Sake is comfortably the most misunderstood beverage in the western world. Almost everyone has heard of sake but almost no one knows what it is, how it is made, or how it should be enjoyed. Until Melbourne Sake went down the rabbit hole ourselves, we were in the same boat.
We are in the process of preparing heaps of articles explaining all manner of sake things. In the meantime, we thought it would be useful to tackle the most common question we have been asked by friends, family and puzzled acquaintances so far.
Sake is Made From Rice, Koji, Yeast and Water
Sake is an alcoholic beverage made from four things and four things only: Rice, Koji, Yeast, and Water.
Rice
Sake is made from rice. Some of our favourite sake is made using table rice (the kind people eat), but most of it is made from sake specific varieties. These sake rice types make the sake making process easier and/or the sake more delicious.
Rice, being a solid starchy grain, needs a bit of help to begin to ferment into an alcoholic beverage that we can drink. Koji, Yeast and Water are used to enable fermentation.
A koji covered rice grain under a microscope
Koji
Koji is rice that has had a special fungus (called koji-kin in Japanese or Aspergillus Oryzae, pronounced “Ass-per-jill-us Ore-eyes-ee” in Latin) grown on it.
Koji creates enzymes that convert the rice starch into sugar. The sugar is then in turn converted via fermentation into;
Aromas
Flavours
Alcohol
All the delicious things we want in sake!
Yeast 701 is by far the most commonly used yeast for sake brewing
Yeast
Yeast is what is doing the converting of sugar into alcohol, aromas and flavours. Yeast feeds on sugar and creates these tasty things as a convenient by-product.
Yeast is naturally occurring and all around us, but most modern sake (and beer, cider, wine and spirit) production uses specially isolated and selected yeasts to achieve certain outcomes, i.e certain flavours/aromas/alcohol contents.
Water makes up 80% of the final sake
Water
The addition of water to the rice, koji and yeast means all of the above can happen. Water enables these processes (i.e alcoholic fermentation) to happen in a nice, sloshy, well-distributed environment.
A finished sake is approximately 80% water, with the remaining 20% made up of dissolved rice and koji, as well as the alcohol, flavour and aroma compounds. Rice and koji get dissolved, some into tiny bits, during the brewing process. These tiny bits contribute to the colour, texture, flavour and aroma of the sake.
How Sake is Different from Spirits, Wine and Beer
““Wine is Wine. Beer is Beer. Sake is Sake”.”
That’s the motto of Blake Richardson, of Moto-I in Minneapolis, a seasoned professional beer brewer and the Godfather of craft sake brewing outside of Japan. Melbourne Sake totally agrees. It is important to understand and respect that they are all very distinct.
That said, we do find it really useful to compare and contrast it to the three alcoholic beverages most of us are more familiar with. Spirits, Wine and Beer.
How is Sake Different from Spirits
The most common misunderstanding about sake is that it is a spirit, produced in a distillery, that has a high alcohol content, like gin or vodka.
This misconception comes from two places;
It is often served in small glasses that in the west would be considered shot glasses for knocking back shots of spirit
The low-quality crap most of us are first exposed to smells and tastes like rubbish vodka
And both have very reasonable explanations.
In Japan, sake is served in small cups as there is a cultural tradition of topping up each other’s drinks often to show humility, politeness and generosity. The smaller the vessel, the more you get to show your dining companions these traits that are considered so crucial in traditional Japanese culture.
Small ceramic sake cups play an important part of traditional Japanese culture.
The low-quality crap that resembles rubbish vodka that most of us are first exposed to isn’t really sake. It is called Futsu-shu in Japan. Futsu-shu literally translates as ‘Ordinary Alcohol’ and that’s all it is, ordinary (or indeed much MUCH worse). Futsu-shu can have all sort of stuff added to it, including sugars, amino acids, and copious amounts of added pure alcohol. This is why it is often perceived as cheap harsh spirit. The futsu-shu most of us drank as our first sake had lots of cheap harsh spirit added to it!
Thinking of Futsu-shu as an equivalent of box wine is useful. Some is inoffensively drinkable but ultimately uninteresting. Most is poor quality and mucked around with an awful lot.
As for the alcohol content. Sake can legally be up to 22% Alcohol by Volume (A.B.V) in Japan, but a vast majority, even the rubbish stuff that tastes like cheap vodka, tends to fall within the 14-16% A.B.V. That’s not much higher than chardonnay or a red wine.
