Yeast and the world's fermented drinks
People kept, traded and steered living ferments for thousands of years before anyone saw a yeast cell. This is that history, region by region, and a guide to what a yeast strain is today.
Hi-ire (heat treatment of sake)
火入れ · Hiire · Hi-ire · Heat treatment of sake · Sake pasteurisation
Hi-ire is the Japanese heat treatment of finished sake, about 65 °C, used to stop re-fermentation and souring. Brewers applied it from the Muromachi era.
What hi-ire does
Hi-ire is the heat treatment that brewers apply to finished sake. The National Research Institute of Brewing also calls it pasteurisation. Heating to about 65 °C does three things, according to the institute: it stops yeast from fermenting the sake again, it kills the lactic acid bacteria that sour sake, and it inactivates the enzymes left from koji and yeast.
Brewers heat sake twice, once during storage and once before it ships. The source does not give the time for either heating.
Sources for this section
Why it matters historically
The source dates the practice to the Muromachi era, which ran from 1333 to 1573. That places hiire among the earliest deliberate heat treatments of a beverage, before the nineteenth-century European methods that are often treated as the start of pasteurisation. The supplied research entry gives the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as the documented period; the institute's answer gives only the era name.
Sources for this section
Limits of the record
The sources do not give a home-scale method, a holding time, or a tolerance around 65 °C. They do not say how the treatment changed sake flavour. Anyone reproducing it at home would need the brewery's own timing and a way to measure temperature, and this page does not provide either.
Sources for this section
History
The source believes the process dates from the Muromachi era (1333-1573). It gives no more specific year.
Ingredients
Finished sake
Amount not stated
The batch size is not given by the source.Method
- Heat the finished sake to roughly 65 °C.
- Repeat the heat treatment during storage, and again before shipment. The source gives no duration for each heating.
Conditions
Temperature65°C
Temperature controlMulti-stage
Places
Japan
Traditional preparation · Country evidenceThe source describes hi-ire as applied to sake in Japan. It does not give a regional scope.
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Sources
National Research Institute of Brewing, JapanMethod · History
Sake FAQ (National Research Institute of Brewing)Hi-ire is heat treatment of sake, also called pasteurisation.
Roughly 65 °C.
Heated twice: during storage and before shipment.
Purposes: stop yeast re-fermentation, kill souring lactic acid bacteria, inactivate koji and yeast enzymes.
Believed to date from the Muromachi era (1333-1573).
Cited in: What hi-ire does; Why it matters historically; Limits of the record
National Research Institute of Brewing, JapanHistory
Sake guide (National Research Institute of Brewing)Supplied catalogue entry: fifteenth and sixteenth century sake heating.