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.

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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.

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Kikizake-joko – Official Tasting Glasses

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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.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.

Last month, I gave a presentation in Boston and then Chicago on trends and changes of late in teh sake world. In preparing and delivering that presentation, I realized and was otherwise told a few things about the state of the industry that are very worth observing.

Over the past decade or so, a very clear changing of the guard has taken
place, in that the past generation of brewers has handed the baton off to the next generation, seemingly en masse. It really does seem to me that everywhere in the industry, 60-year olds have just handed the operations of the company to their 30 to 40 year old sons (or daughters, in some cases).

Of course, 1300 companies could not be in generational sync like that. But it sure seems to me that a whole lot of them are. When I first got involved in the industry about 18 years ago, I was by far the youngest of any group I ran with. Now, I am almost without exception the oldest. ‘Course, I put on 18 years during these past 18 years, so that has to be factored in too! But still, the sweeping and clear-cut change in generation seems very apparent to me. 
 
And as I took the time to look around and think about it, I realized that the generation of kuramoto (brewery owners) currently in charge lives, brews and sells in a totally different world than their fathers. The market is different. The economy is different. The brewing landscape too, is different. What worked before, just a scant couple of decades previous, will not work now.

I recall a few years ago visiting one of the largest ten brewers in the country. The president told me that back in the day, like the mid-70’s to mid-80’s, the phone would ring in the office.

“Don’t answer it,” said someone across the room. “It’s probably an order; we can’t fill it anyways.” In other words, sake was flying off the shelves faster than they could make it. Those were the days. But alas, they are long gone, ne’er to return.

And as such, philosophies, ways of doing business, and sensibilities all have changed for the better. How has this manifested itself? Partly in design. Labels are flashier, sexier, more attractive and infinitely more informative than in the past, methinks. (This does not necessarily mean they are easier to decipher to those that do not know much about sake, but one step at a time!)

Marketing methods and sales channels have expanded as well. Many brewers bypass the middleman these days, much more than in the past. Direct sales to consumers too, via mailers and the internet, are far more common as well. And brewers are much more visible at tastings, gathered in groups of one demographic or another – region, age group, philosophy and hair color are just a few groupings we see.

And finally, the sake itself has been changing. Perhaps not that much in terms of how they drink, but what the average brewer offers has expanded significantly, it seems. Many brewers experiment with more varieties of rice, various degrees of milling, myriad yeast types, and subtly different brewing methods, tweaked a bit here and there, than what we would have seen from their predecessors. It’s all very interesting, actually.

Everything from milling rates to new machines, from myriad permutations of variations on pasteurization to new rice types and combinations of the same – it is all enjoyably difficult to keep up with!

Undoubtedly, the younger generation now is technically more adept then the previous one. There is just so much more information readily available for those that want to learn. And many more owner-inherits are embracing brewing technology and know-how rather than just sales. And this gets them much more involved, leading to more variation.

One brewer yanked me aside after one presentation, and augmented the information I had just presented. He was, actually, one of the “hold-outs,” i.e. one of the older generation that had not handed off the reins yet. And he explained a nuance I had not considered before.

“Just 20 or 30 years ago,” he began,” we kuramoto had little say in what came out of our kura. Sure, we could decide how many tanks and for the most part what grades. But the selection of rice, yeast, and methods therein were pretty much left up to the toji. In some cases, it was entirely left up to the toji.

“And what we got at the end of the season was what we got. We just had to go and sell it.” He almost seemed envious of what the current young’ns could do.

“Now, these guys can get in there, get their hands dirty, and even if they are leaving it up to the toji, they can have their say. They can dictate what rice is used, what yeasts are used, and what tricks-of-the-trade are used.” Very often, these “tricks” recommendations from friends and classmates at other breweries. It’s technology exchange in a modern format.

 While this may not seem like a big deal, in the sake world, little things make big differences.

 As a couple of concrete examples, I was told by one brewer in Shimane that they had never used a great rice called Omachi because it did not suit the way that the koji mold is propagated on rice by the local guild of toji. “Omachi does not like the heavier, slightly wetter koji that the Izumo guild uses.” So until this guy came along and took over, no Omachi. And no questions about it. Do not question the toji. Do not pass go; do not collect 200 yen.

 But the young buck, just back from brewing school, knew how it could be done. And he made it happen, so now we have a wonderful Omachi sake from Rihaku.

Another example from up north was a young brewer that wanted to make a sake with no added yeast; in other words, just let it drop in from the ambient environment. Where did he get this cockamamie idea? One of his buddies in another part of the country has been making sake that way for decades. 

 “Please,” began his journeyman toji, “don’t ask me to do that!” But ask he did. And it ended up not only fine, but very interesting, and also gained a fantastic sales point along the way. Yet another fresh idea that never would have happened just a generation ago.

 As such, we have a ton of very interesting new facets of sake to pay attention to and learn about these days, thanks in large part to a changing of the guard. Be sure to engage any brewer you might encounter on the sake trail along which you tread. You’re sure to be enlightened at least a bit.