Makkurozu black rice and wheat vinegar

What is ‘Akasu’? Usually, vinegar is made from rice, however Akasu is made from sake lees as is the main ingredient. In late of the Edo period, people started to manufacture Akasu because output growth of Japanese sake brought huge amount of sake lees. When the sake lees is kept leaving in a tank sealed storage long time, its color is getting changed from amber color to brown like miso because of yeast’s and Koji’s work. The color is the derivation of its name ‘Akasu’ (‘Aka’ means ‘Red’ in Japanese). Taking long time to manufacture it, sake lees becomes softer and softer, protein changes into amino acid and peptide, also starch is decomposed into sugar and organic acid which are best essence of Sake production. This vinegar is sweeter, and more aromatic odor than other vinegars. Therefore it is mainly used for Sushi in Japan. There are 2 types of Akasu products ; One is made only from aging sake lees and the other one is made by adding alcohol and other ingredients.