Den: The Future of American Craft Sake with Yoshihiro Sako (October, 2024)
Origins
Yoshihiro Sako got started with the help of his business partner, a colleague from previous work in the music industry who contributed financial support and some help with brewing.
He spent 5 years at Corkage bar and bottle shop attached to Tsunami restaurant on the SF Panhandle where he learned to love both wine and sake-- despite initial hesitation.
He spent 6 years as sake director at Yuzuki SF: a high end izakaya with everything made from scratch.
“I was playing bass while still living in Japan but gave up on music for a while. I started traveling and came to the US to study. My English teacher incidentally was a drummer so we started jamming together. That lit the fire again. I started playing in bands and touring Northern California. My main band, Beatropolis, performed live house music. Another one performed world music. I was also in a rock band called Gilder with the guitarist and drummer of Counting Crows— we played gigs when they were not touring. I was doing music for thirteen years... music and sake for a lot of it, but by the end sake was starting to take over. Now I don’t have time for music.”
Early Influences
When his sake career began he worked for a month at Kubota Shuzo in Sagamihara, Kanagawa, his hometown. "This was a very small brewery, 400 koku, my hometown. Very basic stuff I learned from them. This was when I was a buyer, 15 years ago. After that I did an apprenticeship at Shiokawa in Niigata (makers of Cowboy Yamahai). Shiokawa-san and I got to know each other when he was doing test brewing with me in my friend’s backyard-- he stayed with me in my apartment for 2 weeks. Shiokawa-san has lot of experience brewing overseas in different environments, such as China, indonesia, USA, so he has really diverse experience. That was such a hot summer that year, brewing in the the bay area during the day in my apartment... we built a temporary koji room using a marijuana growing tent, and constructed a walk-in cooler fermentation tank. We did 4 batches in my friend’s backyard, and Shiokawa-san participated in the process the first two weeks. After he left we remotely connected, and he helped with questions. Later on, I went to Niigata and stayed at Shiokawa-san's place and brewed with him at his brewery for 2 weeks. I was able to dive deeper: get more specific with koji making, and build on a lot of general/foundational ideas, how to do lab analysis, what kind of equipment I would need to proceed commercially. Shiokawa-san introduced me to the used equipment company in Niigata, and even introduced me to rice farmers-- he did a lot for me. We’re still very close, we talk once a month."
You updated your flagship product to Koshihikari rice from Calhikari, and changed the polishing percentage. Why?
The former flagship, Calhikari 70%, was discontinued after #19. I thought, “I think I've tried enough with this, I know where this can go, we saw the potential of this rice and it’s time to move on to something new." I wanted to try minimally polished rice so we moved toward 80% Yamadanishiki for the flagship 'Blue' and 90% Koshihikari for Kimoto. I couldnt get as much acidity as I wanted in the last batch of Blue, so maybe I will use a little more white koji as a yon dan (4th) addition to adjust next time...make shiro koji amazake and throw into the mash as a fourth addition to see if that helps. More acidity is part of our style.
We used to use Calhikari, and we were the only brewers in the world who were using Calhikari. It's a short grain California-grown rice sold under the name “sushi rice,” crossbred between Koshihikari, Hitomebore and S102, developed in 1999. We worked with a Single farm, albeit a large farm, Rue and Foresman Ranch in the Sacramento Delta. Like Calrose, this is a hard rice that is difficult to melt in fermentation.
This Koshihikari we've switched to though, it's very special, also Sacramento Valley single origin but this rice is special because it was grown 100% organically-- no pesticide and no fertilizer-- shizensaibaimai method or very close, so this rice is very special. It has no cracks, no faults, such beautiful grains and so even. It’s also a similar protein content to Yamada Nishiki despite being a table rice, not technically a sake rice. Usually the protein content is much higher in table rice, but because Luna farm doesn't use nitrogen fertilizer the protein content is really reduced. So that’s one of the reasons why I decided to use the Koshihikari with minimal polishing. Protein leads to a heavy, leaden flavor in low polish rice, but since it has such a small quantity of protein we can still get a really elegant result.
Koshihikari is a little bit more expensive but not so much-- by polishing to only 90% for Kimoto the price is lower than it would be otherwise. So the flagship price stays similar to what it was, even though the rice has changed.
Luna Koshihikari is not a big business, they are are not selling it on a wide scale. This is one woman, her name is Wendy, who only mills from 100 to 90% for table use. She approached us to see if we’re interested in using her rice. She created this brand called Luna Koshihikari only about 2 years ago. She's one of the architects for Rintaro restaurant in the Mission and that's how we were introduced.
Our new "Blue Label" sake has since replaced Calhikari, the old flagship sake. Now we're on batch #1 for the new Blue series, using Yamadanishiki 80%. For Den 90 Kimoto, we are using the 90% Koshihikari without further polishing.
