While domestic consumption of sake is sluggish, Kyoto's proud special pure rice sake (equivalent to Daiginjo sake) has succeeded in quantifying the aroma in order to achieve quality comparable to high-end wine, and is now exported all over the world and gained popularity. doing.On the other hand, the process of making delicious Ginjo sake relied on Mr. Mori's intuition, and the mystery of deliciousness remained.

　This research group is about the mystery of the deliciousness of Ginjo-equivalent special pure rice sake, which is based on the ancient Japanese sake brewing "Namamoto-zukuri," which is characterized by parallel double fermentation with yeast, aspergillus, and lactic acid bacteria. The latest non-target metabolome analysis was performed to solve the problem, and changes in metabolites during the fermentation process were analyzed.

　As a result, six compounds were newly identified as characteristic of the fermentation process of sake.Two of them were predicted to be umami-related tasting compounds, and the remaining four were identified as leucine or isoleucine-containing peptides predicted to arise from lactic acid bacteria and rice proteins.It was suggested that these compounds mask commodities that spoil the taste of Ginjo sake by gradually increasing during the fermentation process, and make sake into Ginjo sake without affecting the taste.

　With this result, it will be possible to assess the manufacturing process of delicious Daiginjo sake, which has relied on Mr. Mori's intuition, with the eyes of chemical molecules, and in the future, the way to supply Daiginjo sake with stable quality and low cost will be expanded. Is expected.

Paper information:[PLOS ONE] Metabolite profiling of the fermentation process of “yamahai-ginjo-shikomi” Japanese sake