Season 1, Episode 10. Since we’ve learned about sake ingredients and sake classifications already, we thought it might be fun to look at the sake production process. We’re starting with what is called “raw materials preparation”. This encompasses rice washing, soaking and steaming. These three distinct steps all work together to prep the sake rice for fermentation.

Skip to: 00:19 Hosts Welcome and Introduction
Welcome to the show from John and Timothy

Skip to: 02:14 Sake Education Corner: Raw Materials Preparation

Skip to: 14:28 Sake Tasting Introductions

Skip to: 17:45 Sake Tasting: Kuroushi Junmai Ginjo

Kuroushi Junmai Ginjo

Brewery: Nate Shuzoten
Classification: Junmai Ginjo
Acidity: 1.7
Alcohol: 16.5%
Prefecture: Wakayama
Seimaibuai: 50%
SMV: +3.0
Rice Type: Omachi
Brand: Kuroushi (黒牛)
Importer: JFC (USA)
Sake Name English: Black Bull
View On UrbanSake.com

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Skip to: 23:31 Sake Tasting: Kamotsuru “Itteki Nyukon” Junmai Ginjo

Kamotsuru “Itteki Nyukon” Junmai Ginjo

Seimaibuai: 60%
SMV: +3.0
Rice Type: Hattannishiki
Prefecture: Hiroshima
Alcohol: 15.0%
Classification: Junmai Ginjo
Acidity: 1.5
Brewery: Kamotsuru Shuzo
Brand: Kamotsuru
Importer: Mutual Trading (USA)
View On UrbanSake.com

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Skip to: 36:28 Show Closing

This is it! Join us next time for another episode of Sake Revolution!

John Puma 0:22
Hello and welcome to Sake Revolution, America’s first sake Podcast. I am your host John Puma sake nerd at large, founder of thesakenotes.com and administrator of the internet sake Discord.

Timothy Sullivan 0:36
And I’m your host Timothy Sullivan. I’m Sake Samurai, sake educator and the founder of the Urban Sake website, and together, John and I will be tasting and chatting about all things sake.

John Puma 0:47
So Tim, we made it through a very, very difficult topic. Last week, the topic of Unfil… Nigori and I have a feeling that the sake education corner it’s gonna need some new blood this week.

Timothy Sullivan 1:04
Well, now that we know all about sake classifications, I thought it might be fun to do a series on sake production. You know, sake has a lot of production steps. And it’s a little bit complicated, but I thought it would give us a lot to talk about.

John Puma 1:20
Excellent. So all right, so there are many, many steps as you mentioned, where do you want to start?

Timothy Sullivan 1:26
Well, I think it makes sense to start with rice. Rice is nice.

John Puma 1:31
Rice! I’m on board. Let’s do this.

Timothy Sullivan 1:34
Yeah, well, I think if you stopped anybody on the street, in Midtown, in Middle America anywhere and you ask them what do you know about sake, the word rice would definitely come up. So I think that this is kind of central to everything revolving around sake.

John Puma 1:50
Yeah, once we’re allowed to do that. We should put this to the test and find random people and ask them that.

Timothy Sullivan 1:55
Yeah, we

have to take sake revolution on the road as soon as we can get back out there.

John Puma 2:00
Yeah, that would be that would be fun.

Timothy Sullivan 2:04
Yeah, I’d love to do a live interview on the street.

John Puma 2:07
You there What do you know about sake?

Timothy Sullivan 2:09
I say sake you Say what?

John Puma 2:14
So, so we’re going to talk about rice. Let’s get into it then what do you want? What What do we want to say about rice?

Timothy Sullivan 2:21
Well, you know one of the very first things we talked about on this show episode one we talked about rice milling. And after the rice is milled, we have to do what we call raw material preparation. And it is prepping the rice in order to put it on all the following steps that we need. And we need to prep the rice in a very specific way and there’s three main things that we do so I thought it might be fun to talk about. After the rice is milled, what do we do with it? And the first thing is washing. You got to wash the rice.

