THE ONTARIO SPRING WATER SAKE COMPANY
While the brewing area at Izumi is extremely
compact, all of the signs of a functional brewery
exist, albeit on a small scale. The brewery has
a cedar-lined koji room, a koshiki rice steamer
that can steam up to 200kg of rice at a time,
a fune press and three 1000L Italian stainless
steel fermentation tanks with built-in glycol
jackets to control temperature. Their recent
acquisition is a rice washer that was procured
from Daimon shuzo. Newton and Valvur
have kept close ties with President and Toji
Daimon-san over the years. “Daimon-san
has helped us import sake brewing equipment
and yeast, and provided much helpful advice,”
says Valvur. On a recent trip to Japan, Newton
visited Daimon shuzo and the opportunity to
purchase a used rice washer presented itself.
This has helped take some of the more labour
intensive work out of the day-to-day brewing,
allowing Newton and Valvur to focus on future
projects at the brewery.
Izumi typically uses rice that is milled to 70%,
which is milled before shipping to Canada.
By milling