Ep 08: It’s a Kind of Magic: How Sake is Made Part 2

The second part of the exciting two-parter about how sake is made. I never stop admiring the skill and craftmanship of sake brewers. They manage to create a beautiful drink from rice and water. In this episode we continue exploring the sake brewing process learning about sandan jikomi, multiple parallel fermentation, pressing and post-production. 

Don't forget, Sugidama Podcast now has a sponsor, London Sake, an excellent online sake store. London Sake has one of the widest selections of premium and craft sake available online today. They deliver across the UK and Europe, and with over 100 sake from 25 breweries, there really is something for everyone.

Using simple online tasting notes and sensible, affordable food pairings they help you find the perfect sake without any of the fuss. Listeners of the podcast can get a 10% discount Listen to the episode to get the magical code! London Sake: making sake simple.

Episode's Content:

• Recap from the previous episode
• Sandan Jikomi
• Multiple Parallel Fermentation
• Why open tanks?
• Sake pressing
• Preparing sake for bottling (post-production)
• Sake of the episode: London Kanpai Taru Barrel-Aged Junmai

Kampai!
Sake mentioned:
Kanpai Taru Barrel-Aged Junmai
Kanpai London
London Sake

Episode Dictionary
Moto/Shubo (酛/酒母) - yeast starter
Sandan Jikomi (三段仕込) - a three-stage mixing process of sake fermentation mash
Moromi (醪) - sake fermentation mash
Hatsuzoe/soe (初添/添) - Day 1 of Sandan Jikomi
Odori (踊り) - Day 2 of Sandan Jikomi (resting day)
Nakazoe/naka (仲添/仲) - Day 3 of Sandan Jikomi
Tomezoe/Tome (留添/留) - Day 4 of Sandan Jikomi
Fune (槽) - sake press
Arabashiri (荒走り) - rough run
Nakadori/Nakagumi (中取り/中汲み) - mid run in sake pressing
Seme (責め) - the final run in sake pressing
Fukuro-tsuri (袋吊り) -  hanging cotton bags
Shizuku-zake (雫酒) - drip sake
Tobingakoi (斗瓶囲い) - a special 18-litre sake bottle
Sake kasu (酒粕) - sake lees, a by-product of sake pressing
Oribiki (おり) - rice sediment
Roka ( ろ過) - filtering
Chozo (貯蔵) - sake maturation
Chougu (調合) - blending
Warimizu - (割水) - diluting sake with water

Music used:

Wirklich Wichtig (CB 27) by Checkie Brown https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Checkie_Brown_1005/hey/Wirklich_Wichtig_CB_27

Just Arround the World (Kielokaz ID 362) by KieLoKaz
 https://freemusicarchive.org/music/KieLoKaz/Free_Ganymed/Just_Arround_the_World_Kielokaz_ID_362

Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Vocal: Svetlana 

Transcript

Episode 08: how sake is made part 2

Greeting

Hey, everyone welcome to episode number 8of Sugidama Podcast, the podcast about Japanese sake, which takes a bit of magic to make. And today we will continue our series about this exciting process of sake brewing. But before I would like to talk about our sponsor, London Sake, who have one of the widest selections of premium and craft sake available online today. You can choose from over 100 sake from 25 breweries and they will deliver across the UK and Europe. The cool thing about their website is that you can use simple online tasting notes together with very sensible and affordable food pairings to make your choice and pick up the perfect sake to enjoy. What is very useful is that you can get a 10% discount by just using the code: SUGIDAMA (all caps) during checkout. London Sake: making sake simple."

And I hope that some of you have already ordered sake from London Sake and enjoyed it! Probably something featured in this podcast or in my recent post about 5 best sake for this cold and rainy weather or just by browsing the website looking at tasting notes and pairing suggestions.

Also I would like to remind you that if you like Sugidama Podcast and would like to hep it grow, please leave a review. If you use Apple Podcasts, it’s pretty easy. Unfortunately Google and Spotify don’t have this functionality but you can always share the podcast on your social media with your friends and tell anyone who expressed interest in sake to listen to it. So please do it, I rely on you (no pressure).

The starter is ready

OK, let’s go back to our imaginary sake brewery and see what we have. 