John Puma 2:59
I believe Can’t have dirty rice

Timothy Sullivan 3:01
can’t have dirty rice.

John Puma 3:02
Okay.

Timothy Sullivan 3:04
Have you ever made sushi rice at home?

John Puma 3:09
I’ve not made sushi rice at home, but I’ve made plenty of rice at home and I always always step one. wash the rice,

Timothy Sullivan 3:17
right? I think a lot of people know to do that now. And well tell me about what you do when you wash the rice.

John Puma 3:24
Well, I measure out the amount of rice I’m going to be using for my for my rice cooker, put it in the in the bowl, and then I will I will turn my faucet onto the into its wash setting which it has. And I will go over it all with cold water while I run my hands through and just try to get all the excess starches off of the rice and then I will pour out the excess water and maybe do it again depending on how much it looks like they’re still coming off at the end.

Timothy Sullivan 3:54
Yeah, so you see the water turning kind of cloudy, right?

John Puma 3:58
Totally. Yeah.

Timothy Sullivan 3:59
So Surprise, surprise that is exactly what we do in the world of sake just on a larger scale. So we’re gonna take the rice, you have to agitate it and you have to run cold water over it. And what we’re doing is we’re taking off the rice powder. So from milling, whether you have the sushi rice that you milled or the sake rice that the the machine milled, you have to get that powder off. So washing is the first critical step. I remember the very first month I was at the brewery, I worked at Hakkaisan brewery for a year and they had me working in the rice washing facility. And one thing they assigned me to do was to wash the little test batches. So they would do a test batch every day to kind of test you know, the temperature, the humidity, the temperature of the water and they would make sure that everything was in the right state before They did a very large batch of rice to wash it. Because the temperature changes every day, the humidity changes every day. And they just want to make sure that everything’s kosher and going to be correct. So one of the things I got to do was watch these little test batches. And I have to tell you that water is cold, but we put our arm in up to the elbow and swirl the rice in a big VAT. And my arm was really really numb at the end of that.

John Puma 5:30
I don’t know that I don’t go quite that in depth and maybe it’s because I’m not making that volume of rice at home.

Timothy Sullivan 5:38
Yeah, but that’s the same thing we do we you know, we look at the how clear the water is. And you begin to see the next time you do it at home if you’re washing rice. After a few rounds of washing and rinsing. You’re gonna see that the rice starts to absorb some water and it actually changes color it becomes more bright white. I I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed that or not, but

John Puma 6:02
I’ve only done like two rounds.

Timothy Sullivan 6:04
Try eight.

John Puma 6:05
Try eight?!

Timothy Sullivan 6:06
Yes, try eight. See how clear you can get the water next time because I experiment with that all the time I have a rice cooker too. And I do it again and again and again and again and again and again. And it it’s amazing how much starch powder can come off the rice.

John Puma 6:24
All right now I have a new a new little project for my quarantine. My wifes going to be like “you’re still washing the rice? it’s been a half hour!” Tim told me I need to wash it eight times.

Timothy Sullivan 6:39
won’t take that long. And the other thing that’s important is to use cold water. So picture me with my my arm elbow deep enough in the ice cold mountain stream water,

John Puma 6:50
the mountains. The Niigata mountain water is very lovely.

Timothy Sullivan 6:54
Yeah, if you use water that’s too warm. It’s actually gonna hasten the softening of the grain and at this point When you’re washing the rice, you don’t want to soften the grain. You just want to get that powder off and start to introduce just a bit of moisture.

John Puma 7:09
Okay, Tim, my rice is washed, very is clean, the water is coming off of it as clean as it came out of the faucet. Now what?

Timothy Sullivan 7:19
So you’ve done it at least eight times, right John?

John Puma 7:21
Eight times. I’m getting very dirty looks…

Timothy Sullivan 7:24
If not more.

