History of “moyashi”

Koji starter is the core of fermented foods in Japan and typified by sake, miso, soy sauce and shochu, and is also called “moyashi”. Incidentally, our seed of koji starter is called “Akita Konno Moyashi” or just “Konno Moyashi”.
“moyashi” has a picture in our minds of “moeru” which means “to put forth bud” in Japanese with its similar-sounding. There is also another theory that “moyashi” comes from “moyashi (bean sprout)” pronounced accordantly in Japanese when assumed its budding figure.

While fermented foods have a long history, manufacturing and distribution of koji starter was started relatively new and it is said that it was after entering the Meiji Era (1868A.D.).

Before that, around the early 13th century, it appeared as an independent industrial pattern by the koji traders in the form of completely separate from the sake merchant.
The koji manufacturing was operated by specialists with specific skills and was passed down for generations as a kind of secret.

Koji is an indispensable material for brewing not only sake but also miso, shoyu, amazake (sweet sake) and vinegar. Therefore, once a merchant gained the exclusive right to manufacture and sell it, it was not hard for the merchant to connect with those in power such as members of court noble, temples and shrines during the period resulting in bringing them a massive profit and causing frequent occurrences of incidents over the koji za (a guild for producers of koji malt which was a part of the brewing process).

At that time, most of the brewers commonly used tomo dane as koji starter, which had been prepared from mixing last-used old koji with steamed rice, and they also utilized wood ash as a kind of secret material.

By the time the Meiji Era rolled around, modern microbiology was introduced to Japan. Accordingly, Seiji Konno, our company founder, employed a novel method for making the seed mold by means of pure culture of the original koji mold using a flask instead of so primitive ones used at the time. Then, our company, being known as “Konno Moyashi” has made a big breakthrough.

Koji starter mold

The manufacturing method and purpose of koji starter for sake brewery is different from those of common koji according to the following respective characteristics.

To obtain a superior koji mold, we focus on enzymes that is secreted and play an important role in the fermentation process, but in case of koji starter, emphasis is placed on the production of spores with high-quality, since it is just one for making koji like a seed. Koji will be formed in about 2 days using polish rice, barley, etc., but so that a longer culture time around one week is required for making koji starter, rice with nutritious and a high seihaku-buai (rice-polishing ratio; expressed as a percentage of the weight of white rice relative to that of the original brown rice), etc., is used. Koji starter is provided after drying treatment as an essential requirement to improve its storage stability.