We decided what sake we would like to brew and chose the ingredients. Polished, wished, soaked and steamed the rice, took out a bit to make koji rice, mixed it with water, lactic acid and yeast to make starter, called moto or shubo and waited for 2 weeks until it’s ready.

Now it’s time to do the main brewing. First of all, what is happening in this starter. Koji is converting the starch from rice grains into sugar, which is consumed by yeast producing alcohol and CO2. The starter is bubbly and alive with the high concentration of hungry yeast. Actually, five million of yeast cells per teaspoon, that much! 

Sandan Jikomi

Let’s start our brewing! The process used by breweries for main fermentation is called sandan jikomi and it’s been used for hundreds of years probably since 16th century if not earlier. Sandan jikomi is a 3-stage process, when all the main ingredients of sake: the starter, steamed rice, rice koji and water are mixed together over the period of 4 days. The resulting fermenting mash is called moromi.

Why three stages and four day? Why not just to mix everything together and let the nature do its work? Well, if you look at it, the starter we made accounts for around 6% of the final moromi by volume. So if you add all the water and rice, it will drastically dilute the starter, lowering the acidity level. And we know that it’s the acidity which keeps all unwanted microorganisms out of the moromi. That’s why we need to build the moromi gradually.

As I said, there are three stages over four days. Let’s talk about each day in a bit more details.

The first day is called hatsuzoe or just soe, which means the first addition. We take a big fermentation tank. And in old days, the tanks were made of Japanese cedar wood, called sugi as the first part of the name of this podcast and my blog. If you remember, sugidama means a ball (tama or dama in this case) made of cedar twigs (sugi). Nowadays, fermentation tanks are made with ceramic-lined stainless steel or sometimes just stainless steel. There are a few reasons, why wooden tanks are not used anymore in most of the cases. 

First of all, with the emergence of vertical polishing machines, sake became more refined. So you don’t want to add this woody aroma to your high-grade sake. Also wood absorbs some amount of sake during the fermentation process. Not too much but if you think of many batches of sake over many years, it will count. The last but not the least reason is that stainless steel is more hygienic. Wood is notoriously difficult to clean to make sure there’s no pesky bacteria remained. With the ceramic-lined tanks, you just jet spray them and you are done!

I read an interesting fact about wooden tanks on John Gauntner’s blog. After making, a tank was usually left unused for a few years to let the woody aroma to go away as even in these days no one wanted to make an overly woody sake either. 

So on the first day of our sandan jikomi, we put our moto into the squeaky clean tank and add about 20% of the steamed rice, rice koji and water. That’s it.

The second day is called odori, which means dance in Japanese and we do nothing. Well, I guess we can do dancing if we are not exhausted by the hard work but I doubt it. During this day the yeast continues its propagation in the moromi. 

On the third day, which called nakazoe or just naka, we add about 30% of the total steamed rice, rice koji and water. So altogether we have now 56% of the final amount of the moromi: 6% moto and 20% and 30% added on the first and the third days.

The fourth day is called tomezoe, which loosely means the final addition, and we add the remaining 44% of the ingredients and our moromi is ready for fermentation. Not that it hasn’t started yet, it’s been going on since the day one, but now we are not going to add anything else. Just check on it and wait for another 2-4 weeks for the sake to get brewed.

Multiple Parallel Fermentation

Now we have finally reached the magical stage I have been blabbing about for quite some time and have mentioned a few times as well. In Japanese it’s called heikō fuku-hakkō, multiple parallel fermentation. So what is happening in the tank with moromi? First, the process called saccharification, which in scientific terms means the breakdown of carbohydrates into glucose. Basically the conversion of starch into sugar, which is done by our friends, koji. 

The second process is the actual fermentation, or the conversion of this glucose into alcohol by the yeast culture. The by-product of the fermentation is CO2 or carbon dioxide. What magical here is the fact that the both processes are happening simultaneously, in parallel. As saccharification could be considered also as a form of fermentation, it’s done by koji, a microorganism, the process has got its long name: multiple parallel fermentation.

The interesting point about the multiple parallel fermentation is that it produces a higher alcohol content compared to wine or beer. Sake can be fermented up to 20-22% ABV and I’ve never thought about WHY before so decided to dig into it for this episode. 

