Traditional Culture Encyclopedia - The 24 Solar Terms - What is Maotai Process 12987?

What is Maotai Process 12987?

The 12987 process of soy sauce wine means that the production cycle of soy sauce wine is one year, and it has to go through two times of feeding, nine times of cooking, eight times of fermentation and seven times of wine extraction, and finally it has to be stored and aged for more than five years before blending.

Cycle: a production cycle every year.

The production cycle of Maotai-flavor liquor is one year. Starts to make koji on Dragon Boat Festival, and the Double Ninth Festival goes through nine times of cooking, eight times of fermentation and seven times of wine collection. After careful mixing, the jar can be sealed and stored. The whole process will take a year.

Feeding: feeding in two times: under sand and coarse sand.

Maotai-flavor liquor is only fed with grain twice a year (that is, once in sand and once in coarse sand), and no new grain will be fed in the subsequent brewing process, only fermented grains will be fermented and cooked repeatedly.

Cooking: nine times cooking, cycle.

Nine times, as the name implies, is nine times. Steam once after the first feeding, and steam the coarse sand once (second feeding). The first two stews become brewed unfiltered wine, and then stews for the third time to get what we call cooked grain. After six cycles, the cooked grains are spread and cooled, sprinkled with koji, piled up, put into pits, sealed pits for fermentation, opened pits for fermented grains and steamed wine. There is one cooking in each link and nine cooking in the whole process.

Fermentation: eight times repeated fermentation

During the brewing period of Maotai-flavor liquor, no new grain was put into it from the third round, but the starch content in fermented grains was high because the raw materials were crushed or coarsened. With the increase of fermentation rounds, starch will be gradually consumed until the end of the eighth fermentation, and the starch content in fermented grains is still about 10%.

Take wine: take wine seven times, each time is different.

In the brewing process of Maotai-flavor liquor, the real liquor is taken after the third cooking, and the first liquor is taken every year 1 February and the following year1month. After taking the wine, the distiller's grains are cooled, added with koji, stacked, cellared and sealed for fermentation, and so on, once a month, and it takes seven times to take the wine.

Among the seven times, the wine taken out for the first time and the second time is sour and spicy, the wine taken out for the third time to the fifth time is the best, which is called "big wine", the wine taken out for the sixth time is called "small wine" and the seventh time is called "chasing rotten wine". Every time the wine is taken out, it is useful. Any Maotai Town Maotai-flavor wine that enters the market needs to be blended between different batches of wine.

Closing the altar: a long time of more than five years

Newly brewed Maotai-flavor wine must be stored and aged for five years before blending.

Maotai-flavor wine must be stored in a sealed jar for a long time, and the whole process can only be realized in a pottery jar. Because the pottery jar has good air permeability, oxygen in the air can enter the jar and generate micro-oxygen circulation with the wine, so that the wine body in the jar can breathe, thus accelerating the esterification, oxidation and reduction reactions of the wine.