The Yamadanishiki rice is sourced from La Grande Family under Sun Valley/ Valley Select. That one is farmed conventionally. The Yamadanishiki is pretty good. I’ve never used other sake rice compared to that Yamadanishiki so i’m just comparing to California table rice. Much much easier to dissolve in the mash compared to the Calhikari and get the flavor out of it....Everything is just super easy, it's a pleasure to work with. We're the only one using 80% polishing ratio of that Yamada Nishiki as far as I know. We have to meet the minimum quantity for rice polishing batches so there's no opportunity to experiment with different polishing ratios-- we're too small.
Production
Total rice used in a year: 3000 kg/ 5000 lbs. Two shipments, big stack twice a year, stored in the refrigerated fermentation room.
We brew year round, make batches 4 times per year using 1000L tanks. We used to make 5 tanks at a time, now we make only 2 tanks per time but more often. We used to make really big batch 3x per year but we have one less employee so now it’s just me. At this point we sell out batch to batch and my wife has to help me get it done, so I feel that we definitely have room to expand.
I have to maintain a schedule for which type of koji I'm using at any time. Shiro koji is weaker so I make it first, and then yellow koji next, always in that order. I make all koji ahead of time and store it in the freezer. A lot of breweries also store it in the freezer; 10 years ago people didn’t know it was OK and never did it. But I don’t think it affects the quality. You just have to be careful because Koji needs to be dry before going in the freezer, otherwise it will change the strength of the enzymes, bursting the cells. If it’s wet it can break the enzyme. So we leave in a room with a dehumidifier to cool before it's frozen.
For our starter, our moto, we use shiro koji (white koji, aspergillus luchuensis mut. kawachii) and koon tooka (hot starter). Now we’re using kimoto, trying to do more kimoto. I really like the shiro koji and koon tooka and the flavor is really refreshing and brighter. I really want to create something that reflects this area-- that can only be created in this area and in this brewery, that’s my goal. So to do that, I believe I need to use more kimoto and wild yeast and minimally polished rice, reflecting the true flavor of the rice and microbial terroir.
So the difficult thing is that sake drinkers in the US people really look for something fruity and aromatic style. And a lot of people think that warm/hot is bad quality, so I think something in between is stylistically best right now. Senkin is taking a similar approach: classic and modern style. For a while I might take a similar path to Senkin.
Blanc is something juicy, something different. Blue label is almost +5 SMV, Red is -3, Kimoto is 0, so they all teeter around dry or medium dry.
A San Francisco brewery
We’re looking at space in San Francisco. We moved to San Francisco a while ago, our own home. Oakland, it’s just not really safe anymore, not since the pandemic. Electric is a very difficult requirement to meet, construction is super expensive, power concerns are big. We’re looking for 2500 square feet and planning on 2000 L tanks, aiming to double production. Our goal is to add a taproom and have on premise. Tasting room, education, direct sales, "Mainly I want to do more education. My background is as a sake sommelier and sake buyer, and I miss that part-- I think that’s a great way to expose our philosophy to the public."
Tsuchida
Tsuchida - we visited Tsuchida because we wanted to learn kimoto and also the use of wild yeast and minimally polished rice. So they have a similar goal, it aligned with what we wanted to learn. I spent 10 days at Tsuchida-- I really learned a lot from the toji, he’s really open minded and he didn’t hold back sharing information and he answered all questions. I feel like I got all the basics from Shiokawa-san and advanced from Hoshino toji from Tsuchida.
I think overall they try a lot of different stuff including unusual stuff, mizumoto and wild yeast, lactic acid “spoiled sake,” leaning into amino acid, intentionally making sake with a lot of amino acid and exploring pairing potential with that. So at Tsuchida they have so much information about doing things out of the standard. For me, that was very useful information-- so in the future anytime I want to do something different, they will be a big help and a great resource.
Their way of sake brewing opened my mind to a more interesting way. What I’m trying to do as far as flavor profile is slightly different from their approach, because market/consumers are different. So I’m trying to adjust that profile to American tastes.
As for kimoto preparation, I use drill method, Tsuchida-san also uses drill- after all he’s one man. But it’s different from the Akita drill method. Recipes are a little different too. Tsuchida’s water is sooo clean, almost too clean to do a kimoto. In order to do kimoto method you typically need nitrate reducing bacteria, but that bacteria isn’t present in the Tsuchida water because it's so clean. Nitrate reducing bacteria make the sake taste fresher and cleaner, and this is a style he's looking for.
Yoshi wants the nitrate reducing bacteria so he collects "wild" water: there’s a cliff above Stinson Beach he uses to collect water just for the shubo, and uses it in the starter. There's ammonia and chlorine in the city water, too, so he uses a piece of wood from the same water source and puts that wood chip in the water, waiting 10 days for bacteria to grow first. So that’s a very small part of the process, but it helps with the starter. Aramasa's Sato-san was also saying that this nitrate reducing effect is necessary to create clean style kimoto sake, and because his water is too clean, he also uses wood chips. Yoshi is not trying to make the mushroomy, funky style yet.
Who are your regulars?
We have a lot of different types of regulars. A lot of people want to support local, not necessarily sake drinkers, but they tasted our sake and they really loved it. "Wow, sake can be this good, I didn’t know!" I think a lot of normal people only have cheap large production sake. But because we are the local sake, then they realize it’s really delicious.
