Making Traditional rice Wine. Cheap, Fun, and Different

jsamyn said:

My first batch is definitely a huge success thanks to this thread!

On the 22nd of August I started my first batch, which I fermented for 3 weeks and then bottled, pasteurized and cold crashed. I have to admit that when I tried it that first day the alcohol taste was a bit harsh, but we're now another week beyond that and the flavors are just amazing (my wife agrees). Surprisingly, the most prominent flavor is melon and it reminds me of very ripe cavailllon melons. I'm definitely going to get more rice this weekend to make more.

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Congrats! Sounds good

Added about 2-3 cups of cooked short grain rice to my 9/21 test batch with distiller malt. The 2qt mason jar is now full. liquid was 3/4 the way up the rice before the additional rice.

I've got 4 cups of Thai jasmine rice going right now (holy cow 4 cups of rice is a ton of friggin rice). Smells like bananas and peanut butter when I crack the lid open for a sniff (by far the weirdest combination of smells I've ever gotten from something fermenting). I am going to take half of the resultant rice wine and mix it with about 2 liters of plum juice and let it just barely ferment before crashing it in the fridge.

My batch from post #5172 that looked like pepto cleared up nicely. I removed two bottles earlier and put them in the fridge. The rest i let sit an additional 2 weeks (roughly) at room temp....DELICIOUS!!!!

The two bottles in the fridge while quite tasty still have not settled much. There is only about an inch or two of clear in each bottle. The rest looks like pepto bismul. I can only assume the yeast and enzymes are still active but stalled because of the colder temps. There is probably just enough activity to keep particles suspended in the wine.

Im going to take one out and put it back in room temps and/or pasteurize to see if it clears up faster.

I made a big jar of this on Saturday, 5 dry cups of Thai Jasmine rice. Accidentally bought broken Jasmine rice so I hope that's not going to be a problem.

Seriously looking forward to drinking this in a month.

Evilgrin said:

My batch from post #5172 that looked like pepto cleared up nicely. I removed two bottles earlier and put them in the fridge. The rest i let sit an additional 2 weeks (roughly) at room temp....DELICIOUS!!!!

The two bottles in the fridge while quite tasty still have not settled much. There is only about an inch or two of clear in each bottle. The rest looks like pepto bismul. I can only assume the yeast and enzymes are still active but stalled because of the colder temps. There is probably just enough activity to keep particles suspended in the wine.

Im going to take one out and put it back in room temps and/or pasteurize to see if it clears up faster.

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In your experience, or as a general question to those participating in the thread. Would it be a good plan to just go ahead and pasteurize the batch I plan to add plum juice to? Or will fridge temps be enough to shut down the yeast so theres still residual sweetness in the rice/plum wine?

I'm less than 200 pages into the thread but noticed that a lot of people are having trouble with finding the yeast. I assume most of you don't know any Chinese or frequent Asian groceries. I am learning Chinese and do most of my shopping at such stores. I notice most people who find the products find them labeled: 上海酒饼 or 上海酒饼丸, with exceptions made for the fourth character which will look slightly different if written in traditional characters rather than the simplified characters I'm using here. It will still look similar. These words are Shanghai jiu bing and Shanghai jiu bing wan respectively, and "jiu" is pronounced not like "joo" or "jyoo" but like "jyoh." One syllable, has a y, rhymes with "oh!"

The translation could be something like Shanghainese wine cake/biscuit or Shanghainese wine cake/biscuit ball. More generally, this type of product can be called 酒曲 or jiu qu, which means wine yeast.

There are lots of types of wine in China, including grape wine actually, and what we are making here seems to be 稠酒 choujiu, which means thick/dense wine. Actually, wine is a bit of a mistranslation itself - it is used for any alcoholic drink. 啤酒 pijiu is beer, 白酒 baijiu is a Chinese white spirit (白 means white actually), 杜松子酒 or dusongzijiu is gin (dusongzi is juniper). Words for acetone， vinegar and methanol also have characters which contain the right-hand radical in 酒， indicating a semantic correlation, and one of the words for methanol even includes the character 酒 itself. This wine may be used in cooking, but is NOT equivalent to Shaoxing or most other types of Chinese "wines" any more than you could substitute a pilsner for a stout in some recipe. It may very well still come out good, but there are bound to be big differences. I suspect if my Chinese were better, I could get much more information for you lot through Baidu about how to produce other types of Chinese alcohol at home, but unfortunately I only know maybe 1000 characters or so, which means I can read quite a bit depending on topics, but I'm not functionally literate. The language is estimated to have somewhere around 10000 characters, and you aren't really truly literate until you know 2-3000 at least.

