California Artisan Cheese Festival Best Bite Competition

Believe it or not, my cheese Friday is not over yet after attending a blind tasting seminar, touring two cheesemakers, a cheese lunch, and a distillery as covered in my previous posts in part 1 and part 2 recap of my trip to enjoy the California Artisan Cheese Festival. After a couple hours break after this tour, my sister and I then went to an event called The Best Bite – A Tribute to First Responders. Then, on Sunday we went to the Artisan Cheese Tasting and Marketplace.
The Artisan Cheese Festival The Best Bite Competition, this year themed The Best Bite - A Tribute to First Responders for 2018. Valette presented cheesesteak with Stuyt Dairy bacon cheese crisp, Stuyt Dairy cheese Whizz, pepper crusted beef tenderloin, pickled sweet peppers, and Stuyt Dairy cheese powder. The Artisan Cheese Festival The Best Bite Competition, this year themed The Best Bite - A Tribute to First Responders for 2018. Valette presented cheesesteak with Stuyt Dairy bacon cheese crisp, Stuy Cairy cheese Whizz, pepper crusted beef tenderloin, pickled sweet peppers, and Stuyt Dairy cheese powder.
At the California Artisan Cheese Festival 2018 Best Bite Chefs category of the competition, Valette presented cheesesteak with Stuyt Dairy bacon cheese crisp, Stuyt Dairy cheese Whizz, pepper crusted beef tenderloin, pickled sweet peppers, and Stuyt Dairy cheese powder.
For the Cheesemonger Bite category, shown here is Oliver’s Market, Cellar Door Platters and Displays Julie Cassotta and Mike Rafter who used Northern Gold from Pedrozo Dairy and Cheese Company to make a beer cheese

The Best Bite

This evening event brought together Cheesemakers, Chefs and Cheesemongers in a Best Bite Competition while paying tribute to first responders who risked their lives during California’s destructive fire storms in October last year. Several of the local heroes got to be judges, and there is also people’s choice award so attendees would get to vote for their winner in each category as well. I took photos of almost everything, both to share with you but also to remember what I ate and who made it for voting later! Photos are my notes!
The Artisan Cheese Festival The Best Bite Competition, this year themed The Best Bite - A Tribute to First Responders for 2018. This year’s competition, showcasing over two dozen cheesemakers, two dozen chefs and two dozen mongers each created a separate bite featuring their cheesemaker’s cheeses that are judged by some local heroes and also voted on by the people attending The Artisan Cheese Festival The Best Bite Competition, this year themed The Best Bite - A Tribute to First Responders for 2018. This year’s competition, showcasing over two dozen cheesemakers, two dozen chefs and two dozen mongers each created a separate bite featuring their cheesemaker’s cheeses that are judged by some local heroes and also voted on by the people attending
Costeaux French Bakery offered a savory cheese twist with an all butter croissant rolled with three cheeses and lavender herbs, as well as another bread stuffed with blue cheese

So now on to my cheese adventures, continued!

The Artisan Cheese Festival The Best Bite Competition, this year themed The Best Bite - A Tribute to First Responders for 2018. This year’s competition, showcasing over two dozen cheesemakers, two dozen chefs and two dozen mongers each created a separate bite featuring their cheesemaker’s cheeses that are judged by some local heroes and also voted on by the people attending. Cypress Grove Cheeses was there The Artisan Cheese Festival The Best Bite Competition, this year themed The Best Bite - A Tribute to First Responders for 2018. This year’s competition, showcasing over two dozen cheesemakers, two dozen chefs and two dozen mongers each created a separate bite featuring their cheesemaker’s cheeses that are judged by some local heroes and also voted on by the people attending

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Visiting Gekkeikan Sake

Last week I highlighted in Folsom checking out the Folsom Prison Museum. This time I’m highlighting another local sight – and it’s free! This stop is to do a self-guided tour of the sake brewery and enjoy free limited sampling of the sake at Gekkeikan Sake. Located at 1136 Sibley Street in Folsom, they are open 9 AM – 4:30 PM Monday through Friday and 11 AM – 3 PM on the second Saturday of the month. A visit will probably take about an hour or less.
Gekkeikan Sake USA was founded in Folsom in 1989, its first brewing facility outside of Japan and you can do a free self guided tour of the brewery and try sake samples here. This is located at 1136 Sibley Street in Folsom

Gekkeikan was founded in 1637 in Japan, though the name Gekkeikan was not established until 1905. Gekkeikan USA was founded in Folsom in 1989, its first brewing facility outside of Japan. Folsom was selected because of its access to quality air and water from the American River and rice from the rice fields in the Central Valley and nearby Sacramento Valley.