The main reason for the higher alcohol content is the efficiency of the process as the sugar is converted by yeast into alcohol as soon as it is produced by koji. If you take a single fermentation process, like winemaking, to achieve similar alcohol content you need a very high level of sugar in the fermenting mash. So the solution would be too sugary for the yeast to work efficiently. In sake, the sugar is supplied constantly but gradually, bit by bit. So the yeast have plenty of time to convert it in alcohol and CO2, no rush resulting in 20-22% ABV. 

As I said, the main fermentation takes around 2-4 weeks to produce sake. The length of the process depends on a number of factors and on what style of sake the brewery wants to make. The temperature is the main factor. It ranges from 8 to 18 degrees and the higher it is, the faster the fermentation process goes on.

The pace of the fermentation affects the style of the sake. The low temperature results in slower fermentation and fruitier more aromatic sake. The higher temperature produces less aromatic and more savoury and robust sake.

Another factor, which affects the length of fermentation in sake is sweetness. Sometimes, the brewery would like to make slightly sweeter sake. So they would stop the fermentation a bit earlier. So the sugar, produced by koji would not be all consumer by yeast. A desirable alcohol content is another reason to stop the fermentation earlier. While sake is usually diluted before bottling, the master brewer might want to make naturally low alcoholic sake.

Sake is always fermented in a open tank. Why is that? First or all, you can control the temperature of the moromi much better. Interestingly, as we have learned, yeast produces alcohol AND carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is heavier than air, so it forms a natural layer on the top of the tank, which together with lactic acid protect the moromi from all pesky wild yeasts and bacteria, which might spoil the mash. I heard that from time to time an unfortunate brewery worker might stick his head too far into the tank, which leads to an accident.

Another reason for the open tank is that the fermentation produces a huge amount of foam. Well, it depends on the yeast as there are foamless yeasts now. But in many cases, the amount of foam is quite huge. The brewery workers constantly assess the foam and judge how the brewing process is progressing. In old times, the foam was the key indicator for what is going on inside the tank. It changes its shape and look depending on the processes underneath. Nowadays, there are plenty of other techniques to assess the brewing process from chemical measurements to electronic sensors, computers and so on. Still, the state of the foam remains very important.

After the master brewer decides that sake is ready for pressing, depending on the style, some amount of distilled alcohol can be added. We have already discussed why alcohol is added to sake nowadays: basically, to draw out the flavours, which normally remained in the rice particles. Though in futsushu, table sake it’s used to increase the yield. Historically, shochu, a distilled alcoholic drink, which is really exciting on its own, was added. But now breweries just add distilled alcohol of any origin.

Well, the sake is ready to press. Before going into the final stage, I would like to remind you that Sugidama Podcast is sponsored by London Sake, a very cool online sake shop. They’ve got plenty of sake with easy to read tasting notes, food pairing suggestions, information about breweries. It’s really easy to pick a sake you want there. And you can get 10% discount by just using the code: SUGIDAMA (all caps) during checkout. London Sake: making sake simple. I like their slogan. It’s what we need.

Pressing

When sake is ready it’s pressed, in order to separate the sake from the remains of the fermented rice, which called sakekasu or sake lees. Let’s first look at the traditional and very common method to press sake. I have mentioned it before but here I am going to add a few extra details. 

First, the moromi with brewed sake is put into cotton bags. One bag usually takes 10 litres. And the bags are placed in a big wooden box called fune. Fune means a boat in Japanese and the box just resembles one. It’s usually 2-4m long, about a meter wide and around a meter or two deep. You’ve got a picture. There is a hole at the bottom of the box for sake to escape. 

Mind, that fune is written with a different Chinese character, which means vat or tub, but the reading is borrowed from the boat character. Sorry, Japanese reading and writing is might be so complicated. Oh, traditionally as many other things, fune were made of non-aromatic wood like cherry wood. But in our days, they can be made of steel or concrete lined with epoxy resin for example.

First, the bags are carefully stacked on each other in a few layers inside the fune and are squeezed under their own weight. The sake pressed this way is called arabashiri, rough run in Japanese. I have mentioned it in episode 3 about types of sake. Arabashiri sake is a bit rough but in a good appealing way. 

