00:00:02 John Daub: Hey everybody, welcome to Nagano. This is Saku-shi. And I'm here to drink sake. I literally just came here for one thing: drink sake! This place is very famous for it. There's a lot of really big attractions to Nagano Prefecture. You know, it was part of the Winter Olympics in 1998. But I came on the Shinkansen to Saku-Ō Station and I'm on kind of a tour to drink sake. This place, I'm going to be staying here, which is really unique. This is a place where you stay at a sake brewery. Hey, how you doing everybody?

00:00:39 John Daub: The water is so clean here and we're going to go inside. This is a center for learning about sake. And they're going to tell us about tasting sake. How do you know what's different between the sakes? This area is, I believe this is where we're going to stay tonight. It's a pretty unique experience and I couldn't say no when they invited me to come here. So we go inside. Let's drink some sake. I'm kind of excited about this. They've already put some sake on the table.

00:01:11 John Daub: And Miki-san, who can speak English, is going to explain to us because I don't want to spend my time translating. I would rather spend my time drinking. All right, let's go in. Here we are. So they got the boots in here. We're actually tomorrow morning going to be making sake. Which is something that's going to be pretty cool. But I guess we do the drinking first. They're the boots that you need to go into the plant. And let's go upstairs. We're already going to see this in progress. We're inside of an old Japanese building.

00:02:03 John Daub: Look at the focus on everybody's faces. It's like an examination. I guess it's very, very serious about the sake. I guess I have to change my face to seriousness as well. It's my sake drinking face. It's kind of scary. So here are some of the brands that they have here at this brewery. I'll put a link in the description so you can find all this information if you're interested. But Saku City has, you can drink the water from the tap. It's like wakimizu or just normal spring water from the tap. It's pretty incredible. I love the colors of the bottles.

00:02:54 John Daub: But what exactly makes sake different? How do you tell what the difference is between the ones that you do try? So this is sort of the purpose why I'm here to learn about all that. Oh, I'm way behind. The left one or the right one? Uh-oh, I'm way behind. Let's try this one. The left one. Okay, okay. This is the left one. Left one. Interesting. Left. This doesn't look good. Double fisting.

00:04:04 John Daub: So the left one here, these are two different kinds of sake that they make here. The left one, it seemed to have more character to it and the right one was a little bit sweeter. The left one has to me more character and the right one a little bit stronger, drier maybe. This one's a little bit maybe easier to drink and sweeter, I felt. But the more I drink sake, the more I want to have character. So both of them are really easy to drink. This is a good sake. I'm pretty sure it is. It's a pure rice wine, right? That's right.

00:05:09 John Daub: Seems like sake is always cheaper than wine. Maybe that is just sake in my area though. How much is a really good bottle of sake? That is a good question.

00:05:21 Miki-san: Please try it. And then, the watch and accessories, please put them in this place. The valuables will also be locked, so please trust us and put them in. Please take off your finger rings. Finger rings, yes. Before you go, you need to take off your gloves. Please take off your gloves.

00:05:56 John Daub: It's like a straight jacket. Oh, wait, wait, ah, not yet. I see. It was like a straight jacket. Like they were taking me to the asylum. This is how you would do it. It sort of looks like a straight jacket, I don't know.

00:06:33 John Daub: Alright, let's do this. Ready to go to the sake brewery now? I am. Sake and there's not been enough drinking. You could do a little bit more of that. It's nice to see. It's a completely different feel now. Everybody has changed. They've metamorphosized into sake brewers. This is pretty cool. There's no water in it. I can drink it without a drink. It's cool. It looks good on you. Ah, that's good. We're all going to be making sake.

00:07:17 John Daub: Alright, we're going to be making this. How many liters is that? 72 liters in here. That's what I drink every night. It's a big cup. Alright, after we've gotten ready. My memory is a complete disaster. I'll clean up after myself a little bit. Nice and clean. Alright, let's go downstairs.

00:08:11 Staff: If you want to take photos by your own camera. We need it. Are you ready?

