mash.

The foamless yeasts that are commonly encountered out there today are non-foaming versions of the “usual suspects,” rather than being new, unknown, or total mutant life-forms.

Actually, they appear naturally and spontaneously. About one in every several hundred million yeast cells of a given type are foamless, but obviously, if just one in several hundred million is non-foaming, no one will notice. It just takes patience to isolate some and cultivate a pure culture of them.

Also, they have been around a long time, it seems, but proper records go back until only about 1916, when several breweries reported experiences with them. Apparently, until then, the brewers that encountered these thought, “Whoa. This can’t be right. Let’s just quietly throw this mutant away before anyone finds out about it. It could be bad for our rep and all.”

While foamless yeasts were used sparingly and experimentally for decades, the first commercial use of a foamless yeast was actually in Hawaii, believe it or not. In 1960 or 1961, a full ten years before it was used on anything remotely resembling a large scale in Japan, foamless yeasts were used by Takao Nihei of the Honolulu Sake Brewery. Dispatched by the brewing research organization within the government of Japan, he was the first to take what information there was on these yeasts (and a sample, of course) and run with it. His focus was saving labor and producing great sake with great efficiency, and this he did with great success.

Are these foamless yeasts really the same as their bubbling counterparts, except for the foam? Most brewers say, “Yes, the results are essentially same, and the practical advantages make it a clear choice for us.” However, there are a still a few hardcore toji who insist that the foamless manifestations are not quite as good as the foaming yeasts. Naturally, the ability to gather information from the appearance of the foam is eliminated. Still, most brewers feel that with foamless yeasts they get the same quality of sake, with less mess.

Foamless yeasts, at least those distributed by the Brewing Society of Japan, are designated by a -01 after the normal nomenclature. So a foamless Number 7 is known as 701, foamless Number 9 as 901, and so on. Those you are most likely to come across these days are 701, 901, and 1801.

Brewers are not obligated to provide information on the choice of yeast used, but often do. While there are countless yeasts used in sake today, just a few are non-foaming, and now you can recognize them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sake Professional Course in Las Vegas October 28 to 30~~~~~~~~~~

The next Sake Professional Course will take place October 28 to 30 at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas Nevada. Finish off an intense sake education by spending Halloween in Vegas!

More about the seminar, its content and day-to-day schedule, can be found here:
http://www.sake-world.com/html/spclv.html

Kikizake-joko – Official Tasting Glasses

The Sake Professional Course, with Sake Education Council-recognized Certified Sake Professional certification testing, is by far the most intensive, immersing, comprehensive sake educational program in existence. The three-day seminar leaves “no sake stone unturned.”

The tuition for the course is $825. Feel free to contact me directly at sakeguy@gol.com with any questions about the course, or to make a reservation.

– See more at: http://sake-world.com/#sthash.cQKxZymO.dpuf

Now, that’s using your head!

Long before the days of thermometers, hydrometers and barometers, brewers relied entirely on their senses to gauge the progress of a fermenting tank of sake. They might not have known the scientific causes, but experience and intuition told them how to interpret what they saw, tasted and smelled.

One of the most reliable of these empirical yardsticks — one that is still used today — is the appearance of 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, making it easy to assess and convey the status of the work in progress.

After the yeast starter has been created, and after water, rice and koji have been added over four days, 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 dragging yeast cells with it. This is why the foam has 2 1/2 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 taut muscle under skin; hence the term suji-awa (muscle foam). Next, a thick 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 myriad factors, such as how much the rice has been milled or the tank’s temperature. 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 boulders tumbling over each other. This is known as iwa-awa (rock foam).

This continues into the highest stage of foam, known as taka-awa, when the bubbles themselves become very small and fine. This usually occurs around the 10th day or so, but there is great variation.

The foam rises so high that brewers usually use a simple rig consisting of a piece of wire that gently spins on a motor. Its sole purpose is to beat down the foam gradually, which spares them the need for 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 tank’s interior.

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 also fades away, the moromi’s surface is referred to as ji (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 rice fibers tend to attach themselves to many types of wild yeast and rise 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 profiles.

Note, there are yeast strains that do not foam up, which has several advantages, including permitting brewers to get higher yields out of their tanks, since they do not have to worry about leaving room for the rising foam. Let us look at these non-foaming yeasts in more depth in the near future.

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Sake Professional Course Sake Pro Course NYC 2013

Kikizake-joko – Official Tasting Glasses

Dallas, Texas, August 8~10, 2013

The next Sake Professional Course will take place August 8-10, in conjunction with TEXSOM 2013 at the Four Seasons Resort and Club Dallas at Las Colinas in Irving, Texas

More about the seminar, its content and day-to-day schedule, can be found here:
http://www.sake-world.com/html/spc_texsom_2013.html

The Sake Professional Course, with Sake Education Council-recognized Certified Sake Professional certification testing, is by far the most intensive, immersing, comprehensive sake educational program in existence. The three-day seminar leaves “no sake stone unturned.”

