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What is Nihonshu?

Nihonshu is a Japanese traditional fermented alcohol and so-called SAKE in English. In sakejapan.com.au, I will call Nihonshu SAKE to make things less confusing for you. Sake is sometimes called rice wine, but this expression is not quite right. Because sake is a unique type of fermented alcohol which is not a wine, neither is it exactly a beer, nor a spirit. To start the fermentation process, sake is milled down until mostly only starch remains. (Percentage of rice milling is called Seimaibuai and it's one of the very important parameter to rank sake in 4 major categories such as Honjozo, Junmai, Ginjo and Daiginjo) At this point, the starch is fermented to turn into sugar, and then further fermented so that the sugars convert into alcohol. This is kind of a similar way to produce beer, but the different point from beer brewing is that the starch decomposition in sake is not caused by enzymes from the malt, but rather from a special mold called Koji mold. After fermentation, sake is naturally cloudy from grain solids. Some sake like Nigori (unfiltered sake) is allowed to remain clouded, but the majority is filtered so its color looks clear like spirit. Sake is fairly high in alcohol for a fermented drink, ranging from 14% to 17% alcohol - as compared to 8% to 14% for most wines, or 4% to 6% for most beers.

Nihonshu Parameter

Grade

At first, sake has two main types: Futsu-shu which means the "normal sake" and Tokutei Meishoushu means "special designation sake". Futsu-shu does not qualify for any grades of special designation. It is almost like table wine and over 75% of all sake productions in Japan are occupied by Futsu-shu. On the other hand, Tokutei Meishoushu is distinguished by the degree of how much the rice is polished and the added percentage of Jozo alcohol (distilled alcohol) or absence of such additives. Here in sakejapan.com.au, we mainly trade Tokutei Meishoushu, the high quality premium sake brewed with special ingredients which is in a top 25% of the whole sake productions in Japan. Tokutei Meishoushu has 4 major grades in general.

Honjozo: With a small amount of distilled alcohol (Jozo alcohol) added premium sake. Please be aware that the amount of added distilled alcohol for Tokutei Meishoushu is limited by the Japanese law and it is not for increasing volume of sake but for smoothening and lightening flavour and pulling extra fragrance of sake. Honjozo must be made by rice with a Seimaibuai (degree of rice milling) of at least 70%. (That means at least 30% of rice has to be polished away.) Sometime, you might see the words Tokubetsu Honjozo on a label. Tokubetsu refer to special so Tokubetsu Honjozo means Honjozo made of special ingredients and skills. Leaving 70% of rice for fermentation is to leave more protein for fermentation to pull up more Umami (which is the fifth taste alongside sweet, sour, salty and bitter.) of rice. In general, Honjozo has earthy and sweet flavour. You can warm it up if you want taste dryer.
Junmai: Junmai means 100% pure rice sake without any additives such as alcohol, sugars and starches. Junmai is sake made of rice, water and Koji (mold) only. Before the law change in April 2004, the rice had to be milled down to 70% at least but now Junmai no longer requires the specified milling rate. However, the amount milled away has to be listed on the label by law. In general, Junmai has clean and smooth flavour with soft fragrance of rice.
Ginjo: The rice of Ginjo must be milled down to 60% at least. With a special yeast, low temperature fermentation and prominent skills, Ginjo is made with more cares than those two above. The one with a small amount of Jozo alcohol added is called Ginjo and the other one without any additives is called Junmai Ginjo. Both Ginjo usually has nice fruity fragrance, called Ginjoka in Japanese.
Daiginjo: Daiginjo is absolutely the top grade of sake. With its outstanding fragrance such as fruits and flowers, Daiginjo might be a bit similar to chardonnay in white wine to your nose. The rice is milled down to at least 50% up to 35%. (That means more than half of the rice is polished away!) Even more cares are taken to brew Daiginjo than any other grade of sake. Same to Junmai Ginjo, Daiginjo without any additives is called Junmai Daiginjo. To avoid losing special Ginjoka and complicated layers of flavour, Daiginjo is recommended to be taken in chill or room temperature.
Seimaibuai: Seimaibuai is a degree of rice milling. It means the leftover weight after polishing. For example, Seimaibuai 70% means that at least 30% of the outer portion of each rice grain has been milled away. In general, the lower the number goes, the more the fragrance and delicacy of taste will appear. You can find Seimaibuai easily listed somewhere on label. The powder that is ground away (called Nuka) is often used in Japanese style cakes and for livestock feed. Nothing is wasted indeed.
Nihonshudo: Specific gravity is measured on a scale weighing the same amount of water at 4��C and sake at 15��C. It indicates how much of the sugars created from the starches in the rice converted to alcohol, and how much remained to contribute to sweetness. The sweeter the sake is, the lower the number gets. The break-even point between sweet sake and dry sake is +3 these days. Please be aware that this parameter is affected by acidity, temperature, accompanying food and even your health condition so this can be only used as an approximate indicator.
Acidity: The measure of acidity contents in sake. Acidity affects the way the flavour spreads and also the feeling of sweet and dry. The higher the number gets, the dryer the taste gets. But it also depends on the balance with amino acid. The range is quite narrow and generally its between1.0 ~ 1.8.
Amino Acidity: The measure of acidity contents in sake. There are almost 20 and more different amino acids in sake. A low number generally indicates a delicate sake with a narrow bandwidth of flavor, and a higher number indicates a richer, settled sake, often with significant more "umami." Normally, amino acidity in sake is about 1.3 ~ 1.7 degrees.
Alcohol: Sake is fairly high in alcohol for a fermented drink, ranging from 14% to 17% alcohol - as compared to 8% to 14% for most wines, or 4% to 6% for most beers.
Rice: High quality premium sake is made from special sake rice. Sake rice is different from eating rice and it has dozens of types. However, there are only a handful of them that are really famous. Yamadanishiki rice (Hyogo, Okayama & Fukuoka), Miyamanishiki rice (Iwate, Akita &Yamagata etc), Gohyakumangoku rice (Niigata, Fukushima, Toyama & Ishikawa) and Omachi rice (Okayama) are the most outstanding sake rice. Each rice has own unique character for its fragrance, sweetness, richness and Umami.
Yeast (Kobo): Yeast is, same to Koji mold, a very important microbe for sake brewing. Yeats transforms sugars into alcohol. It mainly affects fragrance and flavour. There are dozens of yeast strains and each of them has its own character which mostly affects fragrance but also flavour. At the moment, there are 15 common yeast strains which have been assigned numbers such as Yeast #7 & Yeast #9 by the Central Brewer Union in Japan since early 1900s. (Yeast #9 is the most common yeast for Ginjo due to its fantastic fragrance creative ability and fairly healthy constitution during fermentation. These days, developing yeasts by local brewers is getting more popular and they have been trying hard to develop the better matching yeast with their local rice and water to improve the fragrance and quality of sake. (E.g. Alps Kobo from Nagano and Akita Kobo from Akita) If you can pay a little bit of attention for Kobo listed on the label, you might be able to tell the characters of each Kobo in a near future.
Brewer (Kura): It is said that there are over 1,800 sake brewers (Kura) in Japan. Each sake brewer has a Kuramoto (the owner of brewer), Kurabito (the employees who actually makes sake) and Toji (a leader of Kurabito). Toji has been the most important position for sake brewing from the ancient days and you could see the name of Toji and their origin often listed on the label of sake bottle. Each Toji groups on each region have their own methods and skills for brewing sake and they all have different tastes for picking sake rice and brew it in their own special ways.

