sonofgrok

Recipes 

Just checked on the rice wine to make sure it started. My fears about the rice being too dry are no longer an issue. The red arrow represents the line that the liquid is now coming to after only 2 days. There was no free standing liquid at the start. This is an excellent sign.

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Arpolis

Recipes 

A lot of traditional Sake is made with Koji. Koji just being Rice with the Koji mold spores on it. The mold being the theing that produces the Amylase enzyme. Does the Yeast balls have Koji or just Amylase extract for converting starches/carbs to sugars?

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Johnnyhitch1

Recipes 

is this like sake? you have some tasting notes on it? i would imigine that you could back sweeten with diff flavored syrups in the glass?

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sonofgrok

Recipes 

The yeast balls are basically just rice and water (the only two ingredients) that they allow to develop natural yeast and spores and then dry and package. You are correct in that the desirable spores are Koji. I believe it occurs naturally in this type of yeast ball but don't quote me on that.

I must admit that is as far as my understanding of the process behind the yeast balls goes. All I can directly vouch for is that they work. There is quite a bit of Chinese writing on the package which probably gives a lot more detail but alas... I don't speak it.

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sonofgrok

Recipes 

Rice Wine has many different names but yes, you could call this sake. And you can back sweeten after we cold crash it when we get to that step. I will probably end up flavoring this with some blueberry for my wife. Tasting really depends on when you drink it. It starts off pretty sweet but then as it darkens and ages, it takes on a sherry like flavor. Aged too long or not cold crashed in time, it becomes rice vinegar... which is great for cooking by the way.

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saramc

Recipes 

Found the yeast balls! http://www.asiansupermarket365.com/SearchResults.asp?Search=yeast+balls&Search.x=0&Se arch.y=0

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sonofgrok

Recipes 

Those look like the right thing. The ones I get are "Happy Panda Dried Yeast"
http://www.hocean.com/products/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=93

You can't buy it from that site I listed but you can at least see it. I get them locally at the world foods market. Those shanghai ones look like they should work though!

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"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut." ~Ernest Hemingway

sonofgrok

Recipes 

2 weeks update time. It is starting to look really good. There are white spores running through the rice (actually a good thing), a lot of liquid and CO2 bubbles, and most important of all the rice is starting to float. That is an important milestone. I could start extracting the rice wine now but I think I am going to let it go another week to see how much more we can milk out of it.

Update in a week I guess.

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Arpolis

Recipes 

Very cool. What temps is this staying at if you don't mind me asking?

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weirdboy

Recipes 

I went to my local Chinese supermarket today, and thought I'd post a few interesting things I found there. In addition to the yeast balls, they also sell several variants of "sweet fermented glutinous rice", and additionally had several varieties of maltose syrup next to their rather extensive collection of honeys flavored with things like ginger and yuzu.