Sake Guides
Articles on choosing, tasting, serving, and how sake is made. Currently available in Japanese.
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07How Sake Is Made, Step by Step
Sake is brewed from just three things: rice, rice koji, and water. The path from milling to bottling runs in a single line, but it branches at several points along the way, and those branches are what give one sake a different flavor from the next. We'll start with a table of the whole process, t...
Production #Intermediate #production #koji #shubo -
26Kimoto, Yamahai, and Sokujo: A Deep Dive into Sake Starter Methods
If the back label reads "kimoto" or "yamahai," you may be holding a bottle that shines when warmed. That distinction traces back to how the sake starter is built. The starter, or shubo, is where yeast is cultivated, and lactic acid keeps unwanted microbes at bay. How that lactic acid gets there i...
Production #Junshu (rich) #Intermediate #shubo #production -
28Milling, Koji, and the Three-Stage Mash: Inside the Core Steps of Sake Brewing
What decides the flavor of a bottle before it ever reaches a glass? Much of the answer lies in three steps: rice milling, koji-making, and the three-stage mash. In The Full Sake Production Process, we traced the journey from raw rice to bottled sake as a single continuous flow. Here, we pull out ...
Production #Intermediate #koji #rice #production -
29Pressing Techniques (Jōsō): Arabashiri, Nakadori, Seme, and Fukurozuri
The words "arabashiri" and "nakadori" on a back label refer to the order in which the sake was pressed. The process of pressing the fermenting mash is called jōsō (上槽, "raising the tank"), and both the pressing method and the order in which the liquid emerges shape the character of the finished s...
Production #Intermediate #pressing #production -
34The Sake Rice Field Guide: From Yamada Nishiki to Regional Varieties, Sorted by Character
The name printed on the back label can already tell you roughly what a sake will taste like. Yamada Nishiki tends toward the rich and rounded; Gohyakumangoku, toward the light and clean. Each rice variety has its own personality.
Production #Intermediate #rice #production