Anyway, if you want to tell people about your new wine, you can say it's choujiu, I think that's correct. Both words rhyme with "oh" despite being spelled differently. You could also say 江米酒 jiangmijiu or 粘米酒 nianmijiu if you're using glutinous/sweet/sticky rice (there are different styles, but generally these terms are synonymous).

I don't know about the wine made with red yeast rice. The pages I've seen talking about it use transliterations that make me suspect the authors are working from Cantonese or other non-Mandarin sources. If you find the characters for the name, just plug it into google translate and it ought to give you a translation (maybe a bad one) and more importantly a transliteration as well.

Enjoy, I hope this wasn't a waste of my and your time

Also: most Asian markets I know tend to carry an assortment of products from various countries but specialize in the foods of a certain country more than another, e.g. Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese. Sometimes this is to appeal to a broader community, but in some cases it might be because some items simply aren't distributed in a given area, but an equivalent product from another country is available. So I could see the Chinese wine cakes being sold at a Vietnamese shop if they can't find the Vietnamese variety, for instance.

However, sake is brewed so differently from choujiu that I do not believe you're going to find an equivalent product in Japan, though to be fair I am not too certain about the methodology actually involved with sake. At any rate, if a store is really focused on Japanese stuff, it's unlikely the owners would even know to look to stock these things if there isn't a similar item commonly used in Japan, unless Chinese customers kept coming in asking about it. But I can't think of many places in the US where that might be a likely scenario. Maybe Hawaii or some techy areas along the west coast? IDK. I'm rambling, sorry

ArkotRamathorn said:

In your experience, or as a general question to those participating in the thread. Would it be a good plan to just go ahead and pasteurize the batch I plan to add plum juice to? Or will fridge temps be enough to shut down the yeast so theres still residual sweetness in the rice/plum wine?

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I THINK many people suggest pasteurizing and then cold crash. How well the yeast continues after just getting cold depends a lot on the yeast. My best guess is, that yeast balls and Angel Rice Leaven will slow much more than say...Lavlin 1116 or 1118.

I put mine in the fridge for two reasons. One was to slow the lactic acid producing bacteria and the other was in the hope that it would clear faster than room temp. Oddly the room temp one cleared faster and tasted just as good. Its only slightly less sweet.

I'm not totally convinced that the RYR I bought isn't just white rice coated with powdered red food coloring.

Mine is. I can mix just cooked rice with RYR and it gets sweet.

z-bob said:

I'm not totally convinced that the RYR I bought isn't just white rice coated with powdered red food coloring.

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It should look like this: http://www.bing.com/images/search?q...947&thid=JN.RG6PqXy7HNRfVkEwdXwGFQ&ajaxhist=0

z-bob said:

I'm not totally convinced that the RYR I bought isn't just white rice coated with powdered red food coloring.

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Your partially right.

RYR is just rice that has red yeast grown on the outside. This red yeast is used as a food coloring and dye. It does add a slight taste to the rice wine that some may like and others dislike.

Tsuyako said:

I made a big jar of this on Saturday, 5 dry cups of Thai Jasmine rice. Accidentally bought broken Jasmine rice so I hope that's not going to be a problem.

Seriously looking forward to drinking this in a month.

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Broken jasmine rice works very well, I've done lots of batches with it

So I have my first batch started with the wine cakes I bought two days ago. Seems to be going along nicely, but it's only two days in.

This would be too expensive for a regular way to do it, but I got curious if it was possible to make wine faster by simply buying a jar of fermented glutinous rice intended for eating out of the jar and let it sit at room temp. I think it will be viable, but the pint jar of the stuff cost around two bucks, and I don't know if I'd pursue this method again even if it turns out well. At any rate, the ingredients don't list anything fishy like salt, the jar is not vacuum sealed, the directions say to keep frozen or refrigerated, and the jar also says it may contain up to 3.3% alcohol. Upon opening there was a quiet hiss of gas escaping, it had a very vinous aroma, and tasting a few drops of the liquid and noticing the fizziness I'd say it's probably a touch higher than that already, but it's just a guess. Based on all of the above, I assume the yeast and all is alive and kicking in that jar, and that if brought up to room temperature in the dark it should work away just fine until the fermentation is complete. Since the jar is already about half milky-white liquid, I'd be surprised if it took more than a week to finish up, just estimating based on what I've seen in you folks' pictures on here.