00:08:19 John Daub: Yes, I'm ready! Follow the CEO. That's right, follow Miki. Follow Mickey. I can't. It's a copyright song. I can't. Okay, follow Mickey. Why is that so funny? Is it live? Oh wow, it's live. Remember to hit the like button everybody. That's right. Do you know how many people are watching now? Um, 700? 700? I guess they're the big size. Only in Japan is the name of the channel. 28? 28? 29? Well, 29 is fine. 29 is for John.

00:09:37 John Daub: We have to wear boots in here. Oh, these fit pretty good. I like this. So this is what it looks like. The outfit for brewers. Time to brew. We gotta take our shoes with us. So bring your white boots with us. These are mistakes that first time brewers make. Are we still following Miki? Alright. Oh, it's kind of raining. This is where we started the open we opened the show with this so you want to watch the playback get a kind of a idea of what the area looks like oh this is awesome we're going now we're following Miki into the brewery look at the big barrels what's in there who's in there awesome all right guys we're on i'm on 4g lte and i'm not sure if it's going to last if we go in there we had wi-fi in the um in the research room but i'm not sure what's going to happen so if we get cut off just in advance notice oh now we're okay now we enter into the boots we're gonna see how far we can go with the live stream here oh you have to step in stuff i'll do so i'm gonna put my 29 centimeter shoes in here i got the biggest shoes of the group by the way i'm just gonna let you have it the 29ers i jump it out of the way kill the bacteria or whatever is on the bottom of the boots we're good enter enter.

00:13:14 John Daub: Whoa it smells like booze ah this is the best smell ever ah I love the smell of sake in the morning and the afternoon and at night oh it's so good look at the little door to get in all right guys I don't know how this thing no looks i i do hope the signal lasts in here i'll i'll do i'm doing my best to make sure you get a nice tour the inside of the sake brewery we're going to be making booze tomorrow morning it is chilly in here the weather uh the temperature is noticeably cooler than outside it's a very unusual 13 degrees celsius here in nagano typically it's well below zero um on a typical february but today yeah are we gonna wash our hands i can spray need you to be all okay for 20 seconds oh you're using a paper towel oh okay well then i don't have to do the surgical method it's done better i was trying to do what the doctors do shushu we i i um sprayed the gimbal awesome this is awesome we're gonna wash the rice the rice.

00:16:07 John Daub: That's gonna wash the rice. Oh it's actually a washing machine. I think that's something else. So this is where they wash the rice. Oh he's talking about the process here. Yeah he's gonna do it quickly. Move quickly people. Koji (mold) is the name of the mold. Process. This is where the magic happens. It starts here washing the rice. You have to wash the rice. He's talking about the rice now. So he's talking about the rice. Junmai Ginjo, Junmai Daiginjo. All the different varieties. Shikura is the rice of Shikura [?]. Zenryo is the rice of Nagano-ken. Nishiki is the rice of Nishiki. So he's talking about the three varieties of rice that they use. Yamada Nishiki is one of them.

00:17:46 John Daub: Five years before that they only used Yamada Nishiki rice. Now they're making different varieties of sake. So they make different varieties of rice. It's interesting. But in the past they would use the rice that they had in the whatever they were growing. But five years ago yeah they changed a little bit. But Nagano has some of the best sake and makes some of the most sake because they have really good rice. Nagano as well this area and you got that Nagano because the water and the rice is just so good they have really good ingredients to make sake that's the very famous in this area and the weather is perfect it's not too hot something something good about the cooler weather with sake brewing process smells so good in here it smells like a brewery.

00:19:00 John Daub: Today we're gonna learn about the way to wash the rice and that's the responsibility and then of the I can't do this job of translating this awful my nose itches I want to touch my nose but I'm not supposed to I don't touch your nose washing I guess. I'm gonna get my hands dirty. Oh this machine is um kind of separates the rice I think. Now I'm just making it up. There's nobody to answer my questions. I just yeah just blah blah blah I want I need my questions answered. What does this wheel do for example? Doesn't even budge. Oh so this is so they're making the hotel in here and the hotel is gonna open in April so people can stay here and live with the sake. That's a really interesting concept isn't it? So you could you can reserve a room here and live and make the sake here. That's pretty darn cool I think. Starts up in April.

