The Building Blocks of Ramen
Basic ramen noodles are made from four ingredients:
Wheat Flour, Purified Water, Salt & Kansui
-
Prep
First thing’s first: we temper our wheat flour and dissolve salt and kansui in purified water. These steps ensure we have a consistent starting point and perfect conditions for noodle production.
-
Mix
In our custom small batch mixer, we spin and gently incorporate our ingredients to create “soboro,” tiny dough balls. Then, we compound press the dough into sheets.
-
Rest
We let our dough sheets rest for a bit, allowing gluten to form. That gives the ramen a springy texture and pleasing chewiness.
-
Cut
The dough sheets are sprinkled with “uchiko,” or dusting flour, then cut to their desired length and width. At this point, they take their recognizable shape, but they must be properly tempered and aged to reach their final form.
-
Pack
Noodles are portioned, packaged, tempered, then aged in our refrigerator.
-
Ship
Some of our noodles get delivered fresh to their final destination. Other noodles are frozen, then shipped for distribution to restaurants, grocery stores and Asian markets around the world. Freezing doesn’t damage the quality of our products, as long as noodles are tempered and cared for properly (see our section on Noodle Care!).