4. Rice Wine

    Niigata prefecture is also famous for rice wine as it is called Nihonshu. The production of rice wine in Niigata prefecture is the third largest in Japan. The reason for large production of rice wine is that a lot of rice is harvested in Niigata prefecture. And the amount of consumption of rice wine in Niigata prefecture is the largest in Japan. The amount of consumption of other liquor in Niigata prefecture is large, but it is not the largest in Japan. The consumption of rice wine in Niigata prefecture is 2.6 times as large as average of Japan.

Rice wine

    Rice wine is mainly made from rice, water and koji of rice, so quality of these is very important. Koji is grain which is developed microorganisms, and it makes foods ferment. So it is used when people make variable fermented foods, such as, miso, soy souse and rice wine. The microorganisms used in koji is mainly mold, but the mold used in koji hasn’t poisons. It just helps foods to ferment.

  


Koji

Moromi

    There are many processes in making rice wine, and people who make rice wine is called toji. First, rice is polished because outside of rice contains many protein and fat, and they make taste of rice wine bad. The taste of rice wine becomes much elegant if the rice is polished deeper, but the higher skills are required in later process. The rice polished has much heat, and the quality of rice is unstable, so the rice need cooled down. It takes more than three weeks to cool down it completely. After the rice cooled down completely, it is washed carefully, and the rice is soaked in water. This process is very important because the taste of rice wine differs depending on the length of soaking time. Next toji make koji and shubo. Shubo means cultured yeast. Then toji mix rice, koji and shubo in tank, and it is called moromi. Alcohol is created by yeast, and koji convert starch into sugar. It takes more than 20 days to finish fermentation. After fermentation finish, moromi is separated into liquid and solid, and the liquid called namazake. Then namazake is filtered in order to remove impurities, and it is sterilize with heat because rice wine change in quality by yeast. Finally rice wine is matured for a long time. The taste of rice wine become more delicious by maturing.

    These days, rice wine is popular in the world.



I used the following website.
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E9%85%92