Japan’s brewers experiment with a secret ingredient: music
It might sound like pseudoscience, but there could be more to the idea of brewing with music than meets the ear.
For centuries, sake brewers in Japan have integrated sound into the fermentation process. Motosuri-uta, rhythmic work songs, accompanied the laborious tasks of rice grinding and yeast preparation. The melodies helped workers coordinate their movements, maintain warmth during winter months, and lift spirits. Folk wisdom suggested that brewers communicated with the microorganisms in the kōji, rice inoculated with kōjikin mold, to ensure optimal fermentation. Today, an age of scientific exploration has dawned upon traditional practices.
Brewers, winemakers, and food producers are now delving into the realm of music, vibration, and even verbal gratitude to determine if these elements can impact fermentation as significantly as background sound. The question arises: could the auditory environment surrounding the fermentation process wield the same influence as the unseen microscopic agents within it? As the modern world embraces novel methodologies, the age-old relationship between sound and fermentation continues to evolve.
Written by urgent.news from Japan Times's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
