I: The first Pearlest equipped with an AC motor had numerous holes on its housing for heat radiation.
ES: Heat radiation holes? Those holes are not bad because they set off the machine.
I: The number of those holes were about 1500, and I heard that each of those holes was drilled by hand piece by piece at the beginning due to manufacturing circumstances. After a while, dies were used to make those holes. Such processing is no longer needed. The flexibility of external styling has been improved.
A good by-product generated by long time operation, which even we did not assume at the beginning, is the capability of polishing sake rice.
Spread in sake brewing industry
ES: Is polishing sake rice newly valuable?
I: The rice polishing rate is written on the back label of a sake bottle, isn’t it?
To make sake, brown sake rice is polished, and only whitish central part is used. It is said that the more sake rice is polished, the less miscellaneous taste and the more fragrance the sake have. The degree of polishing is called a rice polishing rate. “Honjozo” can be given if rice is polished to 70% or less, “Ginjo” can be given if rice is polished to 60% or less, and “Daiginjo” can be given if rice is polished to 50% or less.
ES: Certainly, delicious sakes have been released lately one after another. Can Pearlest contribute to sake making?
I: We think Pearlest is mainly used for quality check of brown rice as a raw material. In addition to that, possible various uses are considered, for example, Pearlest can be used to make samples for each phase of research and to compare samples of each strain.
However, Pearlest is not equipped with a scale to indicate a rice polishing rate, and the time needs to be set while the weights of actual samples are measured in the beginning. The polishing time varies depending on a rice type and a moisture content, and therefore, trials and errors are required.
ES: If the polishing time is adjusted, many samples in the same level can be made, can’t they?
I: Yes, they can. It is important to adjust the time for sample making, and therefore, we have developed an optional timer at the same time.
