First home brew project, EVER! Rice wine, please help!

This will be my first home brew ever and I'd like to make rice wine, as it seems fairly simple. Here is the recipe I'm using:

1 Soak raw, glutinous rice in hot water for 1 hour.

2 Drain and then steam the rice either in a commercial steamer or in a colander over boiling water for 25 minutes.

3 Spread the rice out on a tray and allow it to cool for 2 hours.

4 Grind the Chinese yeast into a uniform powder and mix it with the flour.

5 Combine the rice and yeast mixture by hand until blended.

6 Transfer the mixture to a container and cover tightly with a lid. Store the container in a warm, dry place and allow the mixture to ferment for 1 month.

7 Separate the liquid from the remaining rice mixture. The liquid is rice wine and the residual is rice mash. Wrap the mash in cheesecloth and squeeze to extract the remaining wine.

8 Place the rice wine in an airtight container, such as a jar or bottle. Refrigerate the wine to stop the fermentation process and keep the wine from turning into vinegar. The wine ages in its container and changes from an amber color to black while developing a sherry-like flavor.

I got that recipe from ehow.com, and I just have a few questions if anybody can answer them for me.

First off I don't want to have to buy a pressure cooker or steamer just for this project, so does it matter if I boil the rice or does it have to be steamed?

Second, I have ten pounds of long grain enriched white rice, can I use that or do I have to buy the glutinous rice? From what I understand, glutinous rice is simply the sticky rice that you can buy in any Asian foods section of the supermarket.

Third, I'm not sure what a Chinese yeast ball is but yeast is yeast right? Can I use regular bakers yeast instead? I know there is brewers yeast that yields higher alcohol contents, but I'm not sure where to buy it or if it even makes a noticeable difference. Any thoughts on that?

And finally, I have flour obviously (what kitchen doesn't?) but is it really required for the wine?

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

And that's the other reason I chose rice wine, I don't have to buy a bunch of fancy equipment or let it age for a super long time. It takes less than a day to make and it's ready for consumption in about a month!

A regular wine yeast or bread yeast or brewers yeast will not produce traditional sake rice wine, it is recommended you use the rice wine yeast ball or sometimes in cake form; some use this yeast plus KOJI. Commercially you can buy White Labs WLP705 Sake Yeast or Wyeast 4134 Sake #9, but you have to also use koji to produce fermentable sugar.

As far as cooking the raw, glutinous rice (aka sticky rice, Thai sweet rice), steaming is the preferred method, but it can be done in a pot. And glutinous rice is not the same as the common long grain rice in US, you need to find glutinous rice which is usually short grain but can be found long grain also.

If you have an oriental market you can usually find the yeast ball (aka rice wine yeast ball), and the glutinous rice. Interesting reading here: http://www.sake-world.com/html/koji.html, http://www.flavorandfortune.com/dataaccess/article.php?ID=111, http://homebrewsake.com/home/faq/

Koji is very important to Sake. Just like with Beers you take grains and use Amylase enzymes from malted Barley to convert the Starches/carbohydrates into simpler sugars for fermentation. Koji is what you use instead of malted barley or amylase extracts. Koji does not use amylase but rather has a natural mold that converts carbohydrates into simple sugars.

Here is a better one step method for making Sake:

Equipment required:
rice cooker, pot and steamer, or even a regular pot
1 gallon Jar/bucket/carboy…
measuring cups
measuring spoons
Ingredients:
4 cups rice (short grain japanese rice preferred)
1 cup koji
yeast (Wyeast Sake yeast preferred, beer or wine yeast is second best bet. Brewers yeast is highly not recommended because it may not survive the fermentation process which may allow other spoilage organisims to come in and ruin the Sake)
water (Very clean tasting water is important for Sake, I would spend the money on good spring/mineral water for this. Fiji water would be great for this. Make sure and NOT use distilled or reverse osmosis water.)
Nutrients (This is optional but highly recommended, see below on nutrient additions.)