I found another interesting discovery at the Chinese grocery, though. I maintain that I do not believe Chinese alcohol is distributed in my area (currently central Ohio) for drinking purposes. Even international/Asian markets that do have alcohol might carry some sake, maybe some relatively lower proof soju, and some beers. That's it, nothing Chinese that I've seen.

However, this shop specializes primarily in Chinese, though it does have a good bit of Korean and Japanese stuff.

Anyway, in the sauces aisle, they have maybe two or three dozen Chinese cooking wines to choose from. Except, not all of them are labeled "cooking" wine. Not all of them say "salt content X.X%." And among those that don't say these things, most importantly they tend to carry a surgeon general's warning about pregnant women not drinking alcohol and such. I don't know how many of these there are - at least a few Shaoxing wines. One of which I'm pretty sure is the red-labeled 花雕 huadiao jiu you see in the picture on Wikipedia's main page for huangjiu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huangjiu

I'm curious if these are in fact meant to be sold for drinking, but are just shipped in from elsewhere in the country and sold as cooking wine since they didn't get them from their wine reps? I don't know. I'm probably not going to buy one to test, but I am a little curious.

Anyway, I also scored some dried sweet potato. I mean, that's besides the point....they just taste awesome

MasterCrook said:

Broken jasmine rice works very well, I've done lots of batches with it

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Oh good! I was a little worried it would compact to much.

So I started a batch the other day. Seems to be working along just fine.

I was curious and wanted to taste it sooner, but with it only being day two and no liquid yet, that's impossible.

I decided to drop the two bucks or whatever to buy a jar of fermented glutinous rice for eating at the Chinese market. It says "may contain up to 3.3% Alcohol" and "keep refrigerated or frozen." It hissed when I opened it, and it tastes a bit more than their estimated ~3% to me, but what do I know. I do know that the jar is about half liquid, and the liquid is bubbling. I loosened the cap (it was just screw on, not vacuum sealed - a good sign) and put it in a closet. I'll probably try it Friday evening or so. It's obviously a live jar, and there's no salt but a little sugar does appear in the ingredients. Still, it's working away, and I figure it will keep fermenting but it has a major head start on my personal batch.

I bet pouring this over cooled cooked rice would also probably work as a starter culture for those who have Asian markets but can't find the wine cakes.

Anyway, it smells nice and looks good.

atsen said:

So I started a batch the other day. Seems to be working along just fine.

I was curious and wanted to taste it sooner, but with it only being day two and no liquid yet, that's impossible.

I decided to drop the two bucks or whatever to buy a jar of fermented glutinous rice for eating at the Chinese market. It says "may contain up to 3.3% Alcohol" and "keep refrigerated or frozen." It hissed when I opened it, and it tastes a bit more than their estimated ~3% to me, but what do I know. I do know that the jar is about half liquid, and the liquid is bubbling. I loosened the cap (it was just screw on, not vacuum sealed - a good sign) and put it in a closet. I'll probably try it Friday evening or so. It's obviously a live jar, and there's no salt but a little sugar does appear in the ingredients. Still, it's working away, and I figure it will keep fermenting but it has a major head start on my personal batch.

I bet pouring this over cooled cooked rice would also probably work as a starter culture for those who have Asian markets but can't find the wine cakes.

Anyway, it smells nice and looks good.

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Interesting, do you have any pictures?

Sorry about the lameness of two very similar posts in quick succession. I posted one, but a few hours later it didn't show up, so I redid it - only to notice after hitting the post button or whatever it's called I was directed to a message for just a second or two saying that it wouldn't be posted until reviewed and approved by a moderator/admin whatever they're called here. Anyway, yeah, I have a few pictures of the jarred product.





Looking good, no? I think probably it will be okay. It sure smells like wine.