00:21:27 John Daub: It's a really old building and about it's been dead 20 years. They've been doing nothing with it and now they've decided to take this space and make something from it and they're gonna do a hotel. I think that's pretty cool like a hostel type of thing. So now they're they're ripping stuff out and fixing it up. That's what you see here zone. I would love to shower with sake. I would never touch my body because it just goes straight into my mouth. Can't waste that stuff. A sake bath might be interesting. You can see how important it is though. Do you see they have these Shinto symbols the paper on the top here so it is a very traditional Japanese sake. The religion is a part of Japanese sake. In fact the word Nihonshu, Nihon meaning Japan, Shu meaning drink. Sake is Nihonshu in Japanese and Nihonshu means Japan's drink. So it's a very symbolic it's very important drink to people in Japan whether you drink alcohol or not. It's used in a lot of celebratory events like weddings and the opening of a business or house.

00:23:05 John Daub: I know he's talking about Kami-sama the God. I'm way ahead of you brother. I feel though I feel though if I go inside there we're gonna totally lose the signal. It's gonna happen. Do I go or do I stay? What do you think? The history is very interesting here. But I got a lot of questions. I always got questions though. It's a good habit to be one of the people that always asks questions when they stop at the end and say do you have any questions. I usually have like five or six questions. Oh look at everybody is paying their respects. They stop and pray a little bit before they enter. That's interesting. Do you think if I go in I'll still have a signal? All right I'll try it here. Alcohol yourself so. All right everybody pay your respects. Bow. Good. All right very good. Mickey jay says go go go so I've gotta go oh they got pictures. I love pictures.

00:24:41 John Daub: You're making the koji mold that's where they put the mold onto the rice. Very important step. There he is, he's putting the koji mold onto the rice. And you can see the powder, the color of the koji. You take it. I can see a little better with this camera. Do you see the koji mold? This is such a critical step and they, they like pollinate? I don't know what the word is, but they fertilized the rice with the koji mold. Oh, that's it right there! Wow! Koji! That's the secret. That is the critical ingredient in making sake. You need this. It's a secret ingredient. It's a secret way to make it. It's very difficult. Look at the mold on the side of it. Koji can be made in any kind of soil, but making a seed koji is a very secret. Everybody has their own secret ingredient, secret way to make koji mold. That's right Terry, spores. Yeah! Yeah! Do it again! Awesome! Look at the mold! Yeah baby! It's a koji mold.

00:26:21 John Daub: And this koji is the core of Japanese food. Soy sauce, miso, mirin, sake, all of these are the ingredients used in making koji. So, the food culture in Japan is really the koji culture. The koji fermentation culture. That's the secret. It's pretty cool. Tomorrow he's going to show us more on the inoculation or pollination or fertilization. I don't know what the word is. What's beyond those doors? We can go inside tomorrow, but he's going to show us what it looks like. That's where the magic happens, where the koji mold is spread inside of there. And you can see it's inside of a lockbox. They don't want anything getting in there. Any contaminants or nothing. It's very very strict. I remember when I did another brewery, the protocol to go in there was very strict. And then after the koji people go in there, the mold inoculator people, they lock them in there. Seriously, lock them in there. It's dead in there. Seriously, dead. And the idea is they don't want any wind in there. They don't want the mold to blow around. They want it to go straight onto the rice. So there's no wind. It's a very controlled atmosphere. The temperature is also warm, I believe, inside of there. So they want to keep it at a certain temperature. And this really helps the mold do its job with the rice to create that fermentation, that catalyst that's needed.

00:28:00 John Daub: So there's also this koji rice and then there's the normal rice. The koji rice is the catalyst that they add to sake that creates the fermentation. And then, which makes it bubble. And then creates alcohol. I know a little bit about this. So this is the right now the rice in there was has had the koji mold put on it yesterday. And then tomorrow they're going to do it again. So right now it's resting. So it's giving giving it some time to ferment. And then they're going to move that into a place where it'll grow. You know, I also know that after time, the temperature goes up within the rice. It starts to get warm and become alive. The mold makes it alive. Are we going upstairs? We're going upstairs. Awesome. I'm so excited.