Process of Making Nihonshu

1. Milling Rice: The grain of brown rice has a lot of protein, fat, inorganic compound and vitamins which become the causes to reduce the fragrance and the color quality of Nihonshu. To avoid that, rice is ground away between 30% up to 65%.
2. Washing Rice: Nuka (the white powder) left on the rice after polishing is washed away.
3. Soaking & Drying: To make a good steamed rice (inside soft & outside hard), the rice should be soaked in water. The time of rice soaking is depended on the percentage of rice milling. The more percentage of rice milling makes the less time of rice soaking usually.
4. Steaming Rice: The purposes of steaming rice are to transfer the quality of starch into the one easily effected by enzyme of Koji mold and also to sterilize the rice to make a later process safe. (Steaming time is about 50 minutes)
5. Making Koji: We say "The first Koji, the second Moto and the third Tsukuri" since old times. Which means the Koji making is the most important process of sake making. Sprinkling Koji mold on steamed rice and leaving them for 35 - 48 hours. During the period, the developing Koji is checked, mixed and rearranged constantly. The result of Koji making determines the quality of sake.
6. Moto (also called as Shubo): Moto (Yeast starter) is made by mixing finished Koji into plain steamed white rice from the previous steps, water and a concentration of the pure yeast cells.
7. Moromi (the Mash): To make Moromi (the Mash), more Koji, more steamed rice and more water are added into Moto in three successive stages over four days.
8. Shibori (pressing): Once the fermentation is finished, sake is pressed (usually done by machine these days) and Moromi is divided into Seishu (clear sake) and Sakekasu (the white lees). Here is the birth of new sake.
9. Aging: Most of new sake is sterilized once. (Called Hiire) Then it is stocked in the tank and left to age about 6 months.
10. Bottling & Shipment: Finally the bottled sake is shipped all around the world.

Drinking Tip

Sake can be served cold, warm or hot, depending on the mood and preference of the drinker, the quality of sake, the season and the food to go with. Because the heat can destroy the fragrance and true flavour of sake, generally, most premium sake like Daiginjo or Ginjo should be served slightly chilled to get the best of it. (In fact, heating sake is originally started to mask the undesirable flavour of lower quality sake.) However, funny thing is that sake presents different personalities at different temperatures. So as I mentioned before, you should choose the temperature of sake as your preference depending on the situation. I totally understand that you just want to heat up sake in a cold day when you are having hot food like Nabe or Oden. So you should just try sake in different temperatures and find out which works the best for you. Here I listed some sake drinking tips. Just remember them as a general guideline.

Daiginjo, Ginjo or other premium sake is good to be drunk lightly chilled to feel it's beautiful Ginjo fragrance and complex of different flavour.

Sake can be enjoyed in 5 different levels of temperature. Hot (55 - 45 degrees), Warm (40 - 30 degrees), Room Temperature (30 - 20 degrees), Chilled (15 - 5 degrees) and on the rock (10 - 5 degrees.) To warm up your sake, you can boil water up to 80-90 degrees in a saucepan and leave your sake instrument (the one designed to be warmed up) in it for a few minutes. Or simply you can microwave sake in a sake instruments (the one designed to be microwaved.) for about 1 min.

I reckon light and smooth sake will go well with lightly flavour food such as grilled fish and vegetables. Rich fragrance sake like Daiginjo or Ginjo will go well with Sushi and Sashimi. Sake with rich sweet body will go well with strong flavour food such as Teriyaki chicken and Steak. Fresh, clean and smooth flavour sake like Junmai will go well with Tempura or Gyoza. Please try lots of different types of food and sake combination to find your preference.