Fun fact: as we all have noticed with the wine cakes, sometimes items made for a Chinese speaking demographic are not exactly translated properly on the packaging. They may not be wrong as descriptions of the product, but they aren't translations of the Chinese on the packaging and sometimes might not tell the whole story, as it were.

So, fun fact: the term "fermented sweet rice sauce" isn't wrong, because that's one way of describing what is in the jar. However, the first character 甜 means "sweet," the second 酒 obviously means wine/alcohol, and the third 酿 (exceptions made for difference between traditional and simplified characters) means "ferment."

In fairness, 酒酿 itself refers to fermented glutinous rice; to use 酿 as the verb to make wine it would be 酿酒。 As a learner I notice some things like this that are confusing, for instance 犯罪 is to commit a crime, 罪犯 is a criminal. So, really, I guess if we're treating 酒酿 as one word rather than two, it IS a fair translation. Except, one of the more reliable online resources for a Chinese-English dictionary and translator of short phrases and sentences does translate 甜酒酿 all together as Chinese Rice Wine. But it's an example of one of their misses, I think, because an image search of the same term on their site brings up the food, not the wine. Still, I think it's interesting that at least one name for this food is "sweet wine ferment." Lets you know what it's capable of, I guess.

Anyway, on this jar I think the liquid level is a little beneath the shoulder. Since I have no idea how long this fermentation has been going, and since I'm not really a brewer or a drinker (I got interested in this more because I know little about Chinese alcohol and wanted to learn how this differs from sake, which I used to drink a lot when I was younger and drank often) I don't properly know how to tell when to "harvest" it. I have finally worked through the whole thread, though I skimmed some large portions, and I can see everyone has gotten different results. Some people are saying their batches sometimes finish up with a lot of rice still looking pretty in tact but the wine being robust and complete, other times the rice almost entirely disintegrates as I gather. Maybe this would, maybe it wouldn't. No reason to sweat it as far as I'm concerned though.

atsen said:

I bet pouring this over cooled cooked rice would also probably work as a starter culture for those who have Asian markets but can't find the wine cakes.

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I'd guess that there wouldn't be enough of the enzymes to convert a lot of starch to sugar.
I'm assuming they only use enough for that particular batch of fermented rice.

The yeast would multiply, but it can't ferment the starch unless it's converted to sugar.

I have never seen an Asian market that didn't sell yeast balls. They sometimes get hidden in the strangest places.

I have seen them in the candy section and behind the counter in some places.

Ask the people who stock the shelves.

brooklynkayak said:

I'd guess that there wouldn't be enough of the enzymes to convert a lot of starch to sugar.
I'm assuming they only use enough for that particular batch of fermented rice.

The yeast would multiply, but it can't ferment the starch unless it's converted to sugar.

I have never seen an Asian market that didn't sell yeast balls. They sometimes get hidden in the strangest places.

I have seen them in the candy section and behind the counter in some places.

Ask the people who stock the shelves.

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Oh, I don't know. The balls themselves do not contain "enzymes" as such but rather enzyme-producing fungi beyond the yeast, from what I've heard. They, apparently, are made from the lees of other wine somehow. I'd assume it is -possible- that they get way more sciencey with this jarred stuff and don't culture the yeast along with the mold...but I'd be a little surprised.

I'd also be surprised if there weren't stores that just don't have it. For instance I'd expect any good Asian market to carry pixian douban. Well, they don't, and not all shop owners have even heard of it. If they aren't from China and/or don't know a thing about Sichuan cooking, they may not.

The wine cakes seem a little more universal, but I maintain a Japanese centered/run store may be least likely to carry them.

The store I bought that jar at must have either been out or not carried them, because I looked everywhere, I'm already familiar with the layout, and I both know what they look like and can read enough of the packaging to not have a problem with it. There were a few empty spots there, though, and we just had Mid Autumn Festival, so who knows. At any rate, while I'd find it surprising-ish if they couldn't be found somewhere in a town with more than one Asian Market if there were any Chinese or Vietnamese population there, I'd not be surprised if there weren't groceries that simply didn't carry them.

At any rate, while they're more expensive than the wine cakes, they're still cheap, and may be worth the experiment. I still think that it would work, because I have to assume they're using the same fermentation method that everybody else uses. of course "mold" isn't listed in the ingredients, but ingredients aren't always necessarily listed.