To do the self guided brewery tour, you will have to walk through the first building because the door to the brewery is in the second building in the back. You will turn around to retrace your steps and walk back this way to visit the sake tasting room on the way out back to the parking lot. Restrooms are also located only in this first building. In this hallway, you can get a quick overview of the brewing process – both the traditional way in a display case with figures and on the wall a summary of the high level manufacturing process.
Figures showing the multiple steps in the process of brewing sake, in a display case when visiting Gekkeikan USA in Folsom Figures showing the multiple steps in the process of brewing sake, in a display case when visiting Gekkeikan USA in Folsom Gekkeikan SakeUSA was founded in Folsom in 1989, its first brewing facility outside of Japan and you can do a free self guided tour of the brewery and try sake samples here. This is located at 1136 Sibley Street in Folsom

Between the two buildings outside, you can enjoy some of the atmosphere of the landscaping with reflecting pond and koi pond before entering the brewery building.
A look at the peaceful setting at Gekkeikan Sake USA in Folsom with the landscape and koi pond A look at the peaceful setting at Gekkeikan Sake USA in Folsom with the landscape and koi pond A look at the peaceful setting at Gekkeikan Sake USA in Folsom with the landscape and koi pond

The self guided tour of the brewery is essentially just one long hallway, with windows and signs next to them looking into different parts of their equipment and process sequentially, from first starting with the uncooked rice all the way down to the bottling and packing for shipment. Here are a few photos from that tour.
Hallway for the free self guided tour with windows and signs next to them looking into different parts of their equipment and process sequentially, from first starting with the uncooked rice all the way down to the bottling and packing for shipment at the Gekkkeikan Sake Brewery in Folsom While self touring the brewery facility at Gekkeikan, you learn about the koji making process. Part of the steamed rice is used to make koji by cooling the steamed rice to 80 degrees, then spreading aspergillus oryzae which is fed into a state of the art computer controlled koji making machine to adjust temperature and humidity to optimal conditions. Within 2 days, the koji will be produced. In order to make sake, two highly effective micro-organisms are utilized- aspergillus oryzae and yeast. The former is used to produce a saccharifying enzyme which converts rice starch to dextrose.

There are certainly a lot of similarities to beer brewing. Like beer, sake is fermented multiple times (for instance, wine is fermented only once) to convert sugar to alcohol. Both are grain based (rice for sake obviously vs barley and other grains like rye, etc. for beer) and yeast is needed to convert dextrose into alcohol. However, to get dextrose, for sake brewing koji is used to produce a saccharifying enzyme which converts rice starch to dextrose.
Free self tour of the sake brewing process at Gekkeikan Sake in Folsom - this portion is the seed mash process, where a large quantity of yeast is needed to convert dextrose into alcohol. Seed mash is made by adding water, steamed rice, and koji to a small amount of yeast Free self tour of the sake brewing process at Gekkeikan Sake in Folsom - this portion is the lab where they are testing and doing quality control

I was mesmerized by the bottling – lining up and riding along to where they get filled, capped, and then labeled to then be put in boxes.
Bottling process for the sake that can be seen during the free self guided brewery tour at Gekkkeikan Sake in Folsom, California Bottling process for the sake that can be seen during the free self guided brewery tour at Gekkkeikan Sake in Folsom, California Bottling process for the sake that can be seen during the free self guided brewery tour at Gekkkeikan Sake in Folsom, California Bottling process for the sake that can be seen during the free self guided brewery tour at Gekkkeikan Sake in Folsom, California

This short video is the first part of the line with the empty bottles in the front but in the back you can see the line loops back around in a U and the sake workers are preparing to package them

Here’s a video where I zoom in a bit and you can see the empty bottles lining up then being filled with sake, and then as it goes into the second circle it gets capped!

Then return to the tasting room where you can see choose 5 of their sake portfolio to sample and look at other Japanese decor.
After the free self tour of the sake brewing process at Gekkeikan Sake in Folsom return to the tasting room where you can see choose 5 of their sake portfolio to sample and look at other Japanese decor. After the free self tour of the sake brewing process at Gekkeikan Sake in Folsom return to the tasting room where you can see choose 5 of their sake portfolio to sample and look at other Japanese decor. After the free self tour of the sake brewing process at Gekkeikan Sake in Folsom return to the tasting room where you can see choose 5 of their sake portfolio to sample and look at other Japanese decor. After the free self tour of the sake brewing process at Gekkeikan Sake in Folsom return to the tasting room where you can see choose 5 of their sake portfolio to sample and look at other Japanese decor. Tasting room at Gekkeikan Sake USA in Folsom. Kagami-biraki is a ceremony performed at celebratory events in which the lid of the sake barrel is broken open by a wooden mallet and the sake is served to everyone present. Kagami refers to the lid of the sake barrel and biraki means to open. Because of the round shape, the kagami is a symbol of harmony and kagami-biraki represents an opening to harmony and good fortune

Gekkkeikan Sake is one of I think a dozen US locations of sake brewing in the US. If you are a fellow Oregon citizen like me right now, you can also tour and taste at Sake One in Forest Grove, but otherwise you might be able to visit a couple others in California. Not all sake breweries are open for tours or tastings. For another way to try tasting a lot of sakes, I also want to encourage you to look into Sake Fest PDX– I wrote a post about last year’s Sake Fest earlier this year, and expect another post next year about how the 2016 Sake Fest experience was a bit closer to its date for 2017, June 11, 2017 5:30-9 PM at the Oregon Convention Center!

Finally, one of my favorite things I learned while sampling sake is that their website has a free Gekkkeikan sake cookbook with recipes! During Thanksgiving a Japanese guest brought rice cooked with sake and mushrooms and we loved it, and I can’t wait to do a little more cooking with sake soon.

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