Another interesting thing about arabashiri I also read at John Gauntner’s blog is that some breweries use traditional 18 litres bottles to separate arabashiri as it flows from the press. Sake in each bottle tends to have a slightly different aroma and taste profile. So brewery might use the best one for a competition.

Back to the sake press. When after 4-6 hours the free flow is exhausted, the brewery workers put a press on top of the stacked bags. The sake pressed at this stage is called nakadorior nakagumi, a mid run if you like and it’s the most prized batch. It’s stable and balanced. Then the bags are rearranged and the final push is applied resulting in sake called semi, from a word meaning to tormEnt. In this way the remaining 5% of sake is squeezed from the bags. It’s not the best batch and it usually kept separately and used to mix with other batches.

One thing to keep in mind that all these word, arabashiri, nakadori, nagagumi can be on a sake label but they are not legal terms. So the brewery might use them for any sake they like. For example, to highlight some roughness in a particular sake, they might put arabashiri on the label. But usually, these terms are used properly.

Another traditional method of pressing sake is called fukuro-tsuri or shizuku-zake or tobingakoi. I think I have mentioned it before as well. So the method is quite simple: the moromi is placed into cotton bags, which are hung or suspended in the air. These bags are called fukuro-tsuri, hanging cotton bags. The sake drips from the bags without any pressure and is called shizuku-zake, drip-sake. The sake pressed this way have a more elegant and complex flavour. To avoid oxidation, which might ruin it, the sake is collected in big 18 litre bottles called tobingakoi, which roughly translated as an enclosed 18-litre bottle. Which it is.

This type of sake is very expensive as it is labour intensive and you can’t get all sake from the bags. When sake stops dripping, the bags a pressed in a normal way separately. 

The final pressing method we are going to cover here is pressing with automatic pressing machines. I guess most of sake by volume is pressed this way. A sake pressing machine resembles an accordion, a musical instrument. Moromi is pumped into the machine and rubber balloon-like bags are inflated to squeeze sake from the moromi leaving nicely stacked sake kasu briquettes behind. 

Post-production

Phoo. Now we have our sake nicely squeezed. Should we just bottle it and ship. No, no, no. First, the sake is put into big tanks for the period of about ten days. So the sediments, which are left after pressing settle at the bottom of the tanks. The sediments are called ori and the process oribiki, which usually translated as racking in English.

Then the clear portion of the sake is transferred to another tank for filtering. Ori can be actually used to make so called orizake. Apparently, and I haven’t come across orizake yet, it’s a bit like nigori but the rice particles are finer. 

So the next step is filtering and we talked about it in episode 3. It’s called roka in Japanese. Activated powdered carbon is added into sake and the mixture is run through a filter. Filtering removes sake natural yellowish/amber colour as well as some unwanted flavour elements. So it strips a bit if individuality from the sake. If it’s done to aggressively you might get a quite dull drink. If this step is skipped, the sake is called as we already know muroka, or unfiltered sake.

After filtering, the sake is pasteurised for the first time by heating it up to 65 degrees Celsius. It can be done in a few different ways. For example, running sake through a coiled metal pipe that sits in a vat of heated water or by immersing bottles of sake in hot water. Again, if it skipped, we get namazake or just nama, unpasteurised sake. 

After the first pasteurisation, the sake stored in big tanks at 15 degrees Celsius to age a bit. Usually a few months. It’s not actually ageing but more to let it settle down and round out the flavour. This process is called chozo. You might remember it from the episode 3 when I was talking about nama-chozo, the sake which was not pasteurised before the chozo step, only just before shipping.

The aroma and flavour of sake will vary from tank to tank, so after they both settled, a special brewery worker does blending, deciding what portion of which tank to mix to create the desired profile. This process is called chougu. When it’s done, water is added to lower the alcohol content and to adjust the flavour, unless it’s genshu, undiluted sake. This step is called warimizu.

Finally, the sake is pasteurised for the second time (unless it’s nama) and bottled. The labels are stuck and it’s ready to ship, yay! However, if the brewery would like to make aged sake, koshu, they would leavethe sake either in the tank or in the bottle for several years. It might be as quick as 2 years and as long as 20 or even longer.