John Puma 7:24
What do I do with it now?

Timothy Sullivan 7:25
Okay, after washing the next step is soaking. And the funniest thing about the soaking step is that they actually time you with a stopwatch, so…

John Puma 7:38
with a stopwatch?

Timothy Sullivan 7:39
With a stopwatch, I’m not joking. When you go to the brewery, they have the washing and soaking stations right next to each other and there’s always these stopwatches hanging on the wall when I first thought that I’m like, what are we going to do be running laps or something like that what’s going on. So they use the stopwatch to actually time how long the rice is in the water. And again, this was Water is ice cold, really, really cold water. And the purpose of soaking is to penetrate water to the very core of the rice grain. If you soften the rice first by soaking to a very specific point, it will cook a much better it’ll soften much better when you steam it. So soaking usually takes about 10 minutes.

John Puma 8:23
All right, I you know, it’s funny, I think in a few episodes back when we were talking about nama, we discussed briefly my visit to Dewazakura this year. And one of the things that we did get to see was the soaking process for their their Junmai Daiginjo. And the the gentleman whose job it was to soak the rice was being very, very meticulous, meticulous about watching, pulling something out of the water, shaking it around, taking a look, bring it back in, pulling it out, checking it, shaking it back, shake it up a little bit calm and checking his washing and stop washing until the exact moment when it was exactly the way he wanted it. Yep.

Timothy Sullivan 9:06
And what they’re checking what they do is they sometimes they put a little wooden paddle in the water, and they bring a few of the grains up on the paddle without taking it out of the water, but they bring it right to the surface and they look and they’re watching that transformation from kind of the grayish white of hard rice to the more bright white of the moisture infused rice. So when it starts to take on more and more moisture into the grain, the color, the brightness of the grain actually changes and that’s what they’re looking for. See this visual cue to how much water’s gone in. And then when they’re ready, they have to pull it right away. So they’re very, very meticulous in it and they’ve got the rice in like in like a basket like a sieve. Very fine sieve so the rice is in there just soaking. They don’t touch it, they don’t move it and they just let it sit there and soak and then when they’re ready stopwatch goes off or when the master Brewer says it’s time they pull it up. And then they, they put it usually on a crate or something and they let the water run off and just drain off at that point.

John Puma 10:13
Okay, I don’t even need that water anymore. So now that my water’s been is clean, it is as clean as it can get. Yep, it is now soaked to the exact amount that we want. What’s next?

Timothy Sullivan 10:28
Well, the final step for this raw materials preparation is actually rice steaming. And if you don’t steam the rice, it’s not going to be any good for you during fermentation. Steaming is done a couple different ways. Usually. Some some breweries use a round steamer like a it’s called the Koshki and it’s actually like a giant soup can and steam comes up from below. Another way is a conveyor belt method where they put rice onto this conveyor belt that goes through these chambers that are all pressurized with steam. So there’s different ways they can steam the rice but either way generally 45 minutes to an hour the rice gets steamed and we don’t when I was growing up we would always boil rice in my household but for the world of sake we do rice steaming

John Puma 11:28
Yeah, I would think that perhaps the the needs of an American kitchen are a little bit different from the needs of a world class like a brewery.

Timothy Sullivan 11:37
Absolutely. The critical thing that happens when you steam the rice is called gelatinization.

John Puma 11:46
That’s it. That’s a lovely term. I assume that we want the rice to get soft. And yes, and dare I say gelatinous.

Timothy Sullivan 11:57
gelatinization is actually the kind of like the unfurling of the starch. So if you put starch that that is not softened into the VAT with yeast, it’s not going to break down. You need the starch to be bioavailable. So the steaming actually unlocks the starch. And it allows the Koji to go in there and break down the starch into sugar. If we didn’t treat the rice with this steam, and kind of unfurl these starch molecules, then we would not be able to break it down into sugar. So it’s a very, very critical step. Steaming must be done. And again, as I mentioned about 45 minutes to an hour,

John Puma 12:41
so now we’ve washed the rice. We soaked it for a bit. And now we have steamed it and caused gelatinization.

