We were so efficient today that we finished early. I felt a pang on taking off my white boots. I do feel very complete in my understanding of sake making. Thus there is a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that this is truly a “Mission Accomplished”

I give Daimon-san another thank you for this wonderful education and inspiring exposure to the brewing process.

Hopefully, this will lead to more contact with my fellow kurabito and Daimon-san. This time of learning will certainly contribute to my better understanding and enjoyment of  the sake I will drink in the future.

Now to the train station with a bag and brain full of nihon-shu!

Japanese bullet train, shinkansen, pulling into train station, Japan

I think we all worked very hard today from the standpoint of doing many tasks. In all, we did about every task required to make sake. It was great to be a part of our crew, which unhesitatingly jumps into any assigned task with smiles, promptness, and a desire to perform competently. Daimon-san continued to conduct all of the activity with cool preciseness, while  sharing his knowledge.

After having a fun time at dinner tonight, I am finally sufficiently wise  to give in to my fatigue and return to my “four-star suite” for my first full eight hours sleep. My compatriots are still out there enjoying the night scene.

It ain’t easy being a kurabito!!!!

Mother Age gets all things. Some things, and people, get there faster than others, even with intent sometimes.

The first night with our welcome dinner, we had the privilege of tasting sake that is rarely seen be me. Koshu sake. This is deliberately aged sake. Daimon-san has saved these in order to see how they matured. Some have also been deliberately kept at less than ideal storage in order to see the difference.

Welcome dinner

The first was a seventeen-year old sake that had been kept at around 6 deg. C. We didn’t know anything about it before tasting and were asked to guess. I felt that it had roundness and fullness with an edge of umami that made it very enjoyable. I had zero clue that it was aged because of a degree of freshness. The next one had been stored in the open and it displayed it’s seventeen years. It had caramel flavors with fino sherry color. I would not want to have it with a meal but as an aperitif, well chilled, and  with something salty it could be enjoyable.

We had the good fortune to have another one at last night’s dinner. This one was a seven-year old honjo-shu and had more caramelization than the previous two. As we say, it was interesting.

I am thankful to have had my tasting knowledge increased by these sakes.

In general, I like my sake young (Coincidentally like my women), thus I would not purchase aged sake for meals. I look at sake like wine in respect to aging. Using optimal storage for young wines and having the opportunity to follow their development is ideal for me. I will also strive to do the same for sake and drink them at what my limited ability determines is their peak maturity, while still having some degree of remaining freshness.

Today we are going to Kyoto to see a wonderful aged city and tonight to drink some young sake.

Life is good!!

Opportunity is missed by most because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Thomas Alva Edison

When I saw previous interns cleaning the Yabuta machine, I wondered :  “Why do that. What will that teach me?????’”

This is the machine that gives us that visual “clear and clean” quality that we talk about when describing many sakes.

While cleaning it today, I was given the answer. It’s inventors were geniuses. How it works is pure magic. In goes moromi at the top ( the sake that has finished it’s fermentation ), filtered sake comes out the bottom. It is then pumped, to tanks for maturation for at least a month.

Inside the Yabuta, remain the dregs, kasu. This is then scraped off the membranes of the machine by hand. This is where we come in. While scraping I finally understood what had remained a huge mystery to me, even after seeing many of these machines of similar design in sake kura and in wineries. The owners had always explained how they worked.

Yabuta cleaning

The machine has a huge piston and everyone had always said that it did not provide the pressure for filtration. I always assumed that they were jiving me. If it doesn’t do the work, why is it there?????

I never understood how it was possible to filter without pressure from the huge piston that the machine has.

Well, they were not jiving. The sole function of the piston is to put pressure on the many metal supports that hold the many filtering membranes. This pushes the frames so tightly together that the liquid does not leak through between them. This is done before the sake is put into the machine.

It is the inflation of the membranes with air that provides the force to filter the liquid. Only by cleaning the holes where the moromi had entered and exited have I been able to concretely understand this important step in sake making. I am thankful that Daimon-san surely knew this when he assigned us this “Scut work”.

Cherry blossoms in Osaka

Sunday was cherry-blossom viewing for most Japanese and myself.

Monday is introduction day.  First an excellent film showing us the work that is done in making sake here at Mukune. So, not an abstract introduction, but one that will acquaint us with what will be our new “job”.

Secondly, the teams for the week were given.

Then off for a fabulous meal at one of Daimon-san’s Izakaya choices.

Some of the goodies to start the meal

We had three of Daimon-san’s excellent sakes. One that I found unique was a “modified” nigori sake that had intense depth and richness, to complement the textural tasting components given by the small residual rice particles.  It went well with the cow-liver sashimi (Yes, really)

Everyone wisely decided to make it an early night since tomorrow promises to be a day when we need our wits and physical strenghts to be at par. So to bed and to dream of tomorrow’s learning and sharing.