00:29:09 John Daub: Oh, it takes me 100 minutes. Oh my gosh. Oh, come on. You aren't dealing with the The last time they did the last time they did this experience was in November. They did this in November, so please go up slowly. But he went up fast. All right. Spooky. I'm surprised we got a signal. We're inside now the second floor. Oh, it's a lot cooler up here. It's called a day of karashi [?], and it's a process that evaporates the water that the koji has. So, after being rinsed, it's steamed the next morning, and the koji is made in four days. On the fifth day, we're finally going to go into the next process. This is called shibo [?]. In a small tank, we put the steamed rice that we steamed as koji and water that day. And then we put the koji in there. Oh, yeah, the kobo [?]. The kobo is the rice pulp they put in there. Yeah, for two weeks, it sits in the tank with the koji and the kobo, and then starts to bubble. After about two weeks, it becomes alive. He's explaining about the moromi [?]. The process. Yeah. Touka Hakko [?]. It's all empty. I guess we're supposed to do all the work tomorrow. We're going to make a lot of booze. This is awesome. This one's got a tank inside. There's a little office there. Hey, thanks, guys. The Discord server is doing quite well. We're always looking for new boosters. We've got 30 boosters, and we have a discord.gg only in Japan, so we can talk about this. There's a lot of people who have a lot of things to say about Japanese sake. Check it out in there. Sake onsen, yeah.

00:32:17 John Daub: So this is also, I think this is how they get the kobo or the water. What is this here? I'm very curious about this pipe. Where does it go? That's big enough for a guinea pig. My dream is always to have like a house with tubes around it where the hamsters could run around. A hamster tube house and live with the hamsters and watch them run around. It's kind of cool. It's a little bit of a mess. Oh, this is the temperature. Oh, wow. You can see the temperature rising. Yeah. Why? Whoa. Is there a bell here? Yeah. Oh, it's the bell. He's putting hot water in there. They put the hot water in there to try to stimulate it. So by raising the temperature, it kind of makes it kickstart. It starts the koji. Yeah, you know what, I can't be translating this. I got like 80% of it maybe. It smells so good in here. I gotta drink more sake. We just had like sips of it. That doesn't count for anything. If I open this up, will the sake come out? Look at this. This looks like the hamster tubes. If I open it, do you think any hamster's gonna come out or water? All right, one of them is water in and water out. That makes sense. I'm gonna try this. All right, we're going into the next room.

00:35:14 John Daub: So these are the different rooms inside of a sake brewery. It's you know, all the rooms are pretty much the same in all the other breweries, but they just do sometimes they do the sake just a little bit differently. I'm worried about the signal in here. So we might get cut off. All right, we're now on top of the tanks. It doesn't look like that. Yeah. It's a little bit more than that. But what he's doing right now, that's not a manhole cover. That's the top of the tank. You can't see anything inside that. Someone's got to jump in. That's the only way to find out what's inside. So all these this is we're on a platform suspended over the tanks. Oh, we've got a light. Awesome. Wow. Send me to the garage. Sure. Yeah. That's the two thousand three thousand three hundred. Wow, that deep. That is pretty deep. This is a four-thousand liter tank? What? That's a seven-thousand liters? What? Yeah, that's a four-million liters? 7,000 liters of booze. Just roll one of these tanks over to my house. Never have to worry about it. That's like two years worth.