Timothy Sullivan 12:51
That’s right.

So, at that point, the rice is ready to go.

John Puma 12:59
We’re ready. Finally,

Timothy Sullivan 13:00
finally, we’re okay. So that is those are the three way points of raw material preparation. So in this case, rice is our raw material for making sake and the prep is these three steps. Each one is very, very meticulous. And the breweries that I visited and worked at, there’s one dude in charge of each of these areas. So there’s like a person in charge of washing person in charge of soaking and person in charge of steaming. And those guys are watching over their step like a hawk. And when it works, it puts the rice in the perfect position for moving on to fermentation.

John Puma 13:39
All right.

Timothy Sullivan 13:41
Speaking of moving on,

John Puma 13:43
yeah, I think I think we’ve got some sake. All right. Yeah. And um, so our theme this week, unless I’m mistaken, is that when we since we’re talking all about rice, we brought a couple of sakes that were made with particular Rice’s that we want to talk about.

Timothy Sullivan 14:05
That’s right. There’s around 100 strains of sake rice. So that would be a whole series unto itself. But we did each bring a sake that had an interesting rice that we want to talk about. And so why don’t why don’t you go first and introduce the sake that you have?

John Puma 14:25
Well, I have a sake a that uses an heirloom rice. Now, for those home who are not familiar heirloom rice is it’s like the O.G. of rice. It is not. There’s no genetic parentage to try and consider it’s not crossbred with anything it is. It’s an original sake rice. In this case, it’s omachi, which is unless I’m mistaken, and you’re the sake samurai, so please correct me if I’m wrong. It is the original sake a rice

Timothy Sullivan 14:59
Well, we call it the Grandfather of sake rice

John Puma 15:01
grandfather of sake rice. All right.

Timothy Sullivan 15:04
Not that all sake rice is descendant from omachi. But omachi is a naturally occurring sake rice.

John Puma 15:11
Well, I fell in love with this style of rice A long time ago when I was first kind of getting into it and realizing that that the rice that’s used matters because I didn’t know any of this. When I was first drinking sake I just thought it was rice and I you know, they had to wash it for eight minutes. So at one point I did come across a bottle and the I tasted the sake and like this is this is amazing. This is different than anything I’ve had before it’s been around the back of it’s omachi and and what is what does that mean? And I asked the Ask the waitress like, what is what is this omachi mean? And she was like, Oh, that’s that’s the kind of rice that’s used. And I made like a mental note. Okay. Whenever I come across Something that says omachi I need to have it. And, you know, years later and many rices, I’m still a big fan. Yeah. Oh, cool. But But But enough about the rice, the sake is actually Kuroushi Junmai Ginjo from Wakayama. And they very proudly use omachi and I think in all their sake if I’m not mistaken.

Timothy Sullivan 16:25
Awesome. Yeah. Well, I brought sake from Hiroshima,

John Puma 16:30
Hum…

Timothy Sullivan 16:32
This is Kamotsuru Itteki Nyukon Junmai Ginjo.

John Puma 16:40
I don’t think I’ve had that one before. So tell me a little bit. What do you have on that?

Timothy Sullivan 16:45
Well, the reason I picked this one is because I’ve never had it before either. And I wanted to try it and I brought it to our rice prep episode because this uses an interesting rice as well. Hiroshima has kind of an Native sake rice that’s known specifically from that region and that’s called Hattannishiki.

John Puma 17:08
Hattannishiki.

Timothy Sullivan 17:10
And that rice is well known for growing a little bit shorter in stature than other sake Rice’s so it’s a little bit easier to manage for the rice farmers. And I’ve also heard it’s a bit more resistant to diseases but it’s a very, very regional rice and it is something that is specific to mainly to Hiroshima. So I’m very excited to try to sake and talk a little bit about how Hattannishiki

John Puma 17:40
Fantastic. Well, I’m gonna open up this Kuroushi, which by the way, that’s the the black Bull and their label as a very, very clearly that’s a silhouette of a black bull on it. They know what they are doing.

