Sake is an alcoholic beverage made from rice, koji, and water. The rice used to make sake is not the everyday long-grain variety, but a special strain of rice that undergoes polishing to remove its outer layers. The more the grain is polished, the higher quality the sake is likely to be. The processes and methods of making sake are quite a bit more complicated than those for making wine and beer, and the method of making sake may share similar processes to wine and beer making, yet making sake uses a more complicated method that is completely unique to the beverage. The traditional skills of chief sake makers, called toji, as well as modern scientific knowledge, have made it possible to produce varieties of high-quality sake. Here is an outline of the process of making sake:
- Rice is washed and soaked in water.
- The rice is steamed.
- Koji mold is added to the steamed rice to convert the starch in the rice to sugar.
- Yeast is added to the mixture to start the fermentation process.
- The mixture is left to ferment for several days.
- The mixture is pressed to separate the liquid (sake) from the solids (rice and koji).
Sake comes in different styles, and many factors affect the flavor of sake such as the hardness of water, the rice variety and milling rate, as well as the koji and yeast. Even the temperature during fermentation and the processes after pressing sake play an integral part.