00:37:14 John Daub: You have to wait 4 days to fill up 3 tanks. The first day, the second day, the third day... Be careful. Some dude almost fell in the hole. That would have stunk. Seriously. The second day is called Odori. It's called Odori Nakatome [?]. Odori is just a day to mix things up. Hey Luke. Good luck, John-san. Thank you, Luke. 1, 2, 4. Increase the amount by double. Increase the amount. Even if you put all the amount in the first day, the This is like the four steps of the process. That's why all the tanks in Japan have this 3-stage process. They always have this 3-stage process. Everybody kind of does it the same everywhere. So, it's the way they do it. It's pretty easy. It's an easy add. It's awesome. Yeah. Cheap sake. You can see they put like grape juice and sugar and stuff in cheap sake. So, it's good to read the labels and the ingredients to make sure you know what you're getting. You want all natural ingredients. But, it is regulated here in Japan. So, you know what you're going to get. This room looks haunted too. I think if you turn the lights off any room, you can say it's a haunted room. But, this does look slightly creepy. This would be at night. I don't know. I can see this where ghosts are popping out of the ground here. And they give you like a Nerf sword and you have to battle them. You can see that going on here. This could be a video game. Obstacle course. A lot of stuff you could do here. Yeah. Nothing inside right now. It's getting time to make some stuff. So, they're going to start the process. From tomorrow? We're going to be the ones who start the process tomorrow? Wow. Interesting. Niman liter. 20,000 liter tanks. They've got 20,000 liter tanks and they're going to fill that. Whoa. Wow. They made a lot more sake about 20 years ago, 30 years ago than now. I'm excited to make some sake tomorrow.

00:40:56 John Daub: Oh, he's taking us into another secret room. This is awesome. Very interesting. Oh, we gotta go down those steps again. I'm not stepping there. Safe. Oh, we're going in that door. Remember, like, about five minutes ago, I said, I wonder what's inside that door. Now we're gonna find out. I bet you that's the press. This is where they press it, maybe. No? Oh, the tanks are in there. Oh! Whoa! The tanks. Oh, this is like a video game. 7,000 liter tanks. I don't think we're gonna get a signal in here. If the signal cuts out, I'm gonna bail. Whoa. 50... They... New tanks every 55 years. Oh. That's where we opened this one. We looked inside here. This is here. This was made Showa 40. Showa 40. That's 1965. This tank was made. Wow. This is Showa 43. That's from, like, 1970. This tank is Showa 40. Showa 43. That's the belt. This is the belt. So it's a warm season. Oh, there's water. Water inside this belt. Oh, that's how they lowered the temperature by putting cold water in there. The cold water goes through. It's very, very... If it's too cold, then they... What do they do? They lock us in here. Oh, they use a heating... Oh. Oh. That's to warm it up. If the temperature gets too cold, they'll warm it up with this. Oh. I think a lot of them underneath here. There's a lot of these heaters, heater pads. Oh. So the temperature... The temperature is... Very critical in making sake. And you have to regulate that temperature. If the temperature is too hot or too cold, it'll mess up the flavor. And it won't be consistent. So you definitely... The control process is important. It's interesting. They're using old-school methods still to control it. I'm sure there's more modern ways to do it. But we're getting deeper in here. I'm not sure if we're going to lose the signal. We're really deep into the belly of the sake brewery.

00:46:11 John Daub: This is the press. Oh, this is the press. Yeah. This is a famous maker. Yabuta Kikai [?]. It's the name of the press maker. You can see the accordion-like parts of the press right here. Yeah. Yabuta Kikai is the name. And it gets pressed into here. And you get shot in a space. No, I'm just kidding. We don't know what happens. But this tank stores it, I believe. And you can see the power of the press. It just pushes it so hard. Like this. And then the sake gets pushed into that tank at the end. Ah. Some of them have centrifuges. There's two ways. Either the press or a centrifuge. Centrifuge makes it more pure, though. I don't see a centrifuge here. This is the one of the yabuta. You see that up there? That's the name of the company, yabuta. They make like 99% of the presses. Don't ask me who makes the other 1%. Somebody. Interesting. And these pipes inject water, I think, into it as well. I'm not sure what it injects. Oh, maybe. I'm not sure what goes in here. So after it's been pressed, they take the sake cake from outside of here. The remaining part of it, the water of the sake, goes into the tank, which is the sake. But the sake kasu, which is like a rice cake, left over from the sake, is still inside of here. And they take that out, and it's kind of a tough process. And then that can be reused in soap and other things, more and more uses for that. Yeah. And behind Mr. Tada, this is called a tobin. Tobin. A tobin contains 18 liters [?]. And they put it into these tanks, and then put it into a cold tank to settle for a while. Whoa. 18 liters of tobin. This is what they put it in, and then they store it. They're going to be using these soon. They're going to be doing this soon. About March 10th, this will be full. It's kind of late this year. They had a typhoon that came through here last year. Kind of messed up the schedule a little bit. So little things. And the weather can, that happened very, very early in the rice process, creates, can push back the production date. But so this sake won't be done until after March, well after March. But they're starting it now. It's the 20th, so it takes about 20, 30 days. All right. So with that, I'll finish the sake making part. After that, I'll actually start working.