Timothy Sullivan 18:10
So john, this is the Junmai.

John Puma 18:11
This is the Junmai Ginjo.

Timothy Sullivan 18:13
The Junmai Ginjo

John Puma 18:13
Yeah, this was this was the first of their, of their sake that I was introduced to and it’s still my favorite. So one of the things about omachi is that it is very rich. So when you’re smelling a sake, a that that is made from omachi, it’s not going to be as fruity. It’s that you’re not gonna get a lot of fruit on the nose, but it’s also not going to be tremendously ricey either. It’s not It’s not like it’s like those, those Niigata Rice’s in this case, there isn’t a huge aroma, which is kind of weird. It’s like if you do smell, you know, maybe a little bit of a little bit of cooked rice, but not Yeah, nothing too nothing too crazy. And then, you know when we taste it, it is it is rich. Like that is like the word that I associate with omachi it’s rich, it goes well with food usually. You can probably have omachi, okay with a lot more, a lot wider range of food than you could with a lot of others. Okay, this is for somebody who comes on the show every week and talks about how much he likes very floral sipping stuff to come on and be like, oh, and also my favorite Rice’s omachi is I understand that there’s some cognitive dissonance there. But there’s a there’s a special place in my heart for it. And this is this, this loves food does have some full bodied action going on. It’s very rich. It’s very, you know, this is you know what, it is a little bit ricey-er than I remember to be completely Honest. But it is. It’s nice and hearty and tasty. And now I want to eat food with it. Probably rice based on our conversation earlier, but I don’t know if I have enough time to rinse it…

Timothy Sullivan 20:10
eight times,

John Puma 20:11
eight times.

Timothy Sullivan 20:12
At least.

John Puma 20:13
I definitely don’t have time.

Timothy Sullivan 20:16
Well, john, I have a confession.

John Puma 20:19
Oh, what’s that?

Timothy Sullivan 20:20
I am a big omachi fan too.

But, but you also, like fruity sakes!

I’m coming out of the closet as an omachi fan on this show. I love omachi as well. And I think for anyone out there who is interested in omachi you just have to try it right. It’s like such a distinct flavor. I think of all the sake Rice’s that are out there. omachi has the most signature and distinct flavor. I don’t know if you’d agree with that. But

John Puma 20:51
I do and it’s difficult to this day and not. It’s difficult for me to explain what omachi tastes like because it’s So signature as omachi it’s, you know, it’s kind of like trying to describe the color blue. It’s very difficult, because you just know it’s blue. And that’s Yeah, there’s that it is definitely and other different breweries, different sake will use that in different ways. And it’s going to, it’s going to present differently, but there’s that that note, it’s always there. And it’s, it’s always it’s something special. It’s something unique and interesting.

Timothy Sullivan 21:31
Yeah. The word I use to describe what you’re talking about is “layered”.

John Puma 21:34
layered

Timothy Sullivan 21:35
Layered. There is a depth to omachi sake is that has a layered nuance. It’s not a simple clean flavor. There’s a it’s a deeper flavor. It’s rice and umami kind of mixed together and it’s it’s has hints of savoriness For me like a little bit of a savory note, and just really distinct and really delicious.

John Puma 22:06
It is also the kind of sake that when you sip on it and just kind of let it linger in your mouth. It’s going to change, it’s going to take you on a journey. It’s not. It’s not going to be one and done. It’s, it’s not going to be Oh, I taste the fruit, and then it gets a little dry. And then we’re done. Like, no, there’s so much going on. I think a lot of people might interpret it a little bit differently, which is also really interesting is a nice little conversation piece then.

