Construction of a Recycling System for Dried Shochu Lees that is Based Primarily on Mushroom Production

Previously, the authors used the lees of shochu, which is a Japanese distilled alcoholic beverage, as a medium to grow two mushroom species (Pleurotus eryngii and Pleurotus ostreatus) and produced mushrooms with a higher yield and higher value than conventional products at a low cost. However, during the mass-production of the mushrooms on the shochu-lee medium, the viscosity of the medium increased with the water content, making bottling of the medium using a conventional bottling machine difficult. In addition, it was necessary to develop a method for using the used shochu-lee medium to establish a local recycling system for shochu lees. In this study, the shochu-lee medium had a lower water content (58%) than that of the conventional medium (65%). In order to adjust the water content, a hole-making machine was developed to inject water (moisture). Next, a fermented total mixed rations (TMR) preparation was made from the waste medium and was evaluated in digestion and feeding experiments on sheep. The digestion rate was slightly lower in the waste medium group than in the control group. However, no significant differences in TDN and dry matter intake were found between the two groups. Therefore, fermented TMR with a waste medium content of 5-10% could be used to supplement sheep feed.