Tana

【English】

“Shelf” table for kōji making

【Japanese】

棚

This is the name for the narrow, shelf-like tables (tana means shelf) which are used to hold the “trays” into which koji is transferred from the toko on which it was handled in the first stages. Tana are built against the muro wall at about 60cm wide, and about the same height (65-70cm) as the toko. When the koji is transferred to the futa trays, they are lined up on the tana in sets of six. For every 150kg of white rice to be processed, 9m of tana space is necessary. The temperatures at the first toko stage and the later tana stage are somewhat different, so some koji muro are constructed with separate rooms for each.

The trays are stacked on the tana and then covered with cloths in order to control the rising temperature. Where the room temperature is controlled using heaters near or under the tana, it is necessary to space the trays evenly in relation to the heat sources in order to keep the temperature even.