The tuition for the course is $825. Feel free to contact me directly at sakeguy@gol.com with any questions about the course, or to make a reservation.

I have long known that Nara Prefecture, which borders Osaka and Kyoto in western Japan, has been known as the birthplace of sake. But I got majorly schooled during a recent visit there.

Nara, in fact, holds major significance in Japan’s history, and was even the capital from 710 to 784. During that time, there was a brewing department within the walls of the imperial palace in Nara. Sake back then, however, was a far cry from what we enjoy today (for one, it had much less alcohol), and the “Imperial Brewing Department” (the “IBD”?) focused its efforts for the most part on sake used in ceremonies and events. In fact, the IBD produced upwards of a dozen different types of sake, some colored with ash of black, red or white hues, with varying degrees of alcohol content, mostly for use in ceremonies.

Let us first look at a bit more of the history of sake in Nara. In time, like a few hundred years (things moved much more slowly back then) sake-brewing moved into the many Buddhist temples of the Nara region, as they had brought back their initial brewing technology back from China on their, um, supposedly religious expeditions to that mainland.

At this particular juncture of Japanese history (Heian era into Kamakura era, 9th to 13th centuries, roughly), there was a bit of a lull in political and military power, as it moved from the Fujiwara clan to the dueling Taira and Minamoto (Heike and Genji) clans. So there was a bit of a vacuum, or at least a low pressure zone, for a while. The resident monks of the numerous temples, in order to protect both themselves and their interests, militarized a bit. They trained and mobilized themselves, and undertook economic activities as well, including some sake brewing.

As time passed, they took sides out of necessity, and as power went back and forth, this means they inevitably found themselves on the wrong side of a vengeful, if temporary, victor. Revenge was often mercilessly exacted, and many, many temples were burned down and destroyed. Just about this time is when the brewing moved from what remained of the temples to the nearby Ikeda area, of modern-day Osaka. This is admittedly a bit of an oversimplification, but will do for our purposes here.

The source of my recent schooling was a temple called Shorakuji (http://shoryakuji.jp/ even ancient Buddhist temples are on the internet these days) on a mountain called Boudaisen. As I made my way up the mountain toward the temple, I was surrounded by dozens of terraced plots, the leveled earth supported by short stone embankments averaging five to six hundred years old. A temple once graced each of these plots, but after the vengeful fires of long ago, only Shorakuji remains. These temples, here on Bodasen mountain in Nara, are where the yeast starter known as Bodai-moto was created. More on this below…

If sake existed before this, and flourished after this period, why is it said that Nara is the birthplace of sake? Because so many of the basic methods and building-blocks of sake as we know it today were developed there at that time. Let us look a few of these.

Morohaku
Long ago, the rice used for koji was not milled before growing koji mold on it. These days, if anything, that rice is milled more than the straight rice added (known as kakemai). But it was in Nara back then that sake first came to be made with both koji rice and the straight rice being milled before being used. This was known as morohaku, or “both white.” It has since been the norm.

Dangake
This is a fancy (albeit seldom used any longer) word that means to add the rice, water and koji in stages so as to let the yeast enjoy the best environment for brewing, and letting the alcohol go up to twenty percent or so. And ever since this was developed in Nara, it too is the norm. Today, three stages are used, and the three-stage addition process is known as sandan-shikomi.

Pasteurization
Brewers in Nara were the first (records show in 1568) to heat sake up to about 65C, to remove the evil humours. Louis Pasteur lent his name to this process centuries later, but he gets all the credit; the brewers of ancient Nara get none.

Filtering off the lees
Until Nara, all sake was nigori, or cloudy. Clear sake, or sumizake, was first invented in Nara, as this is where they first passed the fermented mash though a mesh to hold back the dregs and let the clear sake through. Curiously, the nearby region of Itami claims this too; however, there are temple records that show that, before Itami was making sake, the monks of Nara were selling the lees (known as kasu) for making pickles. If they were selling sake kasu, they had to have been filtering it out, or they’d have none to sell. So give this one to Nara too.

Yeast starter (Moto)
The step of making a small starter batch with a very high concentration of yeast is an indispensible part of what sake brewing is today. And this, too, started in Nara with what was known as Bodai-moto, which was the precursor to yamahai and kimoto yeast starters, which were the precursors to today’s methods.

So clearly, the fundamentals of all that sake brewing is today were laid down in Nara long ago, hence the deserving title of “the birthplace of sake.”

Just one more thing: The above-mentioned Bodai-moto was invented at one of the temples on the aforementioned Bodaisen mountain, where only Shorakuji remains. It was made using the water of the river that runs down that mountain, and it seems that water holds some special species of lactic bacteria. ‘Course, there is plenty of that stuff in the air, so it is hard to know if the stuff in the river are really that special.