00:51:01 John Daub: All right. I want to drink from the, I want to, my dream is to crack it open and go like this. And just drink it until, until I can't drink anymore. And then wait for five minutes and then do it again. You know, when I was in college, I never did one of these things called a keg stand. I never did one of those things because, I don't know, nobody ever, whenever they tried to grab me at a party, I was, I was the first one to run away. Nobody could catch me. I was really fast. Nobody ever made me do a keg stand, but I don't want to do that. I just want to do it on my own volition. I want to check myself in to this and just try it. Does this mean we got to leave our cameras here? I'm trying to, what does this mean? Is this a sign? I guess that means I have to stay here with you. All right. I'm just going to move back here. I'm not leaving you. I'm not going to leave you guys. I don't know what they're doing. What are they doing? Oh my. Okay. Oh, it's raining outside. I can hear the rain on the roof of the building here. We're going to need umbrellas. We're so screwed. What should I do? It's okay. It's okay if you don't show up. I'll explain to you guys. I don't care if you don't show up. So I'm not going to wash the rice with my hands. I'm going to let other people do that. And I'm just going to stay with you because I would rather keep the stream going. Thanks, shortcut. Hey, the man's doing a great job. Plus, put camera down and take a quick peek. I'm going to do it with the camera. Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Yes. Awesome. I'm good. Hello, hello. Hello, All right. It's raining outside. Oh, hey, we got a volunteer. All right, yeah! It's hard to clap with one hand. That's not sake, that's water, just so you know. Mostly people gather around a campfire or gather around a pool of water. It's not the same. Chestnuts washing in a bucket. Now, what's next? Oh, do you see that? Those bags of rice. So these suckers who wash their hands got to wash those bags of rice. I'm going to stand back. I want that job of filling buckets. Awesome! Do it again, do it again.

00:57:53 John Daub: One minute and 30 seconds do you want to wash it for? Then put it in the air. I'm making this up. I can't really understand what he's saying. You want to wash it for? The washing process is a minute and a half ninety seconds. And usually places that make it in masses, like this, they have a timer and an alarm. So that people washing know exactly when 90 seconds is. Every single detail of making sake has to be followed consistently or else it changes the taste of it. So. Then she writes it as a paper. Who's going to go first? Do it! Rock, scissors, paper, go. go. Do you do rock, scissors, paper? Or do you do rock, scissors, paper, go? I always do rock, scissors, paper, go. So you go rock, scissors, paper. Rock, scissors, paper. And you have to just settle on that before you start. Oh, who wants gloves? Wow. So that's the CEO right there. He's handing out gloves. Rock shreds through paper. You know, water balloon puts out fire. Sledgehammer is the toughest one of all. It breaks them all. Which is actually rock, paper, scissors, hook, water balloon. There's lots of ones. It depends how old you are, how creative you are. Just three is not enough. You can do like ten. But then afterwards you have to kind of decipher who won. It's more fun that way. And if you have like six people playing at the same time then it becomes really hard. Meat hook beats scissors and rock but not paper. No, it rips through paper. It's very hard. All right. Sometimes waiting for the action is as much fun as the action, right? So we're waiting now for these buckets to fill. So a select group of people can wash the rice. And washing the rice is a process that takes 90 seconds. Hey, DC, Cataloni. Hey, John, Daniel here. How you doing, Daniel? I was wondering if it was true that when Japanese citizens turned 100, they get a silver sake cup. And what is the drinking age for people in Japan? Actually, it's true. Mr. Seiichi, Kanai's grandfather, before he died, he was three years away from getting that cup. Two or three years away. But it's true. You get on your 100th birthday a silver cup. But I heard that the quality of the cups went down. Because too many people were turning 100. The drinking age is 20 years old.

