Kesennuma Sake Brewery Tour
0 (0 Likes / 0 Dislikes)
So, today my friend Hiroki
has been kind enough to agree to
give us a tour of
Otokoyama Honten
Which is a sake brewery here in Kesennuma
They make Sotenden
Biroku
and also Otokoyama brand sake.
It's one of the two
breweries in town
So we're gonna get a look today
at how sake is made
This is the process
of steaming the rice
As you can see
it's very hot
Like 150°C
This is the rice just after steaming
It's a lot shorter than
regular rice
Because it's polished!
I've never seen
this kinda rice before
Ohhh
I think it's
quite different from
boiled rice.
Very different.
The texture is
really chewy.
There's not so much moisture
How many cycles do you do?
It depends on the amount of rice
Maybe today, twice.
He says the rice that they're cooling
with this machine
is gonna be sent through this tube
like a giant vaccuum.
Rice comes in through this machine
Hiroki says the weather now
is a little too warm to make good sake.
So, what they're doing is
Putting in blocks of ice
to cool it.
So normally they add a
designated amount of water to it,
so the amount of ice
the measurement for the ice
is based on the water that they would normally use
The smell isn't so strong yet
This is the second step of 3-step brewing
So this is day... 3?
Yes!
Because you rest on the 2nd day, right?
So, why is there sake kasu
leftover in the machine?
This machine separates
sake and sake kasu.
Sake comes out here.
This is sake kasu
This is sake kasu!
The texture is kinda
like cheese.
The taste is...
It doesn't really taste like anything
You can really feel the...
But it tastes kinda like sake!
It's very subtle.
So this is used
in different kinds of food?
Yeah
Like as a seasoning?
Because it contains
umami and amino acids.
So this room is the room
for making expensive sake!
Daiginjo, Junmai Daiginjo
and Junmai Ginjo.
Because we can control the temperature
Perfectly.
With this A.C.
It's cold in here!
You probably need to use
more A.C. now
than you did in the winter, right?
You can see some fermentation happening now!
I was surprised how cold it is here!
SUGOI
Now it's exactly in the
process of fermentation.
It smells amazing!
I can't describe this smell!
I think you could get drunk
just by being in this room.
AWW that smells so good!