Kampai!

Part 2 of 3 -- Oakland/Berkeley food tour

Since we were in the East Bay, I thought it would be interesting to visit the Sake Museum at Takara USA. It's been on my "food field trip list" for a while, and I'm glad we finally made it because it was a treat!  Walking up the steps, we could smell the rich yeasty smell of fermentation...

First, we watched a video about sake making. It's a very traditional practice. The key to sake making is multi-parallel fermentation process wherein mold spores convert the rice starch to sugar while the sugar is converted to alcohol by yeast. The video highlights the ritual involved in making sake, including...

The Toji (master sake maker) praying before making a batch of sake and celebrating (announcing) that the new batch is produced by hanging a ball of cedar leaves (see below).

Time to taste the sake!

Unfiltered sake was a definite favorite. "Cloudy" is more accurate than unfiltered. This was rich, smooth and mellow, but like almost all sake, still has the alcohol bite. The ultimate favorite was Lychee Sake which has added sugar and lychee flavoring (so it isn't really sake anymore...IT'S FRUIT JUICE FOR ADULTS!).

No plant tour is offered at Takara USA, but you can get a really good view of the bottling line

Hand-loaded bottles are filled...

And screw caps twisted on and crimped at the bottom.

Labels are glued on and pressure is applied to make sure they stick (the white teflon rotating corkscrew applies the correct pressure for the time required)

Boxing and off to market...

The Sake Museum charting the traditions and sequence of the entire sake-making process. Again, preparing the starter is key: the koji is the mold spore inoculated rice that is ramped up into the yeast and rice starch mixture for multi-parallel fermentation.

The rice used is polished Cal-Rose from California's Sacramento Valley. Sake production can vary depending upon how much the the rice grain is "polished" off, removing the bran and nutrient rich layers on the outside in order to expose the starch. Some really expensive sake brands polish off 70% of the grain. Tremendous waste in the sake process, however, the wasted portion can be used in other ways (but that is another show and another blog post).

Traditional preparation and stirring utensils. Notice the 'fox' (the pointy bucket in the front) and the 'raccoon' (the bucket with the spout).

Catapult! Genghis is here! Run for your lives!!! As you can tell, we did figure out that it was NOT a catapult, just a press for squeezing out the milk from fermented rice.

A settling tub. Look at all the taps - makes it easy to siphon off the 'good stuff' until you reach the dregs at the bottom.

Rice sacks

More sake making tools

Sakabayashi is a big ball made with cedar needles that is hung just outside the front entrance to a sake brewery after the first sake of the year had been pressed. The Sakabayashi green when it is hung. Over the next several months, the green Sakabayashi slowly fades to brown and when the color had changed to brown, it means that the sake had aged enough to be ready for drinking. Kampai!