A Japanese market will likely have this

Miyako brand koji. Its for making amasake as well other several other things but it should also work for rice wine. Miyako is the parent company of Cold Mountain but this one is made in Japan.


Mine should be here in a couple more days.

Evilgrin said:

A Japanese market will likely have this

Miyako brand koji. Its for making amasake as well other several other things but it should also work for rice wine. Miyako is the parent company of Cold Mountain but this one is made in Japan.

Mine should be here in a couple more days.

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Right on! I don't know much about how sake is produced, just that it's a lot different than the choujiu, and way less "set-it-and-forget-it."

I don't mean to imply that it is impossible to produce a wine very similar to this using primarily or exclusively Japanese (or Japanese style) products but following Chinese style methodology. Just that I'd envision it being the most likely type of "Asian market" in the US to specifically lack the 2-in-1 wine cakes featuring both yeast and mold.

At any rate, these jars are somewhere in the neighborhood of two bucks, and I'm kind of curious now if they can be used as a starter. They're obviously live fermentations, but in fairness the rice does not look like it has much if any mold on it...so who knows? Maybe they DO just add an enzyme to it. Then again, searching Chinese search engines for relevant terms when looking at the rice dish, none of them look moldy, either, but some of them at least must be homemade, as easy as it is to make.

Maybe someday I'll try it. What's there to lose except a couple dollars? It's the price of a snack item. I could just skip my next cookie or whatever

I just like experimenting. Simple yeast balls and RYR work fine but sometimes i question Chinese quality control. There is a company in Canada that makes and sells Chinese style yeast balls. Onto is the name IIRC. http://www.ontoyeast.ca/

One of the best ive made sofar was using RYR and Lalvin yeast. Ive also used Korean nuruk and Lalvin yeast.

Im going to use the Miyako koji with probably EC-1118 and see what happens. The koji is ridiculously expensive on Amazon though. Ive got some coming from Okinawa when a friend gets back from a vacation too.

BTW they sell bigger bags of germinated rice called Genmai. It should have the enzymes just like barely malt. Ive only found brown though. Most Asian markets stock it.

Well I don't really drink though I used to. But I was curious so I gave that jar a few days to ferment some more, then tested it out last night. Since it's been so long since I've had something strong, I didn't have a frame of reference - it smelled winy, but I wanted a measure by which to estimate its strength.

So, while it's sake and not choujiu, I got a bottle of unfiltered sake for comparison. But importantly, it's unfiltered and undiluted sake. 300ml of Kikusui Perfect Snow, which weighs in at 21%abv.

I had about 12oz of the wine from the fermented rice.

I drank a small tea tasting glass of the "homemade" wine - mm! Sticky sweet, fragrant, a little bit yeasty, but warming with a tiny little alcohol bite to it. Definitely more power than the "up to 3.3%" the jar said, but then it was also consumed after "improper" storage.

Then, for comparison and the sake of fairness, I drank a cup of the sake.

I think the expression I'm looking for is "boy, howdy!" I used to love Scotch whisky, gin, and rum...I've had my share of straight liquor. I don't think I realized something only half the strength of liquor could have that kind of heat to it, though. It was also sweet, but that sweetness was overpowered by the sheer strength of the wine. I'm amazed any natural, unfortified and undistilled/unconcentrated product could be so powerful, but apparently it can be. It was good.

In comparison, if I had to ballpark it I'd say "my" wine was around typical grape wine strength, or perhaps very slightly more. But not more than 15% abv.

I'm lucky that sake was just a 300ml bottle, because I have no tolerance to alcohol and I ended up finishing both wines before bed time.

I wonder.....if you tried making rice wine in a pumpkin , would the yeast and mold consume the pumpkin ? Or just a little of it and add some pumpkin flavor to the end product. That could be an interesting experiment. My rice wine came out just about perfect , sweet and quite potent. The neutral flavor though had me thinking of seasonal flavorings , and that took me down the pumpkin train of thought

Here's a picture of my first batch, been sitting a week now and I'm getting antsy to try it. Used 5 cups broken Jasmine rice and 4 yeast balls. Took me forever to find the suckers.

The others are banana wine (L) and rhubarb wine, don't worry I fixed the airlock.