A copper pot still used for distillation. You won’t find one of these in a sake brewery!
Sake is Brewed Not Distilled
Sake has a much lower A.B.V than spirits (gin, vodka, whisky, etc), which tend to sit around the 40% mark. This is because it is brewed, not distilled.
Brewing
The sake making process we described at the start is an example of brewing. Brewing is the process of creating a sugary liquid from starchy grains and letting yeast ferment that sugar into alcohol, aromas and flavours.
Distillation
In the production of spirits, fermentation (such as brewing) is completed to achieve alcohol, aroma and flavour. Distillation is the process of concentrating these elements into a more alcoholic, aromatic and flavourful liquid. This is done by heating the liquid up in what is called a still.
Alcohol, aroma and flavour compounds all turn to steam at a lower temperature than water. This means that if the liquid is heated below the boiling point of water, you can collect the alcohol, aroma’s and flavours as steam and separate them from the rest of the liquid, thus concentrating them.
How Sake is Different from Beer
So, if sake is brewed is it made the same way as beer? Is Sake a “rice beer”?
Not quite. There are plenty of similarities but a really REALLY crucial difference.
Key Similarity
Beer – Beer brewers use malted barley to create enzymes to convert starch in the barley (or other grains) into sugars.
Sake – Sake brewers use Koji to create enzymes that convert starch in the rice into sugars.
Both are harnessing a natural process to create enzymes that convert starch in grains into fermentable sugars.
Key Difference
Beer – Beer brewers do this conversion from starch to sugar BEFORE they add yeast and begin fermentation. I.e Beer brewers create all the sugar they want before fermentation begins, then ferment those sugars.
In beer brewing, starch is converted into sugar via malting BEFORE fermentation begins
Sake – Sake brewers have this conversion from starch to sugar happening DURING the whole fermentation process. The Koji enzymes makes a bit of sugar at a time, with the yeast subsequently converting that into alcohol. I.e sake brewers have to balance sugar production and fermentation over the course of fermentation.
In sake brewing, starch is converted into sugar via koji enzymes DURING the whole fermentation
This fascinating conversion from starch to sugar happening in tandem with the conversion of sugar into alcohol is totally unique to sake production. It’s called Multiple Parallel Fermentation.
Multiple Parallel Fermentation is why sake can achieve much higher alcohol levels than beer. The yeast is being fed a constant and consistent supply of sugar, so it can keep eating, and keep producing alcohol.
How Sake is Different from Wine
Despite the oft-used moniker of “rice wine”, sake is not a wine at all. “Rice Wine” is a frustrating term. It tries to explain how to enjoy sake rather than explain how it is made.
It is useful to think of drinking sake in the same way you would drink a wine. Smell it, sip it, and enjoy it with (or without) food.
The process of making sake though is very different to making wine, and the term “rice wine” has ended up being more confusing than helpful.
Wine is made from grapes and that makes for some very large differences to sake.
Wine grapes contain lots of sugar when they are harvested. Starch to sugar conversion isn’t necessary for fermentation as the sugar is already there waiting to go
They also contain lots of acid and flavour compounds that greatly influence the taste of the finished wine
These flavour compounds and acids make wine grape variety almost always the biggest determiner of how a wine looks, smells and tastes (albeit with huge ranges possible)
In wine production, you start with all the sugars you need from the grapes. No starch to sugar conversion necessary.
Sake rice doesn’t contain as many of these compounds as wine grapes, and thus isn’t as important as wine grapes are in determining the final product. The rice variety used, and how it is used, does make a big difference to the final sake. BUT it’s just not as influential, direct or obvious compared to how much grape variety influences the final wine
In a Nutshell
Sake is a fermented alcoholic beverage made from Rice, Koji, Yeast and Water
Table rice can be used to make awesome sake but most often sake specific rice varieties are used
Koji creates enzymes that convert starch into sugar
Yeast converts sugar into alcohol, aromas and flavours
Water is the medium that all of this happens in
Sake is brewed not distilled – it is not a spirit
Sake is different to beer because of Multiple Parallel Fermentation
Sake is different to wine as it is brewed, and the relationship between final product and raw material is not as clear cut as with wine
As always – any questions, about anything, please get in touch via one of the options below.
Cheers,
Melbourne Sake