Nanjing's sake brewing, and the mash in the northwest and southwest regions, the rice wine in the two lakes and jiangxi is probably the same thing, not only the production of raw materials and production methods are similar, even the eating method is similar, mostly used to boil egg flowers or boil small lanterns to eat.
Although the cooked sake is also delicious, it is two different flavors compared to the uncooked sake brew, and the difference is a bit like fresh beer and disinfected beer. In contrast, I prefer uncooked sake.
2015 Xining
A few years ago traveled to Qinghai via Xining, yogurt shop in addition to the very delicious yogurt, there is a food called "sweet sauce", curiosity driven to buy to eat, eat a little wine feeling, but the taste is sour. I asked the shopkeeper that sweet mash is also the product of fermented grain, and glutinous rice is used to make sake mash, while sweet mash is made of barley from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
The feeling of tasting sweet sauce for the first time is very good, the sour taste from fermentation is very refreshing, but the sweetness and thickness of the soup are insufficient, and the overall taste is a bit sloppy, slightly regrettable.
After the glutinous rice in the sake is fermented, the rice grains are empty and empty, and they are soft and soft in the mouth, and there is no chewiness. The barley in the sweet sauce is probably rough and thick, although fermented, but the skin is still hard, and it is still a little chewy in the mouth, which is a surprise on the taste that is very much in line with my heart.
I like wine brewing, these two years to find a variety of glutinous rice all kinds of wine song at home toss, although the wine brewing has a small success, but the technical stability is not enough, until the 2020 holiday, in the boredom of the attitude of scientific experiments seriously treated wine brewing, made a constant temperature fermentation box, and recorded in detail the weight and state of various materials in the production process of each batch. After a few months, the fermentation technology is basically passed.
When I was packing up the ingredients at home during the big holiday, I found a bag of blue barley, thinking that I was doing wine experiments anyway, in the spirit of "one sheep is also a catch, two sheep are also released", just try to make sweet sauce. The result is sweet and sour, which is exactly the taste I remember.
After eating too much pure sake and sweet sauce, I began to think about how to toss out some new tricks. The taste of wine is sweet and thick, the taste of sweet sauce is sour and light, if the two are combined, the same as the product of grain fermentation, the coordination of the taste should be no problem, and the level of taste should be fuller. From the point of view of taste, the two are also complementary, and it is worth trying.
After several trials, the overall failure was made, and the product of the mixed fermentation of glutinous rice and barley did not appear the expected texture and taste. Although the taste has the meaning of sweet and sour, the sweetness and thickness of the acidity are weaker than that of monomer fermentation. After mixing and fermenting, the barley somehow became softer and no longer chewy.
This wave of experiments also has a bright spot, there are two pots of mixed fermentation products actually appeared fruity aroma, this fragrance did not appear in the monomer fermentation, for some reason.
After various experiments, I think that the combination of sake brew and sweet sauce is established, sake brew and sweet sauce are made separately, and when they are eaten, they are mixed and eaten. This way of eating can also be adjusted according to each person's taste preferences, like sour to add more sweet sauce, like sweet to add more wine.
Delicious is endless, I am fascinated by the mysterious fruit aroma of glutinous rice mixed with barley, how does that fruit aroma come from? I looked at the notes and vaguely thought it might be related to the ratio of glutinous rice to barley. When I have the conditions later, I really want to design an experiment and study what the fruit aroma is all about...