Ch. 2: Sake Production Flashcards
Build on details of Sake production, provide full overview of production. (39 cards)
Ingredients of Sake?
1) Steamed White Rice
2) Water
3) Koji
4) Yeast
When is the rice planted and then harvested?
Planted in Spring, grown over the Summer and harvested in Autumn.
How long can rice be stored?
Rice can be stored for a few months before is is ready to use.
What are the subspecies groups of rice?
Indica - Long Grained
Japonica - Short Grained
*Glutinous - Sticky
*Non-Glutinous - Non-Sticky
What are sake-specific rice varietals?
Varieties of rice developed for sake brewing. They are typically harder to farm and give lower yields.
Favored for 3 reasons (All of which make it easier to polish the rice grains)
1) Less protein then table rice
2) Most of the starch granules lie in the well-defined almost pure starch core
3) Larger grained, so less likely to crack
Basic process needed for sake production?
Polished rice is a solid with a starchy core that needs water and koji produced enzymes to convert the solid starch into a sugary fermentable liquid. Yeast is then needed to ferment the sugars into alcohol.
What is the 1st step of production?
Polishing
How is polishing done and what is it’s purpose?
Polishing is done mechanically in large rice-polishing machines.
Polishing removes the proteins, lipids, vitamins and minerals that are concentrated in the outer part of the ride grain, leaving just the starchy core.
What is the polishing ratio?
Polishing ratio is the amount of rice that remains, which is what is used to determine the final style and category of the sake.
What is the 2nd Step of production?
Washing
How is washing done and what is it’s purpose?
Washing is done either in small containers, large vats or continuous rice polishing machines.
This process removes any remaining fine rice particles that would otherwise make the sake less pure, rougher in texture and more acidic.
Profile of sake made with highly polished rice
purer, fruitier flavor, and i lighter in body with lower acidity and umami.
Profile of sake made with coarsely polished rice
more savory notes with less fruit and more body and, more acidity and more umami.
What is the 3rd Step of production?
Soaking
How is Soaking done and what is it’s purpose?
For the purest and most delicate Sakes, soaking is done in small batches and timed precisely. For other styles, soaking is done over a few hours in large tanks.
Soaking alters the amount and distribution of water within the rice grain, ensuring the inner starchy core is soft and moist.
What is the 4th step of production?
Steaming
How is Steaming done and what is it’s purpose?
Traditionally, steaming is done in 1 ton batches for 1 hour. Larger brewers have continuous rice steamers.
1) Steaming ensures the outside stays firm (unlike boiling) to ensure the rice receives the koji properly and also breaks up correctly during fermentation.
2) The heat also changes the structure of the starch, allowing the Koji enzymes ti break it up into ferment-able sugars.
3) Steaming also disinfects the rice
What is starch?
Starch is a large molecule made up of a lot of sugar molecules tightly linked together in a chain. This chain must be broken up into sugars before yeast can ferment them into alcohol
What are enzymes?
Enzymes are a kind of protein that helps chemical reactions take place with out being used up in those chemical reactions, so only small amounts of enzymes are needed to convert large amounts of starch into sugar.
What is Koji Mould and Koji?
Koji Mold: a specialized naturally occurring mold that creates starch-converting enzymes .
Koji: Moldy rice that is created by allowing Koji mold to grow on steamed rice.
What is the 5th step of production?
Creating Koji
How is Koji created?
Koji is created in a special series of rooms in a sake brewery where the temperature and humidity can be controlled. There are 4 steps:
1) Cooling the rice
2) Inoculation of the rice by sprinkling Koji mold spores on the thinly spread cooled rice
3) Initial mold growth, the rice and mold are mixed to ensure thorough mold growth over all rice grains.
4) Controlling and stopping the mold growth. The temperature is precisely controlled to ensure just the right amount of mold is grown and eventually the temperature is dropped to stop the production.
* **Typically takes about 2 days.
What conditions does Koji need to grow?
High humidity and warm temperatures of between 33C and 38C (92-100*F)
Profile of sake produced with Koji that has High Koji Mold levels
Large amounts of enzymes are produced, so starch is converted into ferment-able sugars more rapidly, leads to faster fermentation and the sake tends to have more flavor intensity, with more acidity and umami
