Kanzawagawa Sake Brewery：Perfect koji

Kanzawagawa Sake Brewery strives to make Tsukihaze-koji which only has a few spots of koji fungus on the rice. This takes 70 hours of work (20 hours longer than standard). During his process, the rice grain weight has dropped from the 48% increase (immediately post-steaming) to 8% when the koji is completed and the rice is taken from the koji room. Normally this de-koji-buai is only around 17-18%, so outside of Shizuoka it is pretty rare to use such dry koji. With usage of this extremely dry koji and Shizuoka yeast, the sake releases isoamyl acetate (aroma of banana, black grape and apple) after lower-temperature fermentation. The lower temperature is used to maintain the rich aroma in Ginjo-style sake, which would otherwise disappear under higher-temperature fermentation conditions. These aromas have a totally different appealing characteristic, compared to the more common pear aroma from ethyl caproate.