Timothy Sullivan 22:37
Yeah, it’s just fantastic. I encourage anybody out there to get your hands on a sake that uses omachi rice and give it a try. The origins of omachi sake rice come from Okayama prefecture. That’s where that original sample of omachi was discovered. So it’s grown in several parts of Japan but I think the the spiritual home for omachi is really Okayama prefecture.

John Puma 23:09
I’ve heard that and I feel like whenever I have sake from Okayama, it’s nine out of 10 of them are going to be omachi. Very proud of their local sake rice,

Timothy Sullivan 23:20
as they should be. It’s so awesome.

John Puma 23:24
Yeah. So enough about omachi

Timothy Sullivan 23:29
for now,

John Puma 23:30
for now. Yes. Yes. Let’s talk about the special regional races of Hiroshima. All right,

Timothy Sullivan 23:38
so I’m going to open this kamotsuru.

John Puma 23:43
Now, if I’m not mistaken, Tim, kamotsuru is one of the sake breweries that is located in Saijo, is that accurate?

Timothy Sullivan 23:52
That’s correct.

Okay. Ding Ding Ding, so Saijo. Do you want to tell tell everyone about Saijo?

John Puma 24:00
Go ahead probably know more than I do, which is well,

Timothy Sullivan 24:06
I’ve been there. Have you been there? I have. Okay. So I probably know just the same amount as you do. Saijo is a neighborhood in Hiroshima city. And it is the Center for sake brewing production. And if you walk around this neighborhood, you can see several sake breweries all in the same general area. And they all have these smokestacks where the steam comes out when they’re steaming their rice. And very often the smokestacks are made of brick and they have the name of the brewery written in white letters on there. So it’s very picturesque to walk around and see all these breweries within walking distance of each other. So it’s basically the the home of sake brewing for Hiroshima city.

John Puma 24:52
They also have an annual festival in Saijo where they celebrate the local sake and the local breweries. But also sake from all over Japan. And it’s a it’s a very, very big event takes over the entire city. People can walk through and see all of the breweries. A lot of people are having a lot of street food, street food and sake. And it’s, it’s quite an experience. I recommend trying to get down there if you ever have the opportunity.

Timothy Sullivan 25:25
Yeah, it’s amazing. So when when things go back to normal, where we’ll do an episode from Saijo. Maybe season two, we’ll get there

John Puma 25:35
Season Two all on location to make up for season one, which has nothing on location.

Timothy Sullivan 25:41
Exactly. Okay. So I have this Kamotsuru Itteki Nyukon Junmai Ginjo. And let’s see, we’re gonna give this a smell Hmm. So it has a little bit of a ricey note to it. Yep, a little bit of like straw a little ricey and just a hint of fruit in the back. Really interesting aroma Hmm Well, it’s always I don’t know if you experienced this John but when you taste a sake you’ve never had before. For the very first time. You’re kind of like what? what? What the?

What is this all about? You know when you’ve tasted a sake a for 100 times you kind of know what to expect and it always requires for me a little bit more pause and concentration when I taste the sake I’ve never had before. This one has a noticeably dry finish on it. There’s a little bit of heat on the finish a little bit of dryness. The aroma is primarily grain and rice, little bit of steamed rice with just a hint of back note of something Fruity something melon-y? Hmm, yep. primarily what I come away with for the sake is a dry finish the the palate The, the taste of it is quite balanced and alittle bit more on the ricey side. So I would say overall this is a dry sake, and I am getting some heat on the finish. So it does make me want to nibble on something with the sake.

John Puma 27:30
That sounds very food friendly and a little bit and it sounds like something a little less sipping a little bit more. More accompanying and dish.

Timothy Sullivan 27:42
Yeah, and I am not against a dry sake.

John Puma 27:48
I think neither of us are.

Timothy Sullivan 27:51
Yeah, we do not discriminate now. Fruity dry.

John Puma 27:57
We’ll definitely have favorites,

Timothy Sullivan 27:59
but We have favorite children. Yeah, I guess we won’t discriminate.