1 gallon recipe and instructions

In the fridge submerge 4 cups of un-cooked rice in water for 8 hours exactly. Too long and the rice falls apart and too early makes it too hard for the Koji to work on. This all effects the flavor of the end product. Next strain the rice and allow to drip dry for 30 minutes and then steam the rice for 45 min. Steam helps to gelatinize the starches while also hardening the outside of the rice which makes a longer ferment, the longer the better. You can however use a rice cooker or pot and water; you will just have a cleaner taste with steamed rice.

Once the rice is cooled add it to your 1 gallon jug. Add in your water to about ¾ of the container. Add in your 1 cup of Koji next. Cap off the container and shake it a lot for 2 – 3 minutes. You will need plenty of oxygen added to the must at this point. Top off with water to one gallon & add nutrients if chosen to do so. Allow this to sit in a warm place for 2 days. After the mold on the Koji has done most of its work over the last two days you can now pitch your yeast & add an airlock.

(Like I said nutrients are optional but recommended because water and rice has very little nutrients. If you can not order online or find a home brew store with commercial nutrients then you have other options. Take 3 TBS of bread yeast and boil it on high in two cups of your spring water for 30 minutes along with 10 fine chopped raisins. Pour the resulting mixture lack the raisins into the must. If you are not using Spring/Mineral water then add in one pinch of Epsom salt and 1/4 tsp of “Morton salt substitute” which is potassium chloride)

This next part is very hard for some people but is a must for clean tasting Sake. The Sake should be cooled to 50*F – 55*F when yeast is pitched and kept there precisely for the duration of the fermentation. the closer to 50*F the better. You also want very little sunlight to hit the container so it should be in a dark place but not completely devoid of light. Since you are using a mold from the Koji to convert the carbohydrates you do not want that mold growing too much. The enzymes it produces in the earlier stages of rehydration is enough to get the job done. If you leave the must too warm and there is too much sunlight the mold on the Koji will start producing different enzymes and produce acids from reproduction creating a tangy & sourer taste to the end product.

The total fermentation time should take 2 – 3 weeks. You will know when this is done when the liquid clears and all the spent rice bits and yeast are at the bottom. Siphon off the lees and place in a secondary container. This should be refrigerated to help preserve and allow more sediment to drop out. Several days later you should be able to bottle. Enjoy the Sake over the next month. If you want to age it then pasteurize the bottles by placing in water that is at 150*F for 10 min but making sure to not let the glasses hit the bottom of your pot which may be hotter. If you want to add some back sweetening then you can pasteurize and add a half a tsp of white sugar or dextrose per 12oz bottle to taste.

the-martian-gringo said:

And that's the other reason I chose rice wine, I don't have to buy a bunch of fancy equipment or let it age for a super long time. It takes less than a day to make and it's ready for consumption in about a month!

Click to expand...

Hahaha.....Sorry...... Sake is one of the most complicated fermentation processes I know of. The above instructions and ingredients are a cut corner but decent way of making Sake. Any less steps than above and you will have a sour liquid of 2% - 3% ABV that you are disapointed with. If you really want a quick and easy drink then look up JAOM. "Joes Ancent Orange Mead" It uses all ingredients at the super market and is drinkable in 3 months. There are many wine recipes that use juice concentrate that ferment quickly and are "drinkable" in a month if done correctly. I think Sake is cool so would suggest you read a lot more about it and give it a try. Take a look at the following web site that is probably one of the best guides on Sake I have ever seen.

http://www.taylor-madeak.org/index.php

Hope I popped no bubbles and wish you luck.

Just wanted to update real quick, you were right Arpolis I think I'll make mead instead. I already ordered yeast, a one gallon carboy, an airlock and a couple corks!

Great idea...but you actually picked one of the HARDEST things to make for your inaugural brewing venture.

I've been fermenting beverages for years, and I've still YET to dare tackle sake making...

Watch out for the SAKE curse! We went to a hibachi and they squirt it at you into your mouth. The guy said "More SAKE... More PeePee... More Baby" and the next thing I knew she was pregnant!

I have made rice wine a number of times and would make the following suggestions:

Start with sweet rice. Also referred to as glutinous rice. You can mix this rice 50/50 with Calrose rice that is usually less expensive.