01:01:24 Staff: First, Mr. Kiyama will do it. At that time, the rice was... Now, this is 10kg each. You will put the rice in this bowl. Please see how to put it. After that, everyone will do it. You can put it in a bowl. They will do something like this. They will mix it.

01:02:02 John Daub: Some people are going to get to work now. They're wearing gloves. It's random, but... Give us a demonstration. Let's see this process. Oh, he's got gloves. This is the process. This is an example. Yes, we need to be like this. No, it's not this. It's like this. This is the rice. You want to do this motion like you're grabbing your like this. Come on, do more, do more. That's the international symbol for do more, do more. Come on, you can do more, do more. You want that motion. Pono, that's good, like a rabbit, that one. Something like that. Oh, see, it's not the motion of the ocean. What are you talking about? What are you talking about, Willis? Are we going to see this here? This is a way to get the air in there and like this. Do more, do more. That's it. That's the international symbol for that, right? Come on, you can do more. What are you doing? Do it. Let's get going. Let's get going. You want to do that in the water. We're going to wash the rice now. So your time for 90, one and a half minutes or 90 seconds. Ippohan. All right. I guess the boss is going to tell him to start. But you can wash only for 90 seconds. He's on standby, right? Yes, he's on standby. This is the waiting, waiting. This is some something that's going to happen right here. Are you ready? Are you ready? Start your engines. Start your elbows. They're going to start in a second. They're really into this action here. OK, here we go. Here we go. Nijibiyo-mai. 20, after 50 seconds. 15 seconds. 10. Hold on. I'm gonna do count on for you. 10, 9, 8, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, do it! Yes! Watch the rise! Da-da-da-da-da-da-da! Ganbare! Fight! Fight! Keep it going! After one minute! Fight! Ganbare! Ganbare! Do it! Watch the rise! Wax on, wax off! Wax on, wax off! Paint the fence! Watch the rise, Daniel-san! Daniel-san, your motion in the ocean is not good. Wash the rice! Wash the rice! 30 seconds! You can do it! Never give up! You can do it! You can do it! Ganbare! 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Hey! Oh, hey! Awesome! Good job! Yay! Good job! Success! After 90 seconds, you can do it! After 90 seconds, wash it very quickly, and then rinse it, and then put in here. After 90 seconds, wash it for 1.5 minutes and 8.5 minutes? 8 minutes and 30 seconds. So this is 1.5 minutes, 8.5 minutes. So it will sit in here for 8.5 minutes. The time is about twice the time. 1.5, 8.5, altogether 10 minutes. This is the same amount of time, and then, Oh, this is amazake. Oh, this is amazake rice. Yummy. Good job! Look at the water. It's all milky. We will do it simultaneously. Okay, let's go. Yeah, okay. Okay, Claire and I, we should have like, like versus championship level. A versus B, fight! Is this fun? You having fun? Do you have any questions now? Well, they battle it out.

01:08:19 John Daub: Before they battle it out, I know like seeing this process live, and a lot of people are coming and going during the live stream. I'm happy that for those that have been staying with us for an hour and a half. So I'm excited to see what happens. I'm gonna end this in a minute, but I wanted to see if you have any questions. And this is the part of the live stream where you might want to tell everybody where you're from. But if you have a question, I will take it from you. I'm here in Saku City in Nagano, which is one stop after Karuizawa. You can actually use the Tokyo Wide Pass. I came here on the Tokyo Wide Pass. Saku-Daisha is the last stop that's available. It takes a little bit over an hour to get here from Tokyo Station. It was, it was nice. I'm really happy to get out of the city a little bit for a day and a half. I'll be back tomorrow night. Too much, let robots do it. Robots can't do this job. There's something important about having a human element into the process of growing. I think there's a personality to it not always being perfect. Maybe, I don't know. But for me, I would want humans in the process. It's a good question. How long is the process watching the rise to release of sake? In total, it takes, I think it was like 45 days, maybe? After the press is like three weeks and then you have to sit for a little bit longer. Yeah. How long does it take to get here? From here to the train station. Yeah. Amazake, this is amazake, not sake. So I've asked how long will take the process. The answer. Like two weeks? One week. One week. So that's it here. Okay, but how long is the process coming? That's right. One week is the... sake, nihonshu, when the alcohol, so there's a actual more time required for the fermentation process but for amazake before it starts at that they kind of take it out. Alright now these two girls they'll be battling it out. Who's gonna win? The left or the right? A or B?