John Puma 28:03
No, not at all. Not at all. That sounds interesting. It says nice. I, I find that a lot of the a lot of the sake from Saijo, specifically is very rice forward to me. Hmm. Whereas some of the breweries that are in Hiroshima outside of that specific town, have a much more a much broader collection of flavors to them. And that might just be some some some bias based on when I’ve tasted things, but it’s just something just a feeling I get from, from experiences there. It’s interesting though, I like that.

Timothy Sullivan 28:46
Yeah. What would you pair with your omachi as far as food goes,

John Puma 28:53
I have paired I have paired this omachi with everything to be completely honest. It’s one of those lucky That really is very versatile when it comes to food. You can have it with such a variety at this particular moment. And it might just be because I haven’t had it in a long time. Right now I’m thinking yakitori

Timothy Sullivan 29:16
oh now you’re talking my language

John Puma 29:20
you can get so many things delivered right now but yakitori is gonna be the hardest thing because you really want to have it like right after it comes off the grill. And and that’s just not an option right now whether when this in this delivery delivery only world we’re in

Timothy Sullivan 29:35
cold Yakitori is a bummer.

John Puma 29:37
necessarily. It doesn’t mean to cold winterize your place but so I’m not going to be you’re not gonna be fresh off the grill. Maybe I should Yeah, a grill. Alright, and some charm charm, you know after I’m done washing my times, I’m going to get a charcoal grill and hope and then a backyard and hope that my I’ll just put the grill out the window. I would hope that my co op doesn’t kick me out.

Timothy Sullivan 30:05
I’ve had fantasies about making yakitori on my fire escape, but I don’t want the fire department showing up.They’re gonna eat all my yakitori if they show up

John Puma 30:17
Yes, and you’ll get evicted and they’re gonna yakitori so you’ll get this over to you lose your apartment and not get to eat. You’ll be hungry and homeless.

Timothy Sullivan 30:27
It’ll be worth it though. I’ll say I’ll say the omachi made me do it.

John Puma 30:32
So you’re gonna bribe the firemen with the omachi this is getting worse. Tim I don’t like

Timothy Sullivan 30:39
well, when the judge throws the book at me, I’ll say the omachi made me do it. The omachi made me do it, Your Honor.

Do you know the rice milling percentage of your sake?

John Puma 30:52
So it looks like that’s 50. 50%

oh 50%

Timothy Sullivan 30:59
Wow. So that lower rice milling rate, I think really lends to kind of a smooth character if the sake really gives it a smooth edge.

John Puma 31:09
Yeah, wouldn’t it does a little bit. I mean, this particular one is is a little, obviously a little less smooth. But I think that’s just a matter of I think that’s what the breweries going for here. I think they want something that’s going to be a little bit more. A little bit bigger, a little bit more exciting. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I could sip this all day. But this does really just like makes me want to eat.

Timothy Sullivan 31:37
Yeah, I don’t mean quiet. I just mean smooth

John Puma 31:40
Oh, okay. Yeah, I see that

Timothy Sullivan 31:42
smooth sipping. Yes. My my sake my Kamotsuru Junmai Ginjo is milled to 60% remaining. So I think that isn’t as finely milled as yours. So I think that’s where I get a little bit more of this ricey characteristic. You know, revisiting it now taking a second sip A few minutes later. It really does have more of a pronounced ricey-ness on the palate. And again the dry finishes still sticking with me. So it’s a very food I would call this a food friendly sake for sure.

John Puma 32:19
It sounds like it sounds It sounds very much like it. What would you pair it with? And you can’t say yakitori I already used that.

Timothy Sullivan 32:28
I can’t say yakitori I’m gonna get arrested the fire departments. So, let me see. Well, you know, I’m gonna say something. This is not my favorite food in the world. But

John Puma 32:43
I’m ready.

Timothy Sullivan 32:43
What pops to mind that I think would be a good pairing is ramen.

