Nihonshu-do – Home Brew Sake

Hitting your SMV (Sake Meter Value) – To ameliorate or not

One question that comes up over and over in sake brewing is how to hit the SMV value desired. Puzzling over this question I asked one of the brewers from Yoshi-no-gawa when the opportunity presented itself. This was well over a year ago now, but what he told me was that they monitored the moromi (main ferment) and when it reached their desired SMV value, it was time for Shibori or Joso, that is time to press the lees from the sake. Using an assaku-ki machine (an accordion like press), often referred to as a yabuta, they are able to remove virtually all of the lees and even the yeast. Because this leaves only trace amounts of the yeast, fermentation is stopped and the SMV value is stabilized.

Very nice! However, if you have seen my videos of the pressing process you may be wondering if something is amiss. Well, yes, something is amiss. My pressing method leaves a large amount of the lees in my sake so there is no way I am removing the yeast. This is true for most homebrewers. There are filters used for brewing that may be able to do what is needed. I have one but have not used it yet. In any case to use it I will have to first press and let settle or fine before filtering because the amount of lees would hopelessly clog the filter if the sake isn’t pretty close to clear. So, for now, I can’t use their method.

Continue reading “Hitting your SMV (Sake Meter Value) – To ameliorate or not”

Measuring your Sake – Part One: the Hydrometer and SMV

In this series on Measuring your Sake I will cover how to measure all the key characteristics of sake. These include:

–          Nihonshudo a.k.a. Sake Meter Value (SMV) and specific gravity
–          Alcohol percentage by volume
–          Sando or Acidity
–          Amino Sando or Amino acid levels

For Nihonshudo or SMV all that is needed is a hydrometer. The most commonly available hydrometers are for specific gravity though you can find other metrics. To simplify this discussion I will stick to specific gravity and SMV. A discussion of these other metrics is in the article: Nihonshu-do (日本酒度) or Sake Meter Value (SMV).

So, what are we talking about when we talk about specific gravity? Well, specific gravity is a measure of the density of a liquid compared to the density of distilled water at 60F. But what does that mean?

Continue reading “Measuring your Sake – Part One: the Hydrometer and SMV”

Nihonshu-do (日本酒度) or Sake Meter Value (SMV)

This article discusses Nihonshu-do (SMV), Buame, Plato and specific gravity for sake Brewing.

Nihonshu-do also known as SMV is the way we measure the sweetness to dryness level of a sake. The word nihonshu-do itself can be broken down into three words Nihon Shu Do with the English counter parts being Japan Alcohol Degree (as in position on a scale). So Japanese Alcohol is Sake and Degree or Meter Value taken together represent the main metric used to characterize sake. At first glance this measure is relatively simple and this is as it should be for sake aficionados. A -4 SMV value for a sake implies it is quite sweet while a value of +10 would be very dry. Its use in brewing reflects its more complicated nature.

SMV was originally based on the Heavy Baume scale created by a Frenchman in the late 1700s. However, the heavy baume scale is only valid for liquids that are equal or heavier than water and this is not the case for sake. For this reason nihonshu-do has the same slope as the heavy baume scale but is not the same. When nihonshu-do and heavy baume are used to evaluate the degree of sugar in water they directly represent the amount of sugar by weight in the solution. While the baume scale is pretty much obsolete today, similar scales like the Balling, Brix and Plato scales are all attempts to measure the amount of dissolved solids in solution with more accuracy, i.e. the grams of solids in 100 grams of water. However, where Baume was working with a sodium chloride solution Balling, Brix and Plato specifically worked with sucrose solutions. Continue reading “Nihonshu-do (日本酒度) or Sake Meter Value (SMV)”