But in any event, Bodai moto was made by mixing water and raw rice, after which the lactic bacteria would proliferate, giving lactic acid that dosed the water, making it safe for sake yeast. Easier and better methods made this obsolete, but about 20 years ago, ten Nara brewers revived the technique. All ten make a tank or two of Bodai moto sake, the moto (yeast starter) only of which is made at Shorakuji and distributed to the ten brewers. So that makes Shorakuji the only Buddhist temple in the world with a sake-brewing license.

To learn more about the sake of Nara – including what brands are available – check out this old article in the archives of Sake World. Note, it offers different and augmenting information than the above, should Nara interest you sufficiently.

In any event, let us carry our newfound respect for Nara as the birthplace of sake into each cup we drink, tying us back to the history and culture of 600-odd years past.

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Learn more about sake and become a Certified Sake Professional at the Sake Professional Course in New York, May 8 to 10. Learn more here:
http://www.sake-world.com/html/spcny.html

 More in common than you might think!

Soon after beginning to study sake, one comes to realize there are many varieties of sake

rice. And while not all sake is made from “official” sake rice (and it is a legal definition – as compared to “regular” rice for eating), most premium sake is indeed brewed from one of the hundred-odd strains of sakamai, or sake rice.

Note this does not mean that without proper sake rice one cannot make good sake. It is, actually, quite possible to make decent sake with run of the mill regular rice. But it is just much, much easier to make good sake from proper sake rice. And in truth, to make the best sake, you must use proper sake rice.

Much like grapes used in wine, while there are many varieties of sake rice out there, if you know about a dozen, you will know most of the rice varieties you will encounter. And rice varieties do contribute greatly to the flavors of the final sake, not surprisingly. However, the connection between rice and final sake is not nearly as tight as the connection between grape varieties and the final flavors in a wine.

This is, methinks, an important point. Sake rice leads to sake flavors; yes. However, as important as good rice is, it is but half the battle. Just how the rice is handled – milled, soaked, steamed, propagated with mold, coaxed via temperature et al along a particular fermentation path – will have a huge amount of say in determining the nature of the final sake.

As a very simple example, the same Yamada Nishiki rice milled to the same 40%, for example, might go to two brewers. One would let it absorb more water, thereby helping it dissolve more quickly in the fermenting mash, thereby leading to a richer, broader, heavier flavor than the other. Or, one might have more koji mold propagated upon it, thereby dosing it with more sugar-creating enzymes, thereby enabling the yeast to go on a feeding frenzy, leading to a significantly drier sake. So the process itself contributes so much to the final sake. It is about much more than just the rice, although that is important as well.

I often liken it to coffee beans, and making coffee.

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Coffee is my second favorite liquid on the planet, with pure water beinga d-i-s-t-a-n-t third. Kind of the yang to sake’s yin in my daily life. And it recently struck me that good coffee beans are to good coffee as good sake rice is to good sake.

In other words, to make good coffee, you need to start with good beans. These will come from one of a handful of good growing regions. And each of the major varieties of coffee beans will have its own main characteristics: some are more acidic than others, some are fuller and richer. But the bean alone does not the coffee make!

We can start with the same coffee beans and end up with a very wide range of coffees. For example, beans can be lightly roasted, more thoroughly roasted, or mercilessly charred. This will lead to light coffee, richer coffee, or charred-flavor coffee.

On top of that, one can use an espresso maker, or drip press the coffee.

And even among those two extremes – and everything in between – there are little choices and decisions, like the water temperature (too hot, or just right?) or one-holed or three-holed cones. There is no one right decision; rather, each choice will lead to a different taste in spite of having started with the same beans. Even before that comes into play, bear in mind the grind: a find grind and a coarse grind will affect things massively as well.

So, you have the roast, the grind, the method, the machine, the water temperature, the apparatus, and the “touch” of the person making it all. You can start with good beans, but you have to do everything else right too. And what is right is not set in stone either. Very often, what one “master” considers anathema is precisely what makes another’s coffee so good. Go figure!

With good tools and methods, you can make a decent cup of coffee with mediocre beans. However, it is much, much easier to make good coffee if you start with good beans. And, to make the best coffee, you must start with good beans. And therein lies the connection between good sake and sake rice.

Restating: It is possible to make decent sake with run of the mill regular rice. But it is just much, much easier to make good sake from proper sake rice. And in truth, to make the best sake, you must use proper sake rice.

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Sake rice’s tenuous connection to its soulmate, the coffee bean, notwithstanding, the above might naturally give rise to the question, with all the manhandling of the rice, and the variations used in brewing methods, it it possible to assign “typical” flavor profiles to rice types, and is it possible to identify them in blind tastings like wine grapes?