View attachment 1443933437721.jpg

Evilgrin said:

I just like experimenting. Simple yeast balls and RYR work fine but sometimes i question Chinese quality control. There is a company in Canada that makes and sells Chinese style yeast balls. Onto is the name IIRC. http://www.ontoyeast.ca/

One of the best ive made sofar was using RYR and Lalvin yeast. Ive also used Korean nuruk and Lalvin yeast.

Im going to use the Miyako koji with probably EC-1118 and see what happens. The koji is ridiculously expensive on Amazon though. Ive got some coming from Okinawa when a friend gets back from a vacation too.

BTW they sell bigger bags of germinated rice called Genmai. It should have the enzymes just like barely malt. Ive only found brown though. Most Asian markets stock it.

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I'll be trying the Onto balls very soon, maybe next weekend

Let us know how it works, mastercrook!

I just started up a new batch today, a week after starting my first batch. Is this how it starts?

This time I used the "right" rice. Long grain glutinous rice - Thai sticky rice. I used the largest amount my little cooker will make - three measures, at around 6 fl oz (I think) each, along with two wine cakes.

Should be ready for Halloween. Some spirits for the spirits.

The batch in progress was started one week ago tonight. It's gotten pretty soupy and mushy, it has no firmness to it at all and liquid is pooling up around the lower points in the top of the rice mass, though there isn't enough liquid yet that it floats. There are big bubbles showing along the sides, where gas is slowly building up but hasn't managed yet to escape through the mud-like material surrounding it. Kind of neat. It's smelling really winey, now, and less bready. That one was made with two measures of jasmine rice.

Both are being done super low-tech without much in the way of sanitation procedures, so I'm open to the possibility that one may turn sour or something at some point, but what can you do? I don't want to invest much in this at all.

The first is in a gladware bowl. Today's is in a plastic iced tea pitcher, because I think the lid on that is breathable the way it normally is and won't ned to be cracked open to allow the gas to get out, which means it would (ideally) have a lower risk of contamination - not that I'm super concerned with that anyway.

Just shy of three weeks on my batch of Thai Jasmine rice.

For this to not be traditional sake, the smell coming out of the mason jars when I go to take a big wiff smells VERY strongly like a high alcohol sake. (I know that its not actual sake, just, it smells very very similar to it)

Gonna pick up some short grain sushi rice, has anyone made a batch with Kokuho Rose (I think thats the brand)?

ArkotRamathorn said:

Just shy of three weeks on my batch of Thai Jasmine rice.

For this to not be traditional sake, the smell coming out of the mason jars when I go to take a big wiff smells VERY strongly like a high alcohol sake. (I know that its not actual sake, just, it smells very very similar to it)

Gonna pick up some short grain sushi rice, has anyone made a batch with Kokuho Rose (I think thats the brand)?

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While Kukuho Rose is a very tasty rice, it is NOT a short grain. Its a medium grain rice. Its very very similar to Botan. Both are calrose varieties.

True Japanese short grains include Koshihikari, Hitomebore and akitakomachi varieties. There are a few Korean short grain varieties too and they are normally cheaper.

Look for these if you want a cheaper short grain rice. They are usually cheaper than Kukuho or Botan at a Korean market or very close in price.



This is what i get but its around $24/15lbs. They are well worth it if you enjoy eating good rice.

Evilgrin said:

While Kukuho Rose is a very tasty rice, it is NOT a short grain. Its a medium grain rice. Its very very similar to Botan. Both are calrose varieties.

True Japanese short grains include Koshihikari, Hitomebore and akitakomachi varieties. There are a few Korean short grain varieties too and they are normally cheaper.

Look for these if you want a cheaper short grain rice. They are usually cheaper than Kukuho or Botan at a Korean market or very close in price.

This is what i get but its around $24/15lbs. They are well worth it if you enjoy eating good rice.

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Awesome, I'll check those out. Thankfully this town has a lot of Asian grocery stores so I have a high chance of finding all of these (if not at one itll be at one of the others).