01:11:11 John Daub: The rice is behind the lady over there. Okay, 45 seconds. In 45 seconds they're gonna dump a bag of rice in the bucket and they gotta wash for 90 seconds. They're gonna do that come on come on come on international motion for come on come on come on do it. Let's get going. It's exciting. Let's see who's gonna get tired. Who has the best form? It's a battle. Ladies. Alright. Ten seconds. This is gonna all start in ten seconds. This is gonna be extremely exciting. In five seconds. Four. Three. Two. Wash, wash, wash the rice. Go, go, go, go, go. I see more I see a little bit more speed there. Other- It's teamwork now! They're now helping each other. This is a violation but it's okay just keep going. Dun dun da dun! The right team seems to have a little bit more passion and energy to it. Although the left team is doing fairly well for the first timers. But the right team, look at the motion that they have. One, two, one, two, one, two, one, two. This is awesome. They're not getting really deep in there, though. They're really deep, though. Look, they're deep digging. And over here, they're just kind of like on the top. Speed is impressive, but the depth of the wash is not enough. Get some depth in there. Yeah, stop. So by violation, the left team is now winning. It's minus 15 seconds off of that time period. Look how deep they're actually really bringing the rice up. Look at that on the left side. Get your hands together. Get in there deep and dig deep. Find the treasure. Eight, seven, six. Five. All right, put it in the bucket. Wash it out. Hurry up. Wash it, wash it, wash it. Do it. They said it was heavy. Okay, put it in the bucket. Put it in the bucket. Get on it quickly. Quickly put it in the bucket. Put it in the big bucket of water. Put it in the big bucket of water. It's going to stop for eight and a half minutes. Good job. Mission complete. Awesome. That was a battle. Oh, man. Whose water is more white? That's a good measure. This one is a little bit more white. I don't know. They're both pretty much equal now. That was awesome. I'm spent. It's awesome. This is a great way to have other people do the work for you, too. I'm not getting involved. I'm not getting involved. I'm an observer. Observer. Observer. Observator. Observationist. Right white wins. Yeah. The right one wins. That was fun. All right, guys. Exciting. Exciting. Yeah. Who is the winner? It's hard to say. You can say so in the chat below. Thanks so much for watching. This is really incredible.

01:15:01 John Daub: I'm going to be doing another live stream tonight at dinner. They have a, like, a yokon [?] dinner. A really fancy kaiseki ryori. You're coming with me. You have an invitation to dinner at around 6, 6.15 p.m. Japan time, which is 4, 6 p.m., which is 4 a.m. New York, 1 a.m. California. Good luck, moderators. You know, you do not have to be there. We'll be okay. We'll be okay. But, yeah, a lot of moderators on the west coast of the United States. But this is a lot of fun. Thanks so much. I hope you enjoyed this process. It's kind of neat to get an inside look. How sake is made from here rather than just talking about it, you know, in your living room and drinking it. You got to come to the source. That's what you subscribe for. For Only Japan Go, you're always with me here. Definitely subscribe. Hit the like button if you really like this content because there's a lot more to Only Japan Go. Tomorrow, we're going to be, once again, making it the next step of the process. Today's washing the rice. Tomorrow, yeah, we're going to inoculate it with mold. Who doesn't want to see that, huh? It's going to be pretty exciting. Have a good day. Have a good night. I'll see you in a couple of hours. Subscribe and get the notifications and look for the Instagram or Patreon notification as well. So you join me for dinner, everybody. 3, 2, 1.