The answer is yes, it is possible, but not with great accuracy, and it does take a bit of experience. I recall a tasting put on by the Japan Agriculture Co-Op of Okayama Prefecture, wherein we tasted about 100 Yamada Nishiki-based sake, followed by about 100 Omachi-based sake, from all over Japan. What they had in common was that the Yamada Nishiki and Omachi used were both grown in Okayama. After tasting one hundred sake made from one rice, you got a feel for that rice. Then moving on to the other rice was like entering a totally different universe.

However, if I had just one or two of each, and was asked “which is the Omachi, and which is the Yamada?,” it perhaps might have been more difficult.

So yes, the rice-to-sake connection is there; but no, it is not as tight as the grapes-to-wine connection. And yes, the rice is massively important in making great sake. But no, it is not the only factor involved. As is usually the case in sake-related topics, it is delightfully vague.

“Perhaps a hundred.”

That is the simplest answer to the question, “how many types of sake rice are there?” At any one given time, there are about a hundred.

Why the vague answer? First of all, because we are dealing with sake. It’s just the way it is. But also, I say “perhaps a hundred” because at any one time, there are about a hundred being grown across Japan. Each year, few more sake rice types are created through crossbreeding or spontaneous change, and a few are abandoned by the growing and brewing communities. So, it might be 90, it might be 110, but about a hundred are used each year.

Of those one hundred or so, kind of like grapes used in winemaking, if you know of the top dozen or so, you’re fine. Those dozen will make up the lion’s share of the rice used. The usual suspects: Yamada Nishiki, Omachi, Gohyakumangoku, Miyama Nishiki, Hattan Nishiki – these are the most visible and oft-encountered varieties.

A natural progression along the lines of this topic will eventually meander to, “Do they ever blend these rice varieties?” And the short answer is, “no.”

Basically, a sake will most often be made with one rice and one rice only. Are there exeptions? Of course there are. There are always exceptions in the sake world. But most of the sake out there is made with one and only one rice.

Why? Why not blend? The biggest reason is that different rice types behave differently. The way they behave when being milled, being soaked and steamed, having mold grown upon them, and most importantly the way they dissolved in the moromi (fermentation mash) are different. And if brewers want one thing during sake making, it is some semblance of predictability, a way to know that things are proceeding in the way they hope.

Living things like moromi (fermenting mash) do not always behave like we expect, so the way to counter that is to remove what variables you can. And if you have two different rice types going about their own business with their own idiosyncrasies in the same tank, it is much harder to deal with the other countless variables, and create the sake with an aimed-for level of consistency.

There are other reasons as well, but in the end, more than one rice is not usually used in a given tank. But as stated above, there are exceptions. What of those exceptions? Why and how? In short, very often a better rice is used for the koji, and a lesser rice is used for the kakemai. In other words…

Many readers surely recall that about 25% of all the rice going into a

given batch of sake has a mold (aspergillus oryzae) grown onto it. The resultant moldy rice is called koji, and from it come the enzymes that chop the starch in all the rice into sugar, which can then be fermented by the yeast. The remaining 75% of the rice added to the batch contributes more starch albeit no more enzymes, and is known as kakemai. And it is the koji, and by extension the rice used to make it, that holds much more leverage over the nature of the final sake.

So back to our blending topic, in the rare occasions that we do see more than one rice used in a single batch, the most common example is that a better rice is used for the koji (the more important moldy stuff), and a lesser for the kakemai (the still-important-but- less-so starch-contributing stuff).

Stated conversely and perhaps a bit less appealingly, one way to lower the cost of a sake is to use a lesser rice for the kakemai. And this is when we might see blending.

Note that rice is almost never blended for flavor-related reasons, like grapes might be. Sure, while different rice types do have differing flavor profiles, the rice-to-sake flavor connection is not as tight as the grapes-to-wine flavor connection. So the practice of blending would not yield such pronounced or predictable results. But note, to this principle too, there are some exceptions.

Also, as a quick yet deceivingly important point: note that sake brewers are not obligated to list the name of the rice used on the label. Many do, especially for premium sake, but there is no obligation to do so. But if they do in fact choose to list the name of the rice, they are then obligated to say what percent of the total amount of rice used corresponds to the listed rice. “Yamada Nishiki 100 percent,” for example. Or “Yamada Nishiki 25 percent, Kita Nishiki 75 percent,” might be another commonly seen example.

Finally, this might change. I have heard from more than one brewer that – especially for small, boutique brewers, blends of individual tanks that yield the most enjoyable, unique and premium sake – may be the way of the future. There is nothing preventing this, and I personally think it would be a welcomed move that would improve sake’s appeal and specialness.

Still, at least for now, blending rice types and blending discrete tanks for one-of-a-kind flavor reasons is not at all a common practice in sake brewing. Just beware the exceptions.