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Alcoholic drinks from Japan

Sake (base flow: junmai, sokujo starter)日本酒

Sake is brewed from polished rice, water and rice koji. A pure yeast starter acidified with lactic acid is built first, then rice, koji and water are added in three steps over four days, and koji enzymes make sugar while yeast makes alcohol in the same cold tank for three to five weeks. The mash is pressed, pasteurised, aged for six months to a year and diluted to about 15 %.

Fully documentedAlcoholic drinks7.3 months – 14 months

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe standard main-mash ratio from the NRIB guide, in parts of polished rice. One tank holds from under 1 t to over 10 t of rice, added in three steps over four days.
Steamed polished rice80 partsPolished to a seimai-buai of 70 % for ordinary sake[jss-nrib2011]
Rice koji (kome-koji)20 partsSteamed rice grown with Aspergillus oryzae[jss-nrib2011]
Water130 parts[jss-nrib2011]
Yeast starter (shubo or moto)Built from rice, koji, water, pure sake yeast and lactic acid (90 % solution)[jss-nrib2011]
Starterkoji/qu/mold-starter (rice koji) + yeast starter (shubo/moto)

Total time across the recorded steps: 7.3 months – 14 months

Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: Milling grinds away the outer layer of each grain

Step 1 of 13
Polish the rice
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Aspergillus oryzae
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Yeasts

Output: polished rice.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Sake is brewed from polished rice, water and rice koji. A pure yeast starter acidified with lactic acid is built first, then rice, koji and water are added in three steps over four days, and koji enzymes make sugar while yeast makes alcohol in the same cold tank for three to five weeks. The mash is pressed, pasteurised, aged for six months to a year and diluted to about 15 %. Made in 13 steps over 7.3 months – 14 months. The longest step, mature, takes 6–12 months (Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association and…) and runs at 10–15 °C (Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association and…). Aspergillus oryzae and Saccharomyces cerevisiae sake strains do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step6–12 monthsReported[jss-nrib2011]Mature
Temperature10–15 °CReported[jss-nrib2011]Mature
AciditypH 4.2–4.7Reported[jss-nrib2011]Dilute, blend, pasteurise again and bottle

What makes this one different

Sake is brewed with rice koji and a selected sake yeast built into an acid starter. Starch is turned to sugar and fermented at the same time in one cold tank, so the mash reaches 17–20 % alcohol; it is then diluted to about 15 %, against 10–13 % for white wine.

Related ferments

Made the sake way

Other sake kinds

Made the same way, each with what its own sources record.

Akaisake (red sake) and kuroshu (brown-rice sake)赤い酒

Alcoholic drinks from Japan

Akaisake is made with red yeast rice koji, which gives it a pink-tinted appearance, and kuroshu is made from unpolished brown rice and is more like huangjiu (Wikipedia).

Colour (akaisake)
Pink-tinted, like a rosé wine, from brewing with red yeast rice koji (Monascus purpureus) (Wikipedia)
Rice (kuroshu)
Made from unpolished rice, that is brown rice, and said to be more like huangjiu (Wikipedia)

Sources: Wikipedia

Safety

Most sake is pasteurised at 60–65 °C before storage to sterilise it and stop its enzymes. Unpasteurised namazake is kept at 5 °C or below.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Chinese histories of the third century already mention the Japanese love of sake, and the tenth-century Engishiki records how it was made at court. Between the 12th and 15th centuries temples and shrines developed the yeast starter, mashing in stages and sake made wholly from polished rice, and 15th–16th-century diaries record pasteurisation. The national institute (now NRIB) was founded in 1904, yamahai-moto and sokujo-moto were invented in 1909, and the first national new-sake competition ran in 1911.

  1. [jss-nrib2011] Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association and National Research Institute of Brewing 2011, A Comprehensive Guide to Japanese Sake, 1st ed.gov
  2. [mlit-sake] Japan Tourism Agency 2022, Sake Brewing: Part One, multilingual explanation databasegov
  3. [nta-label] National Tax Agency, Outline of the labelling standard for the manufacturing process and quality of sake (清酒の製法品質表示基準の概要), Notice No. 8 of 1989 as revisedspec
  4. [wp-sake] Wikipedia, Sake (outline only)wiki