Here we are, done but not dusted. Sake brewing is a fascinating topic and we will get back to it to talk about other aspects, brewing methods, terms. Let me know if you have any questions about it.

Just to sum up everything quickly. The main fermentation technique is called sandan jikomi when rice, water and koji rice are added to the starter in three steps over the period of four days. Then it takes 2-4 weeks to ferment and produce the sake. After that depending on the style, some distilled alcohol could be added and the fermenting mash called moromi is pressed.

Then the pressed sake is let to sit in a tank for a few days to let the sediments to settle on the bottom, the clear portion is filtered, pasteurised and stored in a tank for several months. After that the sake from different tanks is blended, diluted with water, pasteurised for the second time, bottled and shipped. This is how sake is made. Just look at a bottle of the sake you’ve bought and think how much effort, artistry, craftsmanship and if you like, magic got into it! It makes me awe every time.

I have used so many strange Japanese words in this episode, so I am going to add a brief dictionary to the show notes.

Sake of the Episode

And now is the sake of the episode. Today I would like to feature a special sake: Taru Barrel-Aged Junmai sake from Kanpai, a very hip sake brewery from London, United Kingdom! I’ve mentioned them before a few times already and I’ve got a huge respect for Lucy and Tom, who run the brewery and who have become skilful and innovative sake brewers in a matter of a few years. I wish I could do something like that. 

I definitely want to do an interview with them next year if their busy schedule permits, and ask them about their story. The brewery was launched in 2017 in Peckham, South London. They brew, bottle and package their sake themselves and you can now find Kanpai sake in a lot of places from Selfridges to our sponsor, London Sake, from iconic Fortnum and Mason to small independent wine shops across the UK.

So Taru is koshu. It’s been slowly aged in red wine oak casks from Burgundy. And it gives the sake amazing luxurious feel and taste. I have recently featured Taru in my post about 5 best sake for cold and rainy weather and I also want to feature it here for the same reason: it’s an amazing sake for the season: rich, sweet, spicy and complex. No wonder, Taru won gold in the Sake Sommelier Association’s London Sake Challenge!

Taru has a  a very lavish dark amber colour of whiskey or cognac and its aroma with a pleasant burnt sugar and cherry pips smell. Strangely enough, Taru reminded me of kvass, an Eastern European fermented non-alcoholic drink made of rye bread. It also has interesting herbal and woody notes.

The taste is sweet and complex with a myriad of different flavours from dried fruit and prunes to whiskey and and stout, even candied lemon slices. It might sound a bit controversial, but for me Taru absorbed the key tastes of British alcoholic drinks from English ale to Scottish whiskey, from Welsh beer to Irish stout. 

Also Kanpai Taru is a very versatile drink: you can drink it in a glass at room temperature, on the rocks, you can warmed it up and put some spices. It could be a perfect drink for dessert or even a topping for your boozy ice-cream. So if you are a bit tired of traditional port or whiskey at the end your Christmas lunch or New Year Eve’s dinner, try Kanpai Taru and I am sure you won’t be disappointed.Oh, it’s aged so you can keep it opened for longer. 

You can buy Kanpai Taru from the brewery’s website, they have a very nice set of a Gold Medal edition with two nice Kanpai branded sake glasses or as I said in many other shops off and online, including our sponsor, London Sake, which has a huge choice of other sake. Don’t forget the magic word, SUGIDAMA (all in caps), which will give you a 10% discount on check-out.

Ending

So that’s it for today. I’ll be back with more exciting episodes. The next 3-4 episodes will be interviews with very interesting people from the sake world. So please subscribe if you don’t want to miss them. In the meantime, if you never tried sake (which I really doubt given that it’s the 8th episode), but still buy it and try. 

Go to Sugidama Blog (which is surprise, surprise, on sugidama.co.uk). I’ve published a post about 5 best sake for this weather. I also have a guest post from Jordan Smithcroft from Manchester with a review of a nice nigori. Explore the Tasting Notes section. You can always find there a nice sake to try! Please, send me an email or leave a comment about your experience. 

Again, if you like the episode and want more, hit the SUBSCRIBE button, please leave a review and share this podcast with your friends. It’s the best thing you can do to support Sugidama Podcast. 

Thanks a lot for listening!

Kampai!