John Puma 32:49
What kind of ramen?

Timothy Sullivan 32:51
Well, just like I really like shio ramen. And, you know, I’m one of those weird aliens from another planet that you know ramen is not my favorite food. So many people I know are like you don’t like ramen? Are you human? And I don’t hate ramen, but it’s not my favorite food. But with this sake ramen sounds really good.

John Puma 33:14
It’s gonna say, I’m gonna say, Tim, that that’s very surprising to me that you don’t like ramen. I realize that it’s not your favorite food, but I I’m just I guess I always assumed you did. That’s interesting.

Timothy Sullivan 33:30
We’ve been friends for all these years. Yeah. And now you know the truth.

John Puma 33:34
Yeah, well, all these years we’ve never met up at a ramen shop. So maybe there’s something that

Timothy Sullivan 33:40
this is a True Confessions episode. Yes. So I ramen is not my favorite but I do appreciate good shio ramen every now and again. I knew people in Japan who would eat ramen every day like it was their favorite food like they needed ramen to exist. I’m just not not at that point.

John Puma 34:00
Given the calorie content of my favorite type of ramen, I don’t think I can eat it every day or I would die.

Timothy Sullivan 34:08
What’s your favorite type of ramen?

John Puma 34:10
Like Hakata style Tonkatsu ramen.

Timothy Sullivan 34:13
Oh, wow.

John Puma 34:13
Like it is like you’re tipping the scales like 1200 calories a bowl I think, Oh, it’s not it’s not messing around.

Timothy Sullivan 34:22
And that’s your favorite.

John Puma 34:24
It’s so good. It’s so good and it’s one of my favorites. Okay pairings but we’ll get into that another day. Yeah.

Timothy Sullivan 34:30
Do you agree that Robbins like good drunk hangover food?

John Puma 34:34
Ramen is the Japanese version of the of the egg and cheese sandwich. Yes, the breakfast sandwich. Because it’s specifically this type of problem. So you’ve got the pork broth. So and then also you have your your pork broth and your chashu in there. So you’re getting your pork. There’s a lot of fats in the broth. There’s a stark there’s the Get the carbs from the noodles. It’s all coming in. It’s from a taking care of your hangover standpoint is the Japanese version of that egg and cheese breakfast sandwich that hangover sandwich that people have in New York all the time.

Timothy Sullivan 35:14
Yeah, so you got all the major food groups in there that’s that’s fantastic. Yeah.

John Puma 35:20
I want to have one ramen now. I can’t have ramen either I can’t have Yakitori. I can’t have ramen.

Timothy Sullivan 35:31
Yes, I miss sushi. I miss sushi. I didn’t think I would but I really miss like fresh, delicious, high end Omakase a sushi that’s something that you really can’t take out

John Puma 35:43
You can’t do omakase unless you like the stand by the door I guess and have them hand you each piece.

Timothy Sullivan 35:54
Well, I have a whole bottle of my kamotsuru. And I think as I drink this I’m going to experiment over the coming days with different food pairings. And we’ll see what shakes out to be good. But, you know, I think something a little bit richer, something a little bit heavier might be good with this dry finish, and I’m really looking forward to that. Cool.

Excellent.

All right. Well, thank you everyone so much for tuning in. If you could take a moment, please rate our show on Apple podcasts.

John Puma 36:29
And to make sure you don’t miss next week’s episode or any episode after that, please go ahead and subscribe wherever you download your podcasts.

Timothy Sullivan 36:41
And as always, to learn more about any of the topics we talked about today or any of the sake we tried today. Visit our website at sakerevolution.com to look at the detailed show notes,

John Puma 36:53
and please send us your feedback show ideas sake as you’d like us to taste. If you want to send The fire department to Tim’s place because he’s making yakatori on his fire escape. You can do that but also send an email anytime to [email protected]. And until next time, remember to keep drinking sake and Kanpai!