1 Soak raw... NO

2 Drain and then steam ... SIMPLY COOK THE RICE, BUT ADD A LITTLE MORE WATER THAN USUAL.

3 Spread the rice out on a tray and allow it to cool for 2 hours.
JUST SO LONG AS IT IS NO LONGER HOT. WARM IS IDEAL. BE SURE TO CHECK THAT THE UNDERSIDE IS NOT STILL HOT.

4 Grind the Chinese yeast into a uniform powder and mix it with the flour.
NO NEED FOR EXTRA FLOUR. SIMPLY ADD ONE YEAST BALL (GROUND) TO APPROX 2-3 CUPS OF RICE.

5 Combine the rice and yeast mixture by hand until blended.
STICKY STUFF. I MIX THE RICE AND YEAST BALL IN A LARGE BOWL WITH A LARGE MIXING SPOON.

6 Transfer the mixture to a container and cover tightly with a lid. Store the container in a warm, dry place and allow the mixture to ferment for 1 month.
I TRANSFER THE RICE TO A LARGE GLASS JAR AND STORE IN THE OVEN WITH THE LIGHT ON (ONLY THE LIGHT NO HEAT). YOU WANT THE RICE TO FERMENT AT APPROX 90 F. FERMENTATION SHOULD ONLY TAKE ABOUT 7 DAYS. IF IT IS STILL SWEET, LEAVE IT A LITTLE LONGER TO BOOST THE ALCOHOL.
DO NOT COVER TIGHTLY. THE RICE WILL BE FERMENTING SO THE GASES NEED TO EXCAPE.

7 Separate the liquid from the remaining rice mixture. The liquid is rice wine and the residual is rice mash. Wrap the mash in cheesecloth and squeeze to extract the remaining wine.

8 Place the rice wine in an airtight container, such as a jar or bottle. Refrigerate the wine to stop the fermentation process and keep the wine from turning into vinegar. The wine ages in its container and changes from an amber color to black while developing a sherry-like flavor.
IF THE CONTAINER IS AIRTIGHT BE SURE THERE IS NO MORE SUGAR IN THE LIQUID. THE COLDER TEMP WILL NOT STOP THE FERMENTATION PROCESS, JUST SLOW IT DOWN.


Third, I'm not sure what a Chinese yeast ball is but yeast is yeast right?
YOU WILL NEED THE YEAST BALLS FROM A CHINESE GROCERY. THE BALLS INCLUDE THE SPORES OF THE KOJI MOLD THAT ARE ESSENTIAL.


Yours
Michael

i made sake several months ago and it is almost all gone. it had a great grapefruit flavor to it.

i used 20# traditional nikishi rice, steamed and treated with koji to turn the sugars fermentable far in advance of the introduction of the wyeast sake #9 yeast. I also added japanese hops (sorachi) for a citrus hint and perservative value. it fermented/cleared over 6 weeks.

in my experience (11 beers, 14 wines and 1 sake) sake is the hardest thing I ever brewed. it is a "rice wine" but i is really more of a beer and even so...no all grain recipe I have done is as time consuming and labor intensive as sake. it really isn't the best first brew. the steaming/koji treatment is a pain in the ass. then when you are done, because you don't sorbate or kmeta sake...the pasteurization of the final product is also annoying. though i was very pleased with the results...its one thing i am not sure if i will make again.

Is anyone aware of an online source for the yeast balls, for the U.S.?

I tried sake last year. I got fed up with crushing cooked rice, so I tried an earlier method of preparation called bodai-moto. The result is a carboy full of lacto-sour sake. I felt a little better when I read Sandor Katz talk about sour sake in Art Of Fermentation. It's still waaaay tart to drink (at least for me. I'm not a sourhead...yet), so I'm going to try using it to start a Berlinner Weisse or maybe put some in a boil to do a Guinness-style partial souring on a big beer.

Rice preparation was a big mess. I'm still not 100% sure I had all the koji propagated properly. I'm thinking about doing a batch with black or red koji, just so that I can see it properly when it grows.

My LHBS is out of sake kits, so I'm going to try gemcultures.com for my koji. It's cheap, so I plan to overpitch a little.

One thing I was wondering about is what effect the ratio of koji rice vs non-koji rice has on the finished product. Does having the non-koji rice control the fermentation speed?