Museum of Sake Journal Spring 2015 | Page 57

AN EYE FOR DETAIL UNPOLISHED RICE CROSS SECTION POLISHED RICE CROSS SECTION FRONT FRONT SIDE SIDE CONVENTIONAL RICE POLISHING SUPER FLAT RICE POLISHING However, a flaw was found in this technique by Tomio Saito, a National Technical Official, who published his research in 1993. He pointed out that to polish most efficiently, a layer of equal thickness rom the surface-area of the grain needs to be removed. But most machines polish grains into a spherical-shape, rather than following the more ovoid shape of the rice, meaning that good parts of the shinpaku are lost at either end of the grain, whilst the widest parts are barely touched leaving the fats and proteins which are best removed. Daishichi to