Kesennuma Sake Brewery Tour

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!