Are there any qualitative differences in the end products when fermenting medium grain varieties vs. (true) short grain varieties? (honestly though kokuho was short grain since they are fat little guys)

I wanted to ensure that my batch I started yesterday yields enough for a couple good sized servings of wine, but I don't need or want enough to need to bother with bottling. I intend this for drinking fresh. I already had three measures of long grain glutinous rice started, and there was already a tiny bit of liquid in the hole in the center, which was odd to me. I think maybe it's condensation though. The mold seems to have already started spreading a little, and that was encouraging. So this morning, I cooked a fourth measure of rice, which brings it to 24 fl. oz. of dry rice to start with. I let the rice cool a bit of course, but then I mixed it in well. Since the mold had already started spreading, this helps break it up and distribute it better still, which hopefully will translate to going faster still. Furthermore, I let the rice cool, but not to room temperature, so it will have had the benefit of slightly warming the environment in the container for a little while, to let my little friends work along happily.

At least, that's the theory. We'll see how it goes. But in the end, 4 measures of rice, which should work out to about 3 us cups.

ArkotRamathorn said:

Awesome, I'll check those out. Thankfully this town has a lot of Asian grocery stores so I have a high chance of finding all of these (if not at one itll be at one of the others).

Are there any qualitative differences in the end products when fermenting medium grain varieties vs. (true) short grain varieties? (honestly though kokuho was short grain since they are fat little guys)

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Notice the label?


While it may be smaller than your generic calrose its still larger than a true short grain rice such as Koshihikari. IMO its the best of the calrose growers in Cali. I ate it for years and still do when Costco has it because its cheap good rice. You probably wont see much difference for making Chinese style rice wines unless you use a sweet rice. It has more of the starch that is converted to sugar. The Kokuho and the Korean ones i posted are likely so close it wont matter much.

BTW Korean sweet rice is also often cheaper than others IF you get it at a Korean market. Look for markets that cater to Koreans. Certain brands will be much cheaper than at a typical Asian market.

The batch I made with jasmine rice turned out so good that I see no need to experiment with other types of rice. The guy at the chinese grocery told me jasmine rice wont work ,....boy was he wrong.

But I see that its crucial to drink or bottle/pasteurize/cold crash at just the right time if you want it sweet. I tried it twice while it was sweet and had great flavor , but a week later its now not sweet and has a harsh alcohol/slightly sour flavor , still drinkable just not as enjoyable. Its been an enjoyable experiment with a quality of wine as the end result much better than I expected.

ohiochris said:

The batch I made with jasmine rice turned out so good that I see no need to experiment with other types of rice. The guy at the chinese grocery told me jasmine rice wont work ,....boy was he wrong.

But I see that its crucial to drink or bottle/pasteurize/cold crash at just the right time if you want it sweet. I tried it twice while it was sweet and had great flavor , but a week later its now not sweet and has a harsh alcohol/slightly sour flavor , still drinkable just not as enjoyable. Its been an enjoyable experiment with a quality of wine as the end result much better than I expected.

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I've done lots of jasmine batches and I find if you want sweeter wine, go with glutinous rice. Congtrats on your batch!

I just added a half a cup of distilled water and stirred the rice I started 3 or 4 weeks ago. I'll let it go another week and then strain it. Hopefully it'll taste about the same as the previous batches, just thinner and less sweet.

Next experiment will be with broken jasmine rice from the Asian market. (that would probably make good brewer's rice too)

I just started a new batch on Sunday using Onto yeast, and there are some differences to be noted. Compared to the asian store yeast balls which are imported from China, the Onto yeast balls had a floral sugary smell, similar to soaked glutinous rice. I used glutinous rice in this batch and the smell was almost identical. The next difference is the mold. The chinese yeast i usually buy causes a fine white furry mold to grow on the surface of the rice in about 3-4 days. The onto yeast has developed some black specks/spores throughout the rice in the jars. Another difference is the liquid production, although this may not be because of the yeast, as i varied my steaming procedure. Anyways, there was a lot of white opaque liquid already formed on day 2. Lastly the smell is very sugary, not as melony as the chinese yeast. The bubbles are going very nicley too. According to the onto yeast, these yeast balls should be really pure and of high quality, as it is made and tested for quality in Toronto. I'll keep posting any new findings, so far so good

This may have been answered already... Can I add the leftover mash to a new batch (I only have a few yeast balls left...)?

Melana said:

This may have been answered already... Can I add the leftover mash to a new batch (I only have a few yeast balls left...)?

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Based on many previous posts, this doesn't work well