A promotional image of Dassai sake / Captured from Dassai's homepage
Japanese brewer Dassai has sold a 100-milliliter bottle of sake fermented on the International Space Station for 110 million yen ($700,000).
Dassai partnered with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to ferment sake ingredients in space, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported Monday.
Using the space-fermented mash, or moromi, the brewery finished brewing the sake on Earth, yielding 116 milliliters. Dassai sold a 100-milliliter bottle of the final product to an unnamed Japanese buyer. The company plans to donate the proceeds to Japan's space program.
The two companies launched the "Dassai MOON" project in 2024 aiming to brew sake on the lunar surface. In October, they sent raw ingredients and a jointly developed brewing device to the ISS aboard an H3 rocket launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA.
The team conducted the experiment inside a JAXA module on the ISS under simulated lunar gravity. Following a two-week fermentation process, the experiment yielded 260 milliliters of mash with 12 percent alcohol by volume. This confirmed space fermentation mirrors terrestrial methods.
The space-made mash returned to Earth and arrived at Dassai’s headquarters March 13. The brewery bottled the sake 11 days later, on March 24.
Dassai plans to collaborate with Tohoku University to analyze the chemical components of the remaining sake lees, or brewing residue.